Patricia Holmberg

I never thought of myself as a writer until in the summer of 2011, when one of my adult piano students asked me to give her some ideas of how to practice. I mulled that over for a few days, and then began writing. What I had thought would be about 6 sentences turned into something quite a lot bigger. Actually, that wasn't very surprising, because what I was writing about were ideas that have come to me through all these years of teaching and playing the piano. For years I have made notes of some of those, so I guess I was sub-consciously planning it for a long time.

There are still other things that I did not include, except very briefly, in "How to Practice the Piano". Those things center around the many things that music can teach a person about life. I'm sure that one day I will turn my attention to that and create another e book. Ideas like that started coming to me about 50 years ago or more - and some I've never read anywhere. So that will be forthcoming within a year, I think.

I have been a piano teacher working from my home studio for many years. I have a Bachelor of Music Education and a Master of Music (in piano performance) from the University of Colorado College of Music. I started playing with jazz groups on weekends when I was in graduate school, so came to be comfortable with both classical and jazz genres.

Then raising a family took center stage, but I was always teaching in the afternoons and kept up my own playing. Somewhere along the way, I began writing music also. I've done mostly piano music, but have also written some instrumental and choral music. In 1995 I wrote a cantata for the occasion of the 100th anniversary of First Presbyterian Church in Boulder, CO. It was for 3 choirs ( children's,high school and chancel) some soloists and orchestra. The most recent piece I wrote was "The Water Suite" - in three movements and for Glass Harp, Piano and Orchestra. My brother, Jamey Turner, is a glass harp player and he had asked me to write it so he would have something to play with orchestras. That was in 2010. It has had two performances so far - Butler County PA and McLean VA.

I have recorded quite a few of the things I've written for piano, and several have been licensed for use by the Biography Channel, Comedy Central, National Geographic Channel, and several others.

So here I am in my twilight years, still teaching piano and keeping almost as busy as I used to be with music. I'm grateful for that.