Our Latest Blog on Music & Instruments

Lorinda Jones grew up in the small town of Tompkinsville, Kentucky surrounded by old-time, gospel, shape-note and bluegrass music. But it was when she met the “friendly cardboard dulcimer” as an adult music educator and began teaching and sharing the traditional music that she felt she had “come back home” to her roots. Lorinda has taught the dulcimer in schools, at festivals across the country and came to Lessonface in 2020 through our partnership with the John C. Campbell Folk School.

Flavio Silva is a musician who is part of a new generation of Brazilian composers and instrumentalists that has been breaking through the musical scene of different places, such as Brazil, The Netherlands and most recently, New York. In 2019 he was named "best guitarist" by Hot House Jazz Magazine and later this year will be releasing a new album. Silva has taught on Lessonface since 2018 and has quickly become a student favorite. We interviewed this month's Teacher Spotlight from his home in New York City.

In earlier decades of piano instruction, it was a simple process: the teacher told the student what to practice, and the student did that without question. In my early days I didn't mind that, because I loved the piano, and I was willing to play whatever was put in front of me. Still, I've known many people who said that when they were kids, they liked playing the piano but they didn't like the songs they were given, so they quit. I was lucky not to have that issue early on.