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• Regina's Father's Day Gift: we've just put together a slideshow of Regina in her new garden, admiring the fruits of her labors and picking fresh squash for tonight's dinner. The tomatoes are coming along but aren't ripe yet, though the herbs are green -- and delicious. If you have Shockwave Flash 8 or later on your PC, you may see the slideshow here. • The Roper Studio Final 2007-8 May Recital at Sherman-Clay's showroom in Santa Clara was held on Saturday 10 May, as kindly provided through the courtesy of Dr. Chris Hepp. We were honored to be able to use the Steinway Commemorative "Rhapsody" Artcase Piano, created to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of George Gershwin in the year 1998 (for more information about this historic instrument, read the article on the Steinway website.) We made a trial of a new digital camera to take some shapshots of the event, and at least a few of them turned out: if you have Shockwave 8 or later installed on your computer, you should be able to see this Photobucket slideshow (which probably requires a broadband connection for reasonable performance.) • The Roper/Hepp Duo (or, is it the "Hepp/Roper Duo"?): click here for a quick snapshot taken at our studio on Monday 10 March 2008, with Regina rehearsing with Dr. Chris Hepp of Sherman-Clay, for a performance they gave of the Rondo in A Major by Schubert at the Santa Clara store on Sunday March 16 at 4 pm. A complete video was taken of the event, and some day we may be able to get at least their performance of the Rondo on the net. • Roper Studio Grounds Remodel Project: we have finished a massive "infrastructure" change here, creating a new patio and back yard area and driveway. Did you wonder why we had "let go" the back yard area? Well: this is why! Click here for the directory of pictures that document this project. • Got a computer virus!: this is only the second time it's happened to us in the last decade, and perhaps the third time -- altogether -- since our first PC in the eighties; what happened is similar to the situation described in this "Defensive Computing" article by Michael Horowitz. I finally fixed the computer -- more or less -- by using Malwarebytes Anti-Malware (deleting 57 corrupted files and settings) but much extra work was required, manually, to clean up a clobbered registry. Caution, folks: it's getting dangerous out there! • Stephen's new article with suggestions for the holidays, entitled "A Musical Gift List for Amateur Astronomers", features many selections of ancient to modern classical music that we enjoy listening to while observing with our telescopes. We think any of our piano students might also like to investigate these wonderful selections. • Regina's New Zealand trip: Ms. Roper has put together a slideshow of 200 pictures of her visit to scenic rural New Zealand in summer 2007, to visit her sister Becky. Click here for her Shutterfly page (Javascript must be activated in your browser; Flash plug-in used for full-scale images.) • Hallowe'en 2007: Ms. Regina may have to rap your knuckles if you don't play those scales evenly! For a picture of Regina when she's "all business", click here for a snapshot taken after an October recital at San Jose's Le Petit Trianon Theatre, with her former student Amanda Vo. • Regina and Stephen celebrated a certain event on Oct. 11, 2007: click here to see an observance of their 20th wedding anniversary. • What Ms. Roper did during 2007 summer break -- click here to see Regina visiting New Zealand, posing with three agility dogs owned by her sister Rebecca. • New Pictures: Here is Ms. Roper, with two of her students, at the summer 2007 Convention of the Music Teachers' Association in Santa Clara, thanks to some fine photos provided by Linda Yip. • A Tribute to our late cat, Miss Lina: Ms. Roper is sad to inform our studio members that Miss Lina, beloved studio "alpha animal", passed away on Monday, 25 June 2007: our memorial page for Lina is here. • Spring 2007 Recital: courtesy of Sherman Clay, one of America's premiere piano dealers, the Roper Piano Studio held its March Musicale in their fine Santa Clara recital hall: see pictures here. • This christmas present from one of Ms. Roper's students is one of the more unusual ones she's ever received: see it here, and keep it in mind when she tells you to play forte, not mezzo-piano! • Yes: we still teach how to play this 250 year old instrument! Click here to see Ms. Roper giving her student Cian a lesson on the harpsichord. • Just updated: We have just revised and expanded our self-help article Using Technology, first published here, as well as in Keyboard Companion magazine, in the late 1990s. We added coverage of some of the issues that we experienced as computers and MIDI instruments became more complex as their industries evolved, and when we migrated to a home network with multiple PCs for specialized audio, video, and web uses. • Nostalgia: We were recently walking by our old, original music Lab No. 1 computer, which runs Win 3.1 just for some very old software, and watched the pretty astronomy pictures on the screensaver, which we prepared about 15 years ago. Would you like to see them? Click here. • 'New' lab computer: The other day, one of our students left an early Hallowe'en trick-or-treat gift: a forlorn pair of allegedly broken computers. Regina's husband got one look at them and couldn't believe his eyes: they were PC clones of the famous iMac, made by eMachine. And they were darned near dead: as it turned out, due to more than a hundred instances of "spyware", backdoors, and Trojans installed, largely by one of those nefarious "peer to peer" filesharing programs, which he totally wiped out in a full days' work per machine. By now we have both of these cute little PCs running better than new; we just connected one to our Casio piano as a new piano lab in the video room. (The free programs that best helped to clean them of malware are Ad-Aware, Super AntiSpyware, and Spybot.) "Mr. Roper" (Regina's husband, Steve Waldee) is shown, editing this very website and uploading this picture. The moral: don't "fileshare"; and if your computer seems beyond repair, donate it to a worthy educational venue! • What We Did During 2006 Summer Break: Regina and Stephen were busy almost every day of the month-long midsummer break, remodeling major parts of the Roper Piano Studio. This included painting, and then installing new carpet, which meant stripping down three learning labs to the bare walls, and then reorganizing and rewiring everything! Here is a composite 3-frame panoramic shot of the video lab, with the new cabinets for our music and instructional videos and CDs, and another panorama of our two main computer labs, showing the new color scheme and some new art work. • Just Learned: J. S. Bach had two daughters named REGINA: in 1728 his daughter Regina Johanna was born, and in 1742 Regina Susanna was born (see here.) Could this be the reason that Bach is Regina's favorite composer? (See next item for a performance of Bach by RR.) • Just Discovered: Here's a picture of Regina used as a promotional poster for some programs in the early 1970s, added to our photo scrap book. And, we just discovered a long-lost audio tape of a complete performance of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 5, with chamber orchestra, in which Regina plays the harpsichord part: see the end of our Audio Page to hear it in MP3 format. • 2006 Summer Group Lessons: So that Ms. Roper could add some fun new summer group lesson activities, we added yet another computer music lab -- the 19th machine on our network! -- this time right in our main piano studio: husband has been 'kicking and screaming' for years and years to have a PC near the television, but Regina has always resisted. Now, she's using it all day long! Click here for a snapshot of our new Lab 4. • 2006 Summer Break: What we have been doing. Before the summer trimester of teaching, Regina and husband Stephen went on an astronomy jaunt, to a lovely site at 7000 foot altitude, near Lake Tahoe, called "Peddler Hill". At this verdant spot, in the rugged foothills to the Sierra mountains along the California/Nevada border, amateur astronomers often gather at new moon to observe and photograph. Here's a wide shot of our Saturn, parked at the quarry (looking a little bit like the surface of the Moon); a narrow shot with two of our small telescopes set up; and Regina taking our little Quito for a jaunt amongst the pines. During the break, Stephen photographed Jupiter: his first attempt with a digital imager. • 2006 Recital Pictures: Stephen -- "Mr. Roper", Regina's husband -- has just assembled some digital snapshots he did at the May 13 Spring/Summer End-of-Year Studio Recital at Lincoln Glen Church: click here. • New! Regina composes a teaching piece that you may try! Regina wrote a little pedagogical piece for one of her students, and wants to share it as a precursor of her future plans to publish some of the many instructional works she has written. Click here for our new page on her composition, Persian Nights. • 2006 Spring Studio Recital: On Saturday, March 25, we held our annual Spring Studio Recital and during two sessions, had an attendance of eighty persons, students and family members. Stephen snapped these casual digital photos at the end: click for small individual pictures 1, 2, 3, and 4, or for one large composite. We thank several parents for the sumptuous buffet that everybody enjoyed! • NEW: Just the Facts Website: Regina's colleague, associate, and friend Ann Lawry has now created an excellent new official Music Bag Press website with information about each of her pedagogical publications, and a page with information about upcoming workshops, some of which will be conducted by Ms. Roper. We are keeping our detailed Just the Facts II article here on this website, in addition. • 2005 Summer Break: What we have been doing. Regina is very delighted with her new "Little Guy" teardrop trailer, and the Saturn "Vue" SUV we had to buy in order to tow it properly (our old Saturn sedan being a bit too sickly for the task. Why buy a Saturn? Well, we're both amateur astronomers...) Here are some digital snaps we took while camping: Ms. Roper relaxing in 99 degree weather under a tree; a view of the Little Guy enclosed in our anti-mosquito tent; and a highly-magnified shot of some brave deer who wandered near our rural campsite, near San Luis Obispo. Stephen has been busy with his new Celestron 11-inch telescope, with GPS aiming and deep-sky object database. Here is a quick snapshot of the Moon taken with his scope and a Meade digital imager at the end of our vacation, and a very careful digital image of Mars, taken in the early morning hours of September 20th. Here's the saga of the battery system we made to run the trailer and our laptop and telescopes. Finally, Stephen has just constructed an education website for amateur astronomers about the Horsehead Nebula. • 2005 Recital Pictures: We thank the father of one of our students -- Mr. Ron Barber, whose daughter is Christine -- for supplying some very nice digital images and video snaps from our 2005 Summer Recital, held on 14 May at Lincoln Glen Church: click here for the page in our Roper Studio photo album. • New Pictures: During a brief teaching break in February 2005, we added some new furniture; earlier between December and January we upgraded two computers and OS's, and added some new educational music games. Click here for some digital snapshots. • UPDATES, changes, and corrections: We have recently used a helpful utility to check all the links and functions on our website, and to find dead URLs. Sadly, some of our favorite Music Links, and certain recommended Summer Music Activities, are no longer on the net; but we've tried to provide close alternatives: check those articles for the latest finds. And we have revised and expanded our article on Maintaining a MIDI Music Lab, adding some recent discoveries and anecdotes, as of February 2005. We're very proud to have had this article recommended by Mike Solinas on Bob O'Donnell's radio show, "Everything Technology": click here for Mike's "Web Wanderer" recommendations for 5 March 2005. • Wonderful Christmas Present to Ms. Roper and her animal friends: this winter, we requested of those students who intended to give the studio a holiday gift to consider -- instead of a present of candies or brick-a-brack -- making a donation to one of our favorite charities, Safe Haven Animal Sanctuary in Cupertino, California. We were delighted that a number of our students did so, and were proud and happy to receive this beautiful certificate. We, and our students Anna, Thyne, Vernon, and Serena, are now the sponsors of "Oreo the Kitty" at Safe Haven! • Just Added as a bit of summer fun, 2 June 2004: With apologies to Dave Letterman: "Stupid Piano Teacher Tricks", or "Embarrassing Secret Photos from Regina's scrapbook" - click here if you dare! • 25th Annual Roper Studio Recital: first picture: click here for the May 15, 2004 program booklet cover, and the lovely gift of flowers received by Regina from her grateful students and families (dog already in our existing inventory.) More photos will follow as soon as the film is developed and printed... • 2004 Spring Studio Evaluation Program: this year we expanded our end-of-year evaltuations into mini-recital events on the weekend of April 24-5, 2004: click here for snapshots. • Studio Outdoor Remodeling Project: mostly finished, April 2004. We worked up to the week before our spring C/M Evaluations to complete the outdoor remodeling project, shown on this page. • A Big Hit With Our Students. We've just registered copies of two exciting music education games that are available over the Internet -- "Happy Note Play It By Ear" and "Happy Note Treble and Bass Clef" -- and added them to our new XP computer-Roland piano music lab. The students have told us how much they enjoy playing the games; and they are very informative too! You may download a simplified version of each, and try them first without obligation, from author Pascal Riben's website, which also contains many other useful and entertaining items. Highly recommended! • Just Added, 20 Feb. 2004: Regina's photographic tribute to the late pianist John Browning, from her photos taken at the Van Cliburn teachers' workshop in Fort Worth, Texas in 1996. • New: Our Latest Pedagogy Article: click here for Stephen's article about Building and Maintaining a MIDI - Music - Multimedia computer lab, with details about hardware, operating systems, upgrading, software, and affordable resources. • Search Engine Added. Now our readers may be able to find many specific items on the pages of this website: first we set up the search with the bravenet.com applet, but later changed it to a much more flexible and powerful Google search. • Whew! Just finished, after New Years', networking all of our computers: what a task! But no longer do we have to worry about transferring files via floppy disk to maintain the systems or print student compositions. This is a project that has been five years in the making. • Regina Gets a Student Evaluation! Click here for the results of this particular student evaluation of Regina, turning the tables on the teacher. • Web Page Relocated!!!! On Monday 14 July 2003 we initiated our new Earthlink DSL service, and on the following evening we began uploading our web pages to a new address. All our articles needed editing to conform, and we hope that we've caught most of the discrepancies: file delivery service should be better than ever before! We are quite pleased with the mind-boggling speed of the new DSL, and aside from some start-up "teething" difficulties, it has come together nicely. Our new email address (above) is now working, if you need to contact us. • During Summer 2003, Roper Piano Studio students have been provided by Ms. Roper with her own selection of world wide web piano learning links and games for developing pitch identification, ear training, and other skills: they are fun and rewarding too! • Summer 2003 Remodeling Frenzy! During our breaks in the late spring and summer, Ms. Roper had an opportunity to do some long anticipated remodeling of our Studio; a computer lab; and her office. We have nice new carpeting and a more spacious layout in the main Studio, which has brightened our outlook and made the teaching and playing arrangement a bit more convenient. Her office has been radically redone and redecorated, with new computers, furniture, wood flooring, drapes, and re-arrangement. (And, whew! what a relief to abandon at long last Windows 3.1 -- trademarked Microsoft Corporation yada-yada! -- and its perpetual glitches.) The Roland piano computer lab has been equipped with a new 1.8 Gigahertz PC, and with a nice shiny new copy of the XP operating system, featuring its remarkable ability to run old software that won't work in Windows 95-98. (Trademark by Mr. Gates, etc. etc.) A new audio system has added full treble and bass response and real instrumental tones to our "jams" with MIDI files using "Band-in-a-Box" and other sequencing software and hardware. And we've networked the machines and printers: why, we're almost caught up with the end of the 20th century! • New! Franz Metronome Adjustment. If you have an ancient mechanical-electrical Franz metronome and would like advice on tempo calibration, read our latest article. • Revised November 2003: our article on Collecting Piano CDs, including new links for fantastic bargains in budget items, reissued disks, and used CDs that will be a boon to youngsters and collectors on a limited budget. 
• Another Studio Mascot: Just before New Year's Day, 2002, we adopted "Quito", a tiny ten-inch long but full-grown Yorkshire/Maltese mix, from the (now disbanded) "Dog Rescue" group K9 Haven. He had been found on a freeway and temporarily adopted by a person who had him shaved to resemble her Chihuahua! When his hair grows back, he should resemble his old picture (right); now he looks like a bedraggled alley rat (albeit one with a very cute smile.)
• AWARDS RECITAL: Click here to see video stills and hear some of our students play at the Year 2000 Spring Awards Recital, in RealAudio® and MP3 sound clips. 
• New Studio Mascot: On Friday, 17 March, 2000, we adopted "Kobe" as our new official studio mascot. Born in 1999, Kobe (a baritone) studied at Juilliard, specializing in the lieder of Wolf. He is also a virtuoso player of percussion instruments: solos on his 'squeaky toy' are sure to add a new dimension to our group performances! He is a "rescue dog" we adopted from K9 Haven (a dog-rescue organization, now closed as of spring 2005.)
• In late 1999 we added a color videocamera to our panoply of studio electronic gear, and recorded a recent group theory lesson and two student recitals. Click this link for our Gallery of "Videocaps" from these events, taken from our videotapes. In addition, in the year 2000 we will be using a new computer lab featuring our Roland piano and excellent pedagogy software available from www.teoria.com. • On Sunday, 22 August, 1999 we added RealAudio® files to Regina Roper's Piano & Harpsichord sound file page, enabling faster downloads. • During spring of 1999 we unveiled our new series of theory workbooks correlated to match the CM keyboard syllabus: JUST THE FACTS II by Ann Lawry & Regina Roper. Click for publisher's information and ordering, or for our page of samples. As of early 2000, we estimate that at least 3,000 copies have been sold to our colleagues across the USA! • On Friday, 26 February, 1999, we added our new Roper Studio Photo Album. On Tuesday, March 2, 1999 we added our custom CM Scheduling Software. • The fifth article in our 'Pedagogy' Series is Technology Advice To Piano Teachers, written by Regina Roper and posted on May 25, 1999. |
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MEMBER:
• Music Teachers' Association of California
• Suzuki Association of the Americas
• National Guild of Piano Teachers
• National Guild Audition Center - San Jose (South)
• The American College of Musicians
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