Micek Music

-- There will be three holidays observed in November where I will not be teaching: Monday, 11/12 (Veteran's Day), 11/22 & 11/25 (Thanksgiving weekend). The rest of the month will be as normal. -- The next student recital will be held  Saturday, December 15  from noon to 4pm in the recital hall at CSUEB. Save the date! -- Fees for  Certificate of Merit  students are due with November lesson payments. As a reminder, here are the CM dates for this spring: * Performance   evaluations will be held on the weekends of February 16-17 and February 23-24.  ** Theory  testing will be conducted on the weekend of February 16-17. -- The  Theta Music Trainer  assignment for the month of November is these 4 exercises: Intervals  --  Melodic Drops Melody  --  Three Tones (Major) Rhythm  --  Rhythm Puzzles Sound  --  Channel Scramble -- The song of the month for Nove...

The most valuable piece of advice that anyone gave me was a high school friend who was a more advanced player than I was. He said, "If you want to get better, play at least an hour a day, every day." At the time we would jam on the weekend for six hours, and I might practice some chords once or twice after I had done my homework. I said, "I'm going to try that," and I really felt my playing rise. It gave me confidence that this works, and that encouraged me. The other thing is that it has to be playing. While I was very committed to developing technique, when I was doing eight hours a day it was like two hours of technique, it was two hours of theory, it was two hours of improvisation, and then it was two hours of "free swim," where I could either do more technique or I'd work on some funny sounds or whatever. Some of that felt like work, but a lot of it was really fun. The third thing is you get better when you play with other people, an...

-- My teaching schedule for October will be uninterrupted. -- The  Theta Music Trainer  assignment for the month of October is these 4 exercises: Scales  --  Tone Drops Theory & Notation  --  Chord Locks Rhythm  --  Flash Rhythms Tuning & Pitch  --  Speed Pitch -- The next student recital will be held Saturday, December 15 from noon to 4pm in the recital hall at CSUEB. Please save the date! -- The song of the month for October is "Beautiful Day" by U2. Have a happy day, Jesse

-- My teaching schedule for September will be uninterrupted. -- The  Theta Music Trainer  assignment for September is to continue working through these 5 newly-published exercises: Flash Progression (Major) Flash Progressions (Minor) Three Tones (Major) Vocal Degrees (Major) Flash Notation (Notes) -- The song of the month for September is Otis Redding's version of "My Girl". Have a happy day, Jesse

-- I resume my regular teaching schedule on Monday, August 6 . -- The  Theta Music Trainer  assignment for August is to work on these 5 newly-published games: Flash Progression (Major) Flash Progressions (Minor) Three Tones (Major) Vocal Degrees (Major) Flash Notation (Notes) -- The song of the month for August is the Best Coast song titled "The Only Place". Have a happy day, Jesse

I got my start as a music teacher in December 2002, shortly after graduating college. My good friend Ian, who I was living with at the time, recommended me to the owner at Allegro Music in Fremont when an opening for a piano teacher popped up on Fridays. (Ian is an outstanding guitarist; he taught for many years at Allegro. He now lives in Oregon with his wife and their three children.) I never had any desire to teach. I fell into this work backwards, and it took me some years to fully embrace the job. My teaching position at Allegro has been vital in this journey - a key signpost in the progression to who I am today.  At my peak, I was teaching four days a week at the store. In more recent years I have been teaching two days a week in Fremont: Mondays and Tuesdays. During the 2011-12 school year I pared my Allegro schedule down to a single day: Mondays. Today was my final day teaching at Allegro. I have been there for nine and a half years. Through many ups and do...

-- I will only be teaching the first week of July (7/2-7/6). There will be no lessons conducted during the rest of the month. Lesson payments should be made out for the amount of one lesson plus the $15 per student recital fee . Normal service will resume at the start of August. Enjoy the break. -- The next student recital is  Saturday evening, July 7  in the recital hall at CSUEB. Group 1 begins at 6:30pm, Group 2 begins at 8:00pm. -- Here are the 4 students who completed the end-of-the-year  Theta Music Trainer  challenge: Alex, Jonathan, Jacob, and Kaitlyn T. Jesse