Getting to know your instructor:
Elissa C. Heise is known by her students as Mrs. Heise (or the Cookie Lady) because of her famous Cookie Chord lesson which is accompanied by eating cookies! Mrs. Heise uses unorthodox techniques to teach traditional classical concepts.
Mrs. Heise received her bachelor of music degree from Friends University in Wichita, Kansas. She received her master’s degree from Wichita State University. She also has done post-graduate study at Northeastern State University in Oklahoma.
Mrs. Heise has taught music in every grade from kindergarten through college in both public and private schools in Kansas, Oklahoma, Georgia, and Texas. Prior to joining the staff of the Rockwall School of Music, she taught piano and organ at Gordon College in the University System of Georgia. She has taught private piano lessons for 45 years.
According to Mrs. Heise, there are just a few simple rules for music.
1. Music must be FUN!
2. To make the learning fun, we learn as fast as we can so we can play music that is FUN!
3. Practice helps us get there faster, so we practice a little bit EVERY DAY!
4. Pattern recognition is the name of the game, so get ready to look for things that are alike.
5. Muscle memory is the trick for playing patterns easily. (That’s why we practice.)
6. Don’t bite off more than you can chew. Practice small amounts at a time.
7. Sing along with the music. It helps your brain to focus on the right stuff!
Mrs. Heise has a love of languages. She studies the Bible in the original Hebrew and Greek texts. She teaches seminars about Jewish holidays and prophecy. She also speaks French. Like all musicians, she understands a little Italian. She also enjoys computer programming (because that’s another language). But most of all, she enjoys studying music theory because music itself is a language.
