Piano For Life

We have stopped our piano lessons after 4 years. For those of you who know us, you know this was a very big (and hard step) for us to take. We studies Suzuki Method with an amazing teacher whom we love (and become personal friends with), but we felt the Lord bringing us to a cross road. It was a hard decision to make, but like always, when we you obey the Holy Spirit, the provision is Sovereign.

This is a season of education and preparation in our family. As much as we loved our lessons and teacher, and as much as we learned from them; The Lord was bringing to my attention many things to come, and I began to see that our lessons were going to come to an end. It was a blessed season that served its purpose well, ( I couldn;t have arrived at this place without them), but I realized it would be "missing the turn" God had fro us, if we continued. I don't have all the answers, but it seems that we are to be spending this time more closely together and developing different areas of our understanding of music to better prepare my children to become independent musicians and "hold on to" the things they have learned and better discover how to apply them in our lives outside of the scheduled curriculum that was required by the program we were in. The Lord impressed upon my spirit that NOW was the time to do that. I could try to rationalize and "figure out why" saying, "Oh, it must be because my hands will be full with three babies soon", or YHVH is drawing my and my chioldren more near to each other (which may very well be the case)! However, what I am learning is that, I don't need to know "why". I simply need to trust and obey that still small voice which I have come to know and love with a passion. He never fails me, there is nothing more precious than walking in The Spirit. I would much rather walk with the Spirit with a blind folded, gagged with my arms tied behind my back then to have everything laid before me in a clear cut "proven plan" of someone else design. I have learned there is no such thing (as the perfect plan) and the Holy Spiritone far exceeds all attempts to control things - when it comes to Shalom in the home!!

I researched "alternatives" to our new path of study. I didn't want to "quit" without a plan. The kids play far better than me, and my teacher advised against the move. Logically, I can't blame her. On paper, it looks like a move destined to fail. How can I teach my kids piano, when they know more than I do??

Then the blessed Holy Spirit whispered in my ear "Trust Me": so I will! We will take it one day at a time and have given it "a semester" and will honestly assess things in September. The last thing I want to do is "loose" the kids ability to play piano. Rather I want to enrich it, give them more independance and freedom in it, and equip them to BE musicians who not only use their music to minister to others, but to Worship YHVH and to teach others (like upcoming syblings to start). :-)

In the mean time, I am using music flash cards and games for reading. Hymn books for to increase our repertoire and strengthen our reading. Intermingling stories Classical Composers and Hymn Writers for History now and then. WE continue to reviewing Suzuki pieces to keep that difficult fingering moving, and for our "professional" we are using Mark Almond's Piano for Life series of lessons. He is fabulous! It has opened a whole new and exciting world of music to us. I believe we will come into a place of "owning it" like never before. His instruction is clear and methodical. If we need to repeat it, we simple replay it. We never had that luxury with weekly lessons, we had to wait until we saw our teacher the following week when we got stuck or try to call/email - which sounded great, but really was not very helpful. (There were many times, I wish I would have recorded our lessons with our Suzuki teacher.) :-) With the Holy Spirit as our "motivator", and in home courses we "click with", it is very encouraging and exciting to think that we may be able to make this transition, not only smoothly - but with great success. (I have the best job in the WORLD!)

Anyway, that is where we are and what we are doing. I will keep you posted from time to time. Maybe we will be the "Partridge Family" of the 21st century after all. HA HA!!

p.s. I got another course, from someone else - but it was "night and day" compared to Piano for Life. It was not clear communication, hard to see the keys, and very discouraging. So not all home courses are created equal in my opinion!

http://www.pianoforlife.com/