Edmonton Piano Teachers

🎶 What a spectacular day we had at McDougall United Church for our year-end recital held on June 16, 2024!

I’m bursting with pride for all my amazing piano students who performed with such bravery and talent. Each one of you shined so brightly and made the event truly special. As always, I played a piece at the end 🙂 Here's a few photos and behind-the-scenes from the event! ❤️

🎹 The full recital can be viewed here:
https://youtu.be/PRINfYkwS5w

Congratulations and a heartfelt thank you to everyone for your incredible dedication and hard work. 👏

Thanks Duane for filming the recital!

Elaine of Edmonton Piano Teachers

I am thrilled to extend an invitation to our eagerly awaited annual piano recital for the students of Elaine of Edmonton Piano Teachers. The recital is taking place on June 16, 2024, at 1:30 pm, set against the stunning backdrop of McDougall United Church. This venue, with its rich history and exceptional acoustics, offers a grand seating capacity for 1000 guests, ensuring ample space for your friends and family to experience this musical showcase. I'd like for students to sit in the front rows. McDougall was the precursor to the Jubilee Auditorium and the Winspear Centre for Music. I've attached a few photographs of the venue.

Recitals are a cornerstone of musical growth, offering students the invaluable opportunity to build confidence, hone performance skills, and enjoy the lasting benefits of preparing and showcasing their talent. I look forward to welcoming you to what is sure to be a wonderful display of music and skill.

I’ve found lots of interesting information regarding how learning music alters the brain, as it is a full-body workout for the brain as it engages multiple parts of the mind at once - exercising parts of the brain related to mathematics, spatial intelligence, and verbal areas.

In recent years, neuroscientists have made great strides in understanding how the brain works by using Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging to monitor people's brains while playing music in real-time. Playing piano specifically strengthens 3 areas: motor, visual, and auditory cortices. This activity increases communication between both hemispheres of the brain via the corpus callosum, which can lead to more effective problem-solving and creative thinking skills.

Musicians often have higher levels of executive function, a category of interlinked tasks that includes planning, strategizing, and attention to detail. Studies have shown that the brains of musicians are structurally larger in 5 different areas: hearing and listening, motor actions to produce sounds, memory, emotion, attention, and learning. It was found that the corpus callosum was larger in pianists.

Brain plasticity refers to the brain's ability to rewire itself by creating new neural circuits - an ability that adults can exhibit as well as children. It’s important to note that the neuroplasticity effect disappears when you stop practicing. While most people think you can’t learn an instrument later on in life, rather it has been found that music lessons boost cognitive function, protect against dementia, help PTSD, and lessen depression.
In addition to improved executive function, enhanced memory capabilities are also seen in musicians due to their highly connected brains being able to give each memory multiple tags such as conceptual/emotional/audio tags (similarly used by search engines).

The key is to never stop learning, especially music! It can improve academic and social pursuits, the ability to solve problems more effectively and improve cognition and dexterity in all ages. I have taught piano lessons for 30 years and can attest to seeing my students succeed.

Elaine of Edmonton Piano Teachers

Food for thought!

Elaine is now accepting up to 20 students for the 2021-2022 year. Spots are quickly filling up! To reserve your placement, please contact Elaine ASAP at [email protected] with your top 3 preferred time and day slots, and whether you want lessons at my studio, your home, or online via Zoom.

Lesson availability is Mondays/Wednesdays/Fridays after 4:00pm or Tuesday/Thursdays after 9:00am.

For more info, visit edmontonpianoteachers.weebly.com

The power of music lessons