Orange juice can help you become a better piano player??

Orange juice can help you become a better piano player??

It's true! Of course, we all know that vitamin C is good for us, but there's a hidden benefit to orange juice...or at least to finishing all the juice in those plastic containers. Peeling the stickers off the bottles helps strengthen, tone, and refine those fine motor skills that we use every day, including in playing piano!

Developing fine motor skills, like those we use to write, or play piano or any instrument, are based on muscles we develop over our early childhood and beyond. Remember when our babies were working on that pincer grip with Cheerios in the high chair? (Pause for nostalgia tears). Most of us have seen our children's handwriting improve from those preschool scrawls, to Kindergarten-barely-legible, to first grade writing-on-lines, to second grade recognizable writing. It takes practice to develop those muscles!

Preschool teachers, occupational therapists, and piano teachers like me are always looking for fun and creative ways to help our students develop those fine motor skills. One of the really fun and funny ways I encourage my students to do this is peeling the labels off not-from-concentrate plastic orange juice bottles!

It's cross-training!

This is just one of the many, many silly and fun ways I help my students develop the skills they need to succeed in learning to play piano. The best part is that these skills extend way beyond learning music into real life! I get to watch as my students' fine muscle coordination improves at the piano and on paper as they write. So, whether your student is working on that Mozart sonata, their first "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," or just learning to write on the lines, reach for that orange juice!

If fun like this sounds right up your child's alley, and you'd like to explore interactive, creative, and fun group piano lessons, check out my website at www.kittyorcamusic.com. My last session for beginners this year starts on Nov. 6!

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