This picture is of the first recital party after the remodel, six years ago.
Contributed by Sally Hitchcock, Hitchcock Piano Studio
Hitchcock Piano Studio Monthly Mini-Recital/Talk
1/22/2018, 2/26/2018, 3/26/2018, 4/23/2018, 5/28/2018, 6/25/2018, 7/23/2018, 8/27/2018, 9/24/2018, 10/22/2018, 11/26/2018, 12/24/2018 - 7PM
Hitchcock Piano Studio
950 W Edinborough Dr. Palmer
FREE Event
My first books were from garage sales back in the 70s, since there were no bookstores even in Anchorage with teaching material, except for a strange few things. The beginning of a professional group in Anchorage started the process for me. Every meeting ended in some sort of a discussion, and I always came home with a "What is that?" list. Both colleges in Anchorage helped with courses. One held in spring several week sessions on literature for the piano, and the other one gave us three courses in one year on both literature and pedagogy that a small group of us teachers soaked up. When two of our group started the store, Keyboard Cache, in one of their basements, I was really feeling safer trying to teach all the students coming to me.
Another source of teaching help came from a professional magazine that listed summer workshops by the creators of new method systems or colleges. Since my parents were saving people, they were able to close accounts and send me good-sized checks occasionally that helped me take many trips, all over the country. I told students for years some of my favorite quotes from these master teachers.
One summer, a Robert Pace Group Method teacher from Wenachee, Washington asked if I could help her arrange to teach some short one-day workshops in Alaska. I had taken two weeks of her teaching at her home studio, and was able to arrange three sessions and cover the expenses for her entire trip from the fees we charged. There were even three teachers in my cabin where my three daughters and I lived. The Anchorage session was a big success and the flight to Kenai was a great joy, since it was a rare occasion that brought the Kenai-area teachers together in a school gym. It was a joy for me to hear all the questions, and watch the frantic note-taking. It all happened because this is Alaska.
Ongoing learning is a real necessity. The monthly mini-recitals I am currently doing could not be as useful or fun if I'd lived in isolation and insisted on using just cheap CDs and my helter-skelter-bought music library. My daughters and I could have traveled more often on the money I was given, but I could not have become the teacher I became without my lovely travels.
