Learning to play the piano is exciting, frustrating, fun, boring, exhilarating and sometimes depressing. This is true whether one is an adult or a child.

After teaching adults for 30 years, I find these students enthusiastic, resourceful and dedicated. Many piano teachers feel "fossil" is the apt description for adult beginning and intermediate piano students. I use the term mockingly because I know better. I know they can be fluid, flexible, and adventurous if only we will encourage them to be. This site is designed to help both adult students and their teachers find these qualities of freedom in their piano study.

 

a photo of the inside of grand piano

What's New? The Latest Additions.

  • After many years of supporting MusicalFossils.com using my own money, unfortunately it is now necessary to to place Google Ads on many of the pages to try and offset some of the monthly operating costs (domain ownership, content upkeep, bandwidth, design, etc.) to keep this information available to the public. I apologize to my friends, regulars and first time visitors for any inconvenience this will cause. For those who are willing and able to make a donation to help defray the costs, making the Ads unnecessary, a PayPal fund has been created to accept donations of any size. I personally thank everyone who is able to make a donation of any size.
  • It is with tremendouns appreciation and gratitude that I can now announce that MusicalFossils.com has received an anonymous donation of $500. When asked for the reason behind the generosity: "I believe in it."
  • Please note that donations to MuscicaLFossils.com are not tax deductible at the current time. Depending on the volume and size of future donations this could change. Please be sure and check back often for the current tax status.

  • Memory Lapses An article about the challenges memory can present to the adult student.
  • Priorities for Teachers and Students -- This is the transcript of my presentation given at the Levine Summer 2005 Pedagogy Workshop at the new Strathmore Arts Center on August 25, 2005. This workshop was sponsored by the Levine School of Music in Washington, DC.
  • I was interviewed for the AARP radio show Prime Time Radio hosted by Mike Cuthbert. To listen to the interview please visit this Prime Time Radio page and click on the link, "Listen To: Making Music". You will need a current version of RealPlayer to listen to the audio. Click here to download a free version of RealPlayer.
  • What One Student Learned: Letters from Vica

 

a musical note