Joan Morgan

I have taught piano since I was twenty-two, first at a community music school in Newark and then from my own living room in South Orange. About eight years ago a student brought her mother to a lesson, and I realized how much I loved teaching people who were finally doing something they had put off for fifty years.

I teach by ear or by note, depending on what you prefer. Many of my older students want to play hymns, Motown or songs from the musicals they saw when they were young, so we start there and learn the theory along the way. I use large-print sheet music and colored stickers on the keys for the first few weeks, then we peel them off once your hands know the way.

On Sundays I direct the adult choir at a church in Maplewood, and I rarely miss a concert at SOPAC. If there is a keyboard gathering dust in your parents' den, I would love to help bring it back to life.