Marjorie Stanke Gingles has had a life long love affair with music, especially the piano. Also fascinating to her have been other ways to create music as well as the people who make the music. Her long search for effective ways to play the piano well with her small hands gives her a specialty with which to help people with similar problems and the resulting tensions. Being very aware of the value of a good start for all piano students, she insists on a healthy and musical technique for the earliest beginners, no matter what their hand size is and their body proportions in relation to the piano. She has devised a set of humorous and playful exercises related to many motions actually used in playing to ensure that students develop a musical/healthy ( the two concepts being intimately related ) technique.

Teaching Education
Having started teaching when 15 years old, she went on to earn a BS in Music Education, major in piano performance from West Chester University, West Chester, Pa. and a Masters in Music Education, major in piano performance also from West Chester University. As part of the graduation requirements, she wrote a research paper entitled "A Study of the Problems of Problem of Tension in Pianists" and gave a piano performance to demonstrate the value of using coordinated motions.

She added further study with leading teachers - Helena Diedrichs Swann, Sylvia Glickmam, Agi Jambor, continuing her search for answers to the problems of excess tension in her own playing and in the playing of other people. Sometime later, she finally found a focus in the problems of technique and physical health interwoven with musicality in the work of Dorothy Taubman in 1985.

Student of the Taubman Approach
As a student of the Taubman Approach, she has studied with these Taubman Institute Faculty Members: the late Natan Brand and the late Eleanor Hancock; many sessions with Edna Golandski, the former Director of the Taubman Institute, all in New York City; briefly with Bob Durso, in Philadelphia, and, then, predominantly, for about 18 years, with her friend Professor Maria del Pico Taylor of Temple University, also in Philadelphia. Ms. Gingles is presently studying with another Taubman Faculty Member, Sheila Paige, well known as the founder and director of the Wellness Clinic.

Continuing Relationship with the Taubman Approach
Ms. Gingles considers Dorothy Taubman one of the geniuses of the 20th Century, now going into the 21st.

Recently, Ms. Gingles became an Associate of the Taubman Seminar in New York City at Cami Hall and Lincoln Center.

Her conviction of the significance of the the Taubman Approach has included working with Taubman Instititute Faculty Members Taylor, Tamman and Paige in supporting the development, promotion and spread of the knowledge of the work of Dorothy Taubman for the long range musicality and physical health of her students and all pianists.

Piano Teaching
As a teacher, Ms. Gingles focuses on playing with ease, using the whole body and mind to create music most naturally through the wide range of the qualities of the piano, as well as how the music is constructed. All of this is accompanied with pleasure, humor and concentration.

She teaches students of all ages: beginners, returnees, folks changing from other instruments. Drawing from mostly classical literature, some outstanding popular literature, and some just plain fun things (like "The Pink Panther"), she develops a course that suits each student, while insisting upon accurate and high quality work as a goal. Ensembles of mixed instruments in her studio and student recitals is a delightful and worthwhile touch. Music making does not have to be alone, or just with piano.

She, herself, has continued to perform several times a year in various venues.

Other Musical Background and Activities
Ms. Gingles has had an unusual amount of other musical experiences as part of the background upon which she draws - learning the basics of many instruments: primarily playing clarinet and saxophone in her high school and a professional band, viola in the college orchestra; choral activities most of her life (singing, accompanying [since age 12] and choral directing); church music director positions ( including playing the organ); early years as music educator in the public schools, ( elementary ); and, as a unique experience, sang with the Philadelphia Lyric Opera in the chorus in a production of Richard Wagner's "Die Meistersinger".

She also performs as part of a piano duo, with her husband, William (Bill). They are known as the Gingles Duo.