Hi friends. I’m Kelli.
If you looked at my life over the last thirty years, you’d see a few consistent threads in my life. My home town has remained my home town my entire life. Family has always been a priority for me. I’ve never been a socialite always longing to stay home in the evenings. And, as long as I can remember, I’ve always dedicated a piece of my life to music.
Growing up, I played piano. My grandparents bought a small Wurlitzer piano at an auction when I was about five years old. They hauled the small piano in the back of a truck from small town Paris, Illinois to my home town in Dunlap, Illinois.
I still remember the make-shift wooden ramps leaning up to the house through the back double doors at my parent’s house. There were no steps yet to the doors since my dad was still in process of building our home.
I clearly remember fiddling around on that piano long before taking piano lessons. I found a major third on that piano as a little girl and repeatedly played that pretty interval every time I walked into the piano room.
No one but me really visited the piano room growing up. There wasn’t an overhead light in that room. I remember always reaching around in the dark for the switch on the lamp so I could walk through the room to the piano.
Every evening I’d sit at the piano playing for hours. Sometimes my family would knock on the wall from the other room asking me to play a little quieter. They rarely complained though.
It was a special evening if I could convince either one of my sisters to come in and sing with me for a while. I longed for someone else to sit with me so I could practice singing harmony.
I was always intrigued and drawn into the beauty of music.
During my senior year of high school, I had decided to attend college to study landscape architecture. My grandma asked me why I wasn’t going to college to study music. (Whenever any of my grandparents came, they always asked me to play.) I told my grandma music was just a hobby.
Not long after that conversation, I enrolled at Indiana Wesleyan University where I’d later finish a degree in music theory and composition. My piano professor there had a profound impact on my life. I’ll cherish her friendship forever.
After college I started teaching lessons to some sweet children near my hometown. I never had a desire to teach for I didn’t know if I had the patience to do it well. I gave it a try.
I started teaching students in 2007 and haven’t stopped since. My path of teaching has been good at times and humbling at other times.
I’m thankful for a good friend who introduced me to Mrs. Curwen’s Pianoforte Method in 2016. Studying her method has brought new life and energy to my teaching. Her method is so well rounded and has given me a new found confidence for purpose and intention as I desire to open any gateway or path in a child’s mind to find the beauty in music intended be found by God our Creator.
