The beloved television icon, Mr. Rogers said, “Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children, play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.” (Heidi Moore, “Why Play is the Work of Childhood,” Fred Rogers Center, 2014.)

“The name of a note is the one thing we do not have to know, and yet some teachers spend more time on this aspect of note reading than any other,” said renowned piano teacher Richard Chronister, as noted in “Creative Piano Teaching” by James Lyke, Geoffrey Haydon and Catherine Rollin, Stipes Publishing, 2011, Pg. 55.)

We have all had students who struggle to maintain a steady beat or who seem to not understand metric relationships. They compress rhythms or slow down during more challenging passages.

I started taking piano lessons when I was 6 years old. I loved the music of Chopin and Schumann and was thrilled when I grew tall enough to reach the pedals.

Autism (or autism spectrum disorder) is a pervasive developmental disorder that affects 1 in 54 children in the United States, according to a 2020 report from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.