PPP061: The Importance of a Good Practice Environment with Piano Teacher, Dawn Ivers

Summary: Dawn Ivers is a teacher based in Pasadena, California. Dawn has been traveling to teach in her student’s homes for the past 11 years. In my conversation with Dawn, I was struck by what an encourager she is, not only with her students but also with the piano parents in her studio.<br> Tell us your personal piano story as well as how you chose piano teaching as a career.<br> Musical family on my mom’s side. Everyone plays an instrument, my grandmother was the piano player, my mom has a degree in voice and plays guitar, uncle plays guitar and mandolin, grandpa plays the violin, everybody sings. We all lived kind of far apart but at holidays we all would bring our instruments and sing and play together so I have very fond memories of that, and I sort of inherited a musical background.<br> We have home videos of me playing the piano as soon as I was tall enough to stand on my tip-toes and reach the keys, so I was definitely interested in the sounds it made early on. I started piano lessons around 5-6 when one of my friends began lessons and I immediately asked my parents if I could too.<br> My first piano teacher was my mom’s best friend. She is wonderful, has a great sense of humor, made lessons fun, but also managed to make her teaching and expectations clear. She was also affordable, which was a big one for my family at the time.  And I am forever grateful for the investment my parents made in my music education. So I try to carry on that piano teacher legacy, of providing a good music education that is enjoyable and communicating the value of what we learn while being as accessible cost-wise as I can afford to make it.<br> I started teaching house call lessons for a couple friends’ and acquaintances’ kids after I graduated from high school. In the course of going through college, word of mouth spread and my studio began to grow. By the time I graduated UCLA I had enough on my waitlist for a full schedule and I had realized that I loved doing it, so I decided to leave my other job at the time and do<br> By the time I graduated UCLA I had enough on my waitlist for a full schedule and I had realized that I loved doing it, so I decided to leave my other job at the time and do piano full time.<br> Since then, I’ve added three wonderful associate teachers, Aki, Mallory, and Michael to help meet the demands of our waitlist. Dawn and the teachers in her studio can be reached for lessons at <a href="http://www.dawnspiano.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">www.DawnsPiano.com</a><br> Were you a good student?<br> Yes and no. I was an eager student and was generally really good about making sure my practice log was completed each week during elementary school. But high school got very busy, I was on 4 different varsity teams and in band my junior and senior years, so I had too many extracurriculars to practice as much as I really needed to. I also have never been incredibly patient with myself, so if a song presented too much frustration, I might shut down on it for a while. But all that aside, I did genuinely love what I was learning. Music is in my blood and it mattered to me to do it.<br> What is one thing you often say to your piano students?<br> “Slow down.” I feel like I say that 50 times a day. For some reason at a young age, we trick ourselves into believing that faster sounds better and that just trucking through a piece instead of playing carefully is somehow easier. But that’s simply not true. If you learn a piece too fast, you forget it fast, so the work is all for nothing.<br> Not to mention, rhythm gets muddled, note accuracy takes a big hit, and there’s usually little to no dynamic range. So I always try to emphasize that it’s important to learn a piece slowly, to be methodical, and to teach yourself to anticipate what is coming next. We’ve got to take time to see the whole picture, and the brush strokes to make along the way.