Piano studio problems, answered by researchers and teachers.
Andrea Dow, named with Trevor Dow as the show's hosts, interviews guests ranging from a grit researcher to a professor who studies how the brain makes sense of music. Each conversation moves from findings to practice, such as Bradley Sowash's layered method for building a full arrangement out of a bare lead sheet.
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The Teach Piano Today Podcast starts from a familiar problem. Piano teachers keep running into the same studio questions, and the best answers are scattered between research findings and other teachers' hard-won experience. The show brings both to the lesson room. Andrea Dow leads the conversations, and Trevor Dow is named with her as host. Guests include researchers, composers and working studio teachers. Some episodes also carry a 'Helpline' label, framed around questions teachers put to the hosts. Karen King's interview shows the method at its clearest. Her thesis compared students who had dropped out of lessons with students planning to continue, using a survey built on self-determination theory. One finding lands hard: dropout students in grades two to four were practicing roughly half as much each week as those who stayed, and were progressing far more slowly. The talk then turns to remedies, such as emphasizing effort over ability and giving students even trivial choices in what they play. The grit conversation runs on similar lines. Lauren Esquires Winkler, a graduate student who worked with Angela Duckworth, splits grit into consistency of effort and consistency of interest. Andrea Dow then asks the teacher's question, whether grit can be taught, and the answer is candid: pilot results are encouraging but not yet definitive. Dr. Adam Ockelford comes at learning from another side, arguing that music is largely repetitive and that this patterning is how the brain makes sense of it. He also describes years of patient work with a young student who had taught herself to play without using her thumb. Not every hour is research. Bradley Sowash walks through lead sheets step by step, from a bare skeleton to a layered arrangement, then lists why teens respond to the approach, from owning their music to playing with friends outside the recital hall. Across the episode list, the subject range stays close to everyday studio life: flat fingers, a student who ignores the score, injured hands, group classes, adult learners, sleep and practice, piano parents, iPads and growing a studio. Creative work recurs too, with titles on improvising, chording, composing and children's invented notations, and teaching students with special needs appears in more than one title. The register is upbeat and collegial, and the sign-off is a cheerful 'happy teaching'. What a listener takes away is less a philosophy than a set of moves to try on the next student who walks through the door.
Made for: Suits a piano teacher, particularly one teaching children, who wants research on motivation, practice and creativity turned into concrete changes to the next lesson.
What sets it apart: It brings research down to studio level: guests explain findings on grit, motivation and how the brain processes music, and the host keeps steering toward what a teacher can do differently right away.
How To Teach Piano To Kids
A lead sheet lands on the piano, and Andrea Dow asks the question you were shy to ask.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Karen King's research connects piano retention with practice time, visible progress, and motivation.
Karen King's research gives piano teachers a clear way to think about why young students stay with lessons or drift away: practice time matters most when it feeds a student's sense of progress.
Bradley Sowash makes lead sheets feel like a practical next step for creative piano lessons.
Lead sheets become a practical entry point into creative piano teaching, especially for teachers and students who have not spent much time with them.
A grounded look at grit, persistence, and how piano teachers can support students through difficult stretches.
The Teach Piano Today Podcast gives perseverance a practical, research-aware hearing through Lauren Esquires Winkler's work on grit. Rather than treating determination as a simple virtue, the episode asks what grit actually means for piano students, how it might shape progress,…
A thoughtful review of how music can create connection when language is not enough.
Teaching piano to children with complex needs begins here with a simpler question than technique: what happens when music creates connection without asking a child to rely on words? Dr.
A thoughtful look at how children's drawings can carry musical ideas before conventional notation takes over.
The episode gives children's musical thinking a generous frame, treating a thought bubble, a cloud, a sun, or even a foot marking the pedal as meaningful musical notation.
Psychology teaching, one career story at a time.
Honest school talk with practical stakes.
["The Teach Piano Today Podcast asks why piano students quit, and Karen King answers with findings from her thesis on piano-student dropout and retention.", "King says her study compared 55 dropout students with 153 continuing students and used a grade 8 piano threshold because it maps to a grade 12 credit.", "She says the strongest differences were lower autonomous motivation, lower weekly practice time, and a more controlling home environment, while teacher blame was weaker than older research suggested.", "Her takeaway is that competency, autonomy, and relatedness matter more than trying to personally motivate every student."]
The Teach Piano Today Podcast brings Andrea Dow, Trevor Dow, and guest Bradley Sowash into a practical discussion of lead sheets, fake books, and improvising from melody-plus-chords pages.
Andrea Dow talks with Lauren Esquires Winkler, a fourth-year graduate student who worked closely with Angela Duckworth, about grit and piano students.
["Dr.
The Teach Piano Today Podcast interviews Reena Eupatis, a Queen's University professor and author of Can I Play You My Song?
Dr.
Robert Rickover, an Alexander Technique teacher since 1981, tells hosts Andrea and Trevor Dow that the technique is about releasing harmful movement habits, not about 'relaxing' into a collapsed posture.
Hosts Andrea and Trevor Dow interview composer and educator Bradley Sowash about teaching improvisation to piano students.
This episode features an interview with an exceptional needs specialist who shares strategies for teaching piano to children with learning differences.
A piano teacher discusses how to incorporate composing and improvisation into piano lessons for children.
Piano teachers discuss overcoming the perception that teaching piano is just a hobby, with guest Becky Hooper sharing her success.