Today we have the opportunity to share another installment in our “Instructor Features” blog series! This week we have Erin Rodgers to celebrate! Erin is a piano enthusiast who studied classical music performance and theory, and she loves seeing students feel comfortable even when making mistakes and excited in their accomplishments.
Read more about Erin below, and at the link near the bottom of the post.
To begin, what do you teach at Vibe and how old are your students?
I teach piano and right now my youngest is 7 and my oldest is 11. I teach all ages though.
What is your favorite concept or skill to teach?
I love teaching dynamics. My piano teacher told me that the difference between a good pianist and a great pianist is the dynamics. Bringing the songs to life like loud and soft, adding legato and staccato. That’s my favorite thing.
Talk about your background in music, all the way from your very first experience with an instrument.
I started piano lessons when I was 8, and I loved it. It was immediately my thing, and my piano teacher and I were really, really close. She was the one adult I could go to with problems—like boy problems, friend problems, whatever. She gave me a lot of confidence growing up, which I think is really important for kids because a lot of kids don’t have that one person who is just cheering them on. My first teacher was the one who really got me to love the piano, and I focused on classical music—mainly Chopin and Beethoven.
When you begin lessons with a beginning player, what are some initial goals you help create with the student?
One of the most important things is getting kids used to feeling like it’s ok to make mistakes. A lot of times in life you feel like everything needs to be perfect—you’ve got to get that A on the test, or you can’t be mean to your friends because they won’t want to talk to you. There’s a lot of areas in life where we have to be really good all the time, but the piano is a place where we can come, make some mistakes, and learn from them. For me, the way I say it is, “We’re going to make all the mistakes this first time. We’re just going to make them all. And then we’re going to go through and notice where those mistakes are. We’re not going to fix anything. Then the third time we’re going to adjust some things.” And usually, by the third time, they’ve already self-adjusted, and I don’t need to do that much.
What’s your favorite ‘90s jam?
Red Hot Chilli Peppers...I mean, I love the ‘90s. It's a tough question, but they’re my go-to band.
What is your all-time favorite performing experience?
One of the times that stands out to me is when I was playing the Trans-Siberian adaptation of "Carol of the Bells." It combined four different parts at once because the group has all those different instruments. It’s just really fun—really rocking. It sounds great, and people liked it. It wasn’t like doing classical music, where some people are like, “Ok, I understand that that was difficult.” People could actually listen to it and enjoy it.
Why do you feel that music education is important for developing members of society?
I think it’s really important that people find a passion—something they love that drives them and gives them confidence, something that they can do and go to their little world when everything else is crumbling apart. I think especially for me in pre-teen and teenage years when everything is just kind of crazy, having that place where you can put in energy and get something good out of it was important. A lot of times in life, people don’t necessarily get that. You can put a lot of energy into something, and it doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll get something back. For people as a whole, it’s creating a society of people that’s a bit more optimistic and hopeful. They have a feeling that things can work out for them, and I think that you can definitely get that at the piano.
Erin is such a great addition to our team, and we are so excited to have her on board! Read more about her here!
