Below is a selection of articles and blogs written by Roberta Wolff.
Articles for Pianodao
Following is an archive of articles written for Pianodao, or The Way of Piano. This site initially shared resources for pianists and teachers from a range of guest authors. I enjoyed writing as a regular guest contributor and had two articles in the top 10 most read in 2017.
How Much Musical Baggage Do You Carry? “One of the most innovative, helpful and thought provoking articles I’ve read in a while.” (Andrew Eales’ introduction to the article).
The Musician’s Tool Bag From claves to learning scaffolds to questions, what do you have in your tool bag to support your students? ‘How much practice should I do?’ … ‘stop when you are proud’
Musical Afterthoughts Teaching offers ongoing opportunities to reflect and learn. Engaging in reflection benefits teachers and students, here are some ways to get started and some personal reflections from my teaching.
Developing Performance Skills The material and worksheets in this article have been used in many CPD Performance Workshops by myself and others. Here is the accompanying worksheet.
It’s Time to Stop Practising and Start…? This article generated a lot of discussion and attention. It also contains ideas on how to use the free resource, RePlay Sheet. This has proven to be especially successful with intermediate/advanced students around 14 and 15 years old.
Initiating Practice Sometimes getting started is the hard part, this article looks at ways to build the habit of getting down to piano practice. It includes a Student accompanying resource, and a Teacher accompanying resource.
My Practice Palette This article introduces my popular Practice Palette Resource, you can explore the lite version here.
Parenting a Piano Player (book review)
Articles for Tim Topham
Tim Topham is an innovative and enterprising teacher, blogger and presenter, passionate about ensuring that what he does has the maximum impact on student learning in his own studio and those of teachers around the world.
How To Make Piano Sight-Reading a Fun Activity Locking into the music – new ideas for teaching sight reading with a music centred approach.
How to Successfully Navigate Piano Teaching Taboos (part 1) This series was billed as ‘amazingly popular’ In Tim’s introduction to this article.
How to Successfully Navigate Piano Teaching Taboos (part 2)
Teaching Piano by Ear A Journey into the Unknown.
How to Organise fun Piano recitals (Expert Roundup) – How to run themed studio concerts.
How to Tackle Performance Anxiety
Piano Studio Concerts and Exams – What works best?
Articles for Skoove
A selection of articles written for Skoove who seek to make piano tuition available to anyone who is eager to learn. This aim aligns with my belief that everyone should have the opportunity to learn and that there are as many different reasons to learn and ways to learn as there are people.
Benefits of piano playing for the brain
Five of the most common piano mistakes beginners make