Welcome! My name
is Melody, and I am a piano teacher and pianist. This is my piano resources
blog, The Plucky Pianista (pronounced pia-NEE-sta, with more emphasis on the third syllable than the others), and here is the story behind the name. Someone who
is plucky is courageous, brave, and spirited, and has lots of resolution and
fortitude. I believe that it DOES take courage, resolution, and sometimes
fortitude (among many other things!) to teach piano, and I do my best to
exemplify those characteristics throughout all aspects of my teaching. A
pianista is simply the Italian word for pianist. And
there you have it…The Plucky Pianista! This blog includes teaching resources,
ideas, and links to other blogs, and hopefully inspiration to fuel your own
passion for teaching!
About Melody Payne, Ph.D., NCTM
Dr. Melody Hanberry Payne is a
Nationally Certified Teacher of Music and an award-winning piano instructor who
began her full-time teaching career at Virginia Commonwealth University. She
has also taught at Louisiana State University, Sterling College, Mississippi
College, and Emory and Henry College. In 2009, Mississippi College presented
her with the Pittman Young Faculty Award for excellence
in teaching and for leading and directing the Taylor School, the MC Department of Music's
musical outreach program for children and adults in the community. She
is a classically trained pianist and enjoys providing piano lessons for
children and adults of all ages and abilities. She has experience teaching
special needs students including legally blind (using Braille
materials), Tourette's Syndrome, Asperger Syndrome, Epilepsy, and severe Rheumatoid
Arthritis.
Dr. Payne has presented research
on practicing, early- and intermediate-level pedagogical piano compositions,
and piano performance accuracy at the National Conference of the Music Teachers
National Association, the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy, and the
Mississippi Music Teachers Association State Conference. She has presented
lecture recitals and workshops on beginning group keyboard experiences,
intermediate piano literature, practicing, and technology in the piano studio
at local and state levels.
She is a member of the Music
Teachers National Association, the Virginia Music Teachers Association, and
currently serves as President of the Blue Ridge Music Teachers Association, the
local chapter of VMTA. Additionally, Dr. Payne is an experienced adjudicator
and instructor whose students consistently are top performers and winners in
festivals and competitions.
She holds a Bachelor of Music in
Piano Performance from William Carey University in Hattiesburg, Mississippi,
and a Master of Music in Piano Pedagogy and Doctor of Philosophy in Music with
emphases in music education and piano pedagogy from Louisiana State University,
Baton Rouge, where she studied piano pedagogy with Dr. Steve Betts and piano
with Prof. Constance Carroll.
Melody and her amazing husband Greg live in Marion,
Virginia, a small town nestled in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains.
