WELCOME to my new Pearland studio! In March of 2016, I moved from NW Houston to beautiful Pearland. I look forward to starting a great new batch of students on the road to a lifetime of enjoyment of playing piano!
CHERYL LOLLAR has been teaching since 1979. She started lessons when she was six, and during her youth took lessons in classical, jazz and popular music. She started teaching lessons as a project for college. She has a degree in Music Therapy from Arizona State University with piano as her major instrument, which required several years of private piano lessons at the college. In Arizona she taught private piano lessons at The Scottsdale School and also at Bob Ravenscroft’s Music Studio.
When she moved to Houston she decided to open a studio in her home. She also taught private lessons at the Baptist Temple School in the Heights for several years.
She has performed piano as a “sub” for the organist at St. Matthew’s Methodist Church, and has accompanied their various children’s choirs. For several years she has provided the music for the graduation program at the St. Matthew’s preschool. Cheryl continued her study of classical piano with a Houston piano teacher who has a masters in piano performance from Rice.
She uses method books, theory books and scale work to teach music fundamentals. The first three method books have amazing and motivating teacher duet parts that make the songs sound “big” right away. Playing duets is fun and is also is a great teaching tool that reinforces counting and a feel for the beat. She also spends part of the lesson working on a sheet song that is geared toward the student’s musical preference. This song motivates them to practice, and once they get to the piano they usually work on the other lesson material also. As soon as they know enough notes she tries to make sure they have a “fun book” that has familiar songs. As they progress and develop musical preferences, the “fun book” is chosen to enable them to focus part of their lesson on a style of music that interests that particular student. For example, one student may work on a book of Themes from James Bond movies, while another student is working on themes from classical symphonies.
During the fall students focus on performance music. Over the holidays she includes holiday music in the lesson. In the spring she focuses on the method books and current hits or whatever the student has shown an interest in over the year. This variety in the schedule seems to help keep the students interested in the lessons.
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