Sometimes, children create a certain stigma to go along with taking piano lessons. It has the reputation of being quite the lonely activity, one of those “My mom is making me” kind of activities. Donna Dasher has found a way to fine tune her lesson plans to keep her students interested and desiring to know more-and the proof is in the numbers. This year, she has 70 students on her roll book!How does she do it? She’s taken a solo activity and incorporated a team approach to her lessons.”Many of us grew up playing the piano, but our friends didn’t even know. There was never an opportunity to perform for them. I offer group lessons, where the students are constantly challenged by one another and I expose them to everything!”
The shelves in her second-floor home studio are packed with music books from every genre: classical, hymns, holiday themes, jazz, pop,patriotic, and the list goes on. There are five pianos and a computer in the studio. The computer is used for downloading and recording music. “My students bring their i-Pods in all the time and ask to learn certain songs-and we learn them!Musicnotes.com is a wonderful tool for downloading the notes to their favorite music,” she says. While speaking, she sits down and grabs a sheet of music from a folder and starts playing the theme song to the hit series Grey’s Anatomy with ease. No wonder the kids like her! Jamsessions are among some of the perks of Mrs. Dasher’s intent to keep her students yearning to become more advanced. She has a computer program to save their personal compositions; after all, you never know who might be the next great composer. Some piano teachers may critize he rway of keeping their interest, allowing them to learn the songs they want to learn and bot just the classical pieces she wants them to learn, although these are learned as well. As she puts it, “Bach played the music of his day-the “pop” if you will. If it was good enough for Bach, its good enough for me.” The students have recitals most months; this October, they dressed in character and played songs to go with their costumes for the nursing home residents and the Magnolia Manor community.
Starting at age 14,  Donna was teaching others to play the piano. The Sunshine Cookie man would stop by once a week for a lesson and he’d pay her with boxes of sample cookies. She taught music in the schools for many years-always incorporating the lesson plans from other teacher’s subjects into her own to help reinforce through music all sorts of educational tools. Now, a full-time piano instructor, “her career” as she puts it, allows her to put the children first.

When she is not teaching, Donna acts a s the Music Chairman for Arts on the Coast. She has a vision for our community and works ery hard to keep the support for fine arts evident in Richmond Hill. She also serves as the Vice President for the Savannah Music Teachers Association and the Vice President of Membership for the Georgia Music Teachers Association, allowing her to provide many music opportumities for her students. Also, she volunteers in the nursing home, taking the students with her to perform, and plays for the Lutheran Church. A yaer from this January, she will have earned her NCTM, National Certified Teacher of Music.

When I held up my hands and said, “I should have played the piano-my fingers were long enough.” She held hers back up and said, “Not me. My sister Zinnie, who started playing before me, had the long fingers; mine are short, so short my mother did not think I would be any good. The only reason she let me go to my first lesson was because I wouldn’y stop begging. Within the first couple of months, I was outplaying my sister.”

Thank you, Mrs. Dasher, for encouraging our children’s interest and love for the arts. It is music to our ears!