Mountain View Piano

Mountain View Piano offers private, shared and workshop-based piano, voice and flute lessons for adults and children using the “Simply Music” Method.  As featured in ABC’s “Regis and Kelly” and ABC Los Angeles News, Simply Music provides a breakthrough curriculum that has students playing contemporary, jazz, classical and accompaniments from their very first lessons.

Call 650-964-1552 today to attend a

Free Introductory Session

Amanda Griffith, Accredited Simply Music Teacher

This August, I attended the Stanford Jazz Workshop at Stanford University and had the opportunity to participate in Master Classes provided by some of the leading musicians in the world, including:

George Cables – Piano
Taylor Eigsti – Piano
Victor Lin – Jazz Ensemble
Joshua Redman – Woodwinds
Andrew Speight – Woodwinds
John Calloway – Flute
Dave Douglas – Composition
Rebecca Martin – Songwriting
Nicholas Payton – The Music Business

Thanks to all of the fine instructors and students – it was a wonderful week!

On December 8th, 2009 I had the opportunity to interview Daniel Pink, the author of A Whole New Mind:  Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future, along with Patrick Tedjamulia, co-founder of the International Mentoring Networking Organization.

See http://imno.org/articles.asp?qid=298&sid=3

Check out this great video clip of Anne Heche teaching Regis Philbin the first song in the Simply Music Curriculum on the nationally broadcast “Regis and Kelly”.

Bobby McFerrin demonstrates the power of the pentatonic scale, using audience participation, at the event “Notes & Neurons: In Search of the Common Chorus”, from the 2009 World Science Festival, June 12, 2009

World Science Festival

I’ve been enjoying a great book by Norman Doidge called The Brain That Changes Itself.  Though not specifically focused on music, this book outlines new theory in neuroscience that indicates that our brains continue to develop throughout our lives, as opposed to some theories that assume that development ends after childhood.

A great summer read, and there are some interesting passages on the benefits of music in enhancing brain function.

For more on this interesting book, see:

In case you missed the Nova/PBS webcast about the book “Musicophilia” by Oliver Sacks that I mentioned in my ad below, here are some additional sources of information about his important work:

Here is a link to pre-order the DVD from Amazon (due out mid September): Nova: Musical Minds

Here is a link to the Nova/PBS Description of the Program “Musical Minds” that was broadcast on June 23rd, 2009

Here is a link to an NPR Interview

Here is a link to his book on Amazon: