In March I wrote a post about the amazing music and dance teachers I’ve learned from in my life. I mentioned my piano teacher Roger Lewis who taught me more about being a musician than just playing piano. I was very sad to hear that he passed away a few weeks ago. I am thankful I was able to reconnect with him at a piano teacher training he hosted a couple years ago. I thought I’d tell about a memory I had with him when I was younger: the first time I played the piano while singing.

I believe I was 13 years old and my younger sister (10 years old at the time) was invited to share a talent at a casual church function. She wanted me to sing with her as well.  We had a song we wanted to sing, it was “Emma” by Mindy Gledhill. I was interested in playing the song myself although I’d never done that before. I noticed that my voice teacher Leah was often able to accompany us after hearing the songs we wanted to sing. I asked her how she did that, and she explained that she was able to hear the chords of the song. The chord groups she learned while taking piano lessons gave her the knowledge and ability to piece together the particular chord progressions of the song. If I hadn’t been taking piano lessons from Roger’s Music Masters Development Group I would have had no idea what she was talking about.

Most piano teachers just teach how to sight read music- which is a very valuable skill! But the Music Master’s program teaches music reading, as well as chords, improvisation, and imitative piano skills.  Leah helped me figure out the chords of “Emma” by listening to it, and I used my skills from the Music Master’s program to improvise our own little (simple) version of “Emma” using those chords.

I don’t remember the church performance very well, but I do remember the day we played and sang the song for Roger. He was so thrilled at what we had done and so happy to see that I was using the special skills he taught us. I’ll always remember that moment because he was beaming and I was so excited at what I had accomplished. I have loved accompanying myself ever since. Those skills also led me to writing my first song- which I will discuss in a future post.

Although Roger has passed on, his amazing curriculum is still being taught at his studio and by other teachers in various places. It’s called the “Music Masters Development Group” (<– click to see their website).  I am hoping to become one of these teachers! I have much less experience in teaching piano than vocal lessons- but I know that with a few patient guinea pig students, I will become a capable piano teacher.  I would especially love to teach my voice students some valuable piano skills to complement their singing. If you know of anyone willing to be my ‘guinea pig’ student with this amazing curriculum (Midvale, UT), please send them my way.