CSV File for Expressive Movement Videos

Would you like to have another fun musical assignment you can use both in your lessons and to assign for at-home practice, especially for your littles? Expressive movement videos might be a perfect addition to your teaching mix.

Expressive movement takes from philosophies like Dalcroze and gets students moving to music in a way that reflects the patterns, form, and expressive quality of the music.

I first shared about these videos in a full blog post in 2022, which includes a compilation of  15 videos I found on YouTube.

Expressive Movement Videos for Preschool Lessons and Group Classes

Today, I’m expanding on that post to bring you a free downloadable resource to help you assign these videos to students during the week.

This file will be most useful for those who are using a digital practice app that will allow you to bulk-load assignments using CSV files. Don’t worry, though; even if you don’t use an online app, you could still use this spreadsheet to copy and paste text to create your own assignments.

Some of you may wonder what a CSV file is, so let’s start there.

CSV stands for “comma-separated values.” It is a spreadsheet file format that literally uses commas to separate values. The format doesn’t require special software to read, which makes it easily readable by a variety of programs.

You’re honestly not even going to really notice much difference from any other spreadsheet. When you go to save a document, rather than saving it in the typical Excel (.xlsx), Word (.docx), or PDF (.pdf) format, you save it as CSV (.csv).

The only thing I notice is that when you open a normal Excel file, the columns will remain spaced the way you had them when you last opened the document, like this:

Every time you open a CSV file, the columns collapse and are spaced equally as they are in a new document like this:

We really don’t need to understand why; it’s just one thing I thought it was interesting to point out that you may notice when you open these types of files.

Here’s a quick 30-second video to show you how to quickly and easily expand the columns to see the full text.

At the time of this post, I am using the Vivid Practice for students who want access to assignments online.

Related content: On Assignments and Lesson planning (Episode 086 – The Piano Pantry Podcast)

For the sake of literal space and brevity, rather than calling them “Expressive Movement” videos, I just label them as “Dance” because that’s essentially what I want the students to do – to watch the video and follow the movements.

Here’s what the assignments look like when uploaded using the “Bulk Upload” button in Vivid to upload this assignments file.

The video link from the CSV file gets added to the comments area, which you can then hyperlink (yes, I believe, as of now, you have to go in and do it manually.) It’s still faster than manually adding every item one by one!

I think it’s important to share that I do these videos with my young beginner students during their first few lessons, and then I give them to them as a fun musical assignment. You make the call on what students/ages you think would enjoy these. I think I’ve only done it as an assignment with students younger than 8 mostly.

Get this file here.

 

Once you sign up to get the file, you’ll want to download it to your computer by clicking in the RH corner and hitting the download button.

I hope you find this a useful resource to make one little thing in your studio work life easier!

 

Shop Amy’s Favorites on Amazon Prime Deals Day

Amazon Prime Big Deal Days is here!

If you don’t know what that is, it’s a special sale event exclusive to Prime members that occurs in the fall, ahead of the holiday shopping season. For October 10, 11 (2023) only, you can get special savings on thousands of items across all product categories.

As you likely already know, I love shopping and finding things through the recommendation of others which is why I’m always sharing things with YOU. I thought it might be helpful to pull together a list of some of my favorite items I’ve shared over the years here on the blog and even on the podcast over the past 18 months.

It’s not totally exhaustive, but it’s a solid list of some really great products I think you’ll also love.  There are 21 items broken down into 4 categories:

  • Books
  • Kitchen / Household / Personal Goods
  • Office Supplies
  • Tech Gear

As an Amazon affiliate, I do receive a small percentage of sales through these links. The work of this AD-FREE blog and podcast is only supported through affiliate sales, purchases in the shop, and the new Patreon membership.

Thank you in advance for supporting the work I do here through one or all of these avenues!

 

Books

Intelligent Music Teaching

Think Again by Adam Grant

 

The Ways Children Learn Music

 

Kitchen / Household / Personal Goods

Cookbook Holder

Gorilla Doormat

Guardsman Dusting Cloth

Eureka Ergonomic Tilt Adjustable Footrest

RSVP Colander, 5 qt.

 

OXO Electric Kettle

 

Sleep Mask

 

Office Supplies

 

Erasable, Twistable Colored Pencils

 

Frixion Erasable Highlighters (Yellow)

 

Decorative File Folders (Yellow)

Decorative File Folders (Blue)

mDesign Desk Organizer

 

 

mDesign Plastic File Folder

 

Apache Laminator

 

 

Tech Gear

AKG K52 Headphones

 

iRig Blue Turn Bluetooth Pedal

 

Blue Yeti Microphone

 

Tablet Stand

 

Did You Love Piano Explorer Magazine? Check out Piano Inspires Kids!

In April 2021, I discovered and shared here on the blog that Piano Explorer Magazine had been discontinued. I know how sad many of you were to hear that news, so I’m excited to share with you today a similar type of magazine that is now available!

In July 2023, Piano Inspires Magazine announced a new publication called Piano Inspires Kids. (Just to be clear, this new publication has no affiliation with the former Piano Explorer Magazine, which was published by The Instrumentalist.)

Piano Inspires is one of many resources part of The Francis Clark Center and is the brainchild of Andrea McAlister and Sara Ernst (pictured above). The magazine is geared toward young pianists of all levels, ages 8-14.

Printed quarterly, each issue will contain feature articles on musicians, composers, musical styles, music in the news, practice tips, new music, theory lessons, creative activities, games and puzzles, and student submissions.

At the time of this post, individual subscriptions are $29.99/year or $14.99 for a single issue. Group subscriptions of 5 or more copies are available at $24.99 (per copy) per year. (International subscriptions are also available.)

You can get a special introductory price through 10/01/2023 using code LAUNCH 23 at checkout.

Check out more details on the Piano Inspires Kids website here.

 

Favorite Repertoire Lists on Sheet Music Plus

11/22/2023 Update

Unfortunately with the major website overhaul SheetMusicPlus just went through these lists are not shareable at this time.

I am leaving this blog post up in case that changes in the future with more site improvements and I can update this blog post.

Sorry for the inconvenience!

 


Since the closure of Primo Music in recent years, Sheet Music Plus has become my go-to site for purchasing music online. I’ve always had success finding music on the site and experienced good customer service.

While their discount (5% for two or more copies) is not as good as some sheet music sites like Primo have offered in the past,  I can usually still get a discount either through MTNA or by using my Capital One Shopping Extension on Chrome.

That being said, I don’t worry about that too much because sheet music is a tax write-off for the business, and purchasing music is how we keep our composers paid!

Sheet Music Plus has a feature I didn’t know about in the early days (or at least didn’t start utilizing fully) until recently. That is, you can create your own “music lists.” 

To save a book to a music list or create a new one, hover over ” Save to Music List” below the “Add to Cart” button.

(Be careful – clicking “Save to Music List” will just save the item to your “Default List.” You have to HOVER and then click on the list you want to save it to. Otherwise, you can select “Create New Music List.”)

To find your list on Sheet Music Plus, go to “My Account > Music Lists”

 

There are three scenarios in which I think using this feature would be useful.

(1) You want to have an easy way to save your favorite books without keeping a repertoire database of some kind.

(2) If you opt to have your studio families purchase books, you could keep a list of all your studio’s frequently used books so you can quickly reference and send links (the same could be done on Amazon as well!)

(3) You want an easy way to share repertoire lists with others (like me!). I honestly keep the lists mostly for my own record, but it’s a nice bonus that sharing the list with you is so easy!

My lists aren’t exhaustive, and I try to update them when possible, but they have a good start.

 

 


Amy’s Favorite Supplemental books for Students


Amy’s Favorite Church Music books for Students


Amy’s Favorite Pop/Disney/Video Game Music for Students


Amy’s Favorite Christmas Repertoire for Students


Amy’s Favorite “Classical” Repertoire Books for Students


 

Feel free to link to some of your repertoire lists on Sheet Music Plus in the comments – I love checkout out books other teachers love!

 

 

Favorite Quotes Desktop Backgrounds (Free Download)

Thanks to summer, I finally had a chance to sit down and put together a little creative project I’ve had on my mind for a while!

I’m always looking for fresh, uncluttered, and visually appealing images to use on my computer desktop background or wallpaper.

Years ago, one of the food websites I was following offered a new set each year. Unfortunately, she no longer does this and ever since I’ve never really put any effort into finding something new – I just rotate through her old ones along with a few others.


If you’re interested, she has a live set you can still get your hands on. Visit the blog post: Free Backgrounds for Food Enthusiasts from Chocolate and Zucchini.


Back in those days I would have had no idea how to create my own but it occurred to me last year I could easily do so with Canva (which I swear I use almost every day! LOL).

So, I’ve created a set of 12 images featuring 12 of my favorite quotes (one for each month of the year – which is about how often I try to rotate). I tried using a combination of both educational quotes, life quotes, and productivity quotes. I hope you find the choices well-balanced and inspiring.

My goal was to keep it simple and visually appealing. I think the Piano Pantry dark blue color looks amazing as a desktop background and makes for a really sleek and clean feel.

Here is a slideshow preview. Click on the arrows on the bottom left or hoover along the right or left sides to go forward or back.

 

When coaching teachers on digital organization, it’s always my recommendation to keep your desktop free of shortcuts and to use your taskbar to pin quick links to your most used programs. This allows your screen to be clutter-free and more aesthetically pleasing.

For any links you do keep on the desktop background, try and relegate them to the side as much as possible. As you scroll through the images you will notice I tried to keep the quotes especially free of the left margin which is my preferred location for anything on the desktop.

 

Download

Sign up here to get the download delivered to your inbox. It will send you a link and when you click on the link, you will receive access to a ZIP file. From there you will want to download the file to your computer and extract the file.

Be sure and save it in a location you will remember to access. Dare I say perhaps just link to the folder from your desktop? 🙂 LOL


If you really do want to do that, right-click on the folder, then select “send>desktop(create shortcut)”.


 

One Last Tip

While I think it’s fun to change my desktop background each month, I would never remember if it didn’t place a recurring reminder/task in my calendar. For more tips like this, listen in on episode #006 of The Piano Pantry Podcast –  Tasks: They’re Not All Created Equal

Enjoy!

If you would like to see more of these in the future, let me know in the comments!

 

 

Expressive Movement Videos for Preschool Lessons and Group Classes

Over the years, I’ve shared about an expressive movement resource I use off and on during preschool lessons and early elementary group classes from John Feierabend called Move It!: Expressive Movements with Classical Music for All Ages.

The series includes 20 dances set to Classical works from Brahms’s “Waltz in A-flat” to Prokofiev’s “Romeo and Juliet.” The movements reflect both the form and expressive quality of the music. They’re really fun, and my kids have always enjoyed them.

During COVID times, I found myself wanting to give a small assignment like this for my preschool kids to do at home. Unfortunately, the series I have is only available on DVD. So, I went searching for other options available online and quickly came across a large number of videos on YouTube.

These videos make for a fun and quick “focus activity” to use at the start of lessons or group classes for preschool or early to mid-elementary students.

You could also use them at the beginning of group lessons as you’re waiting for everyone to arrive for the class. Students can join in as they enter the studio.

Do it along to the video, or learn it yourself and have them follow you.

Continue reading

Piano Ensemble Repertoire

Do you include group classes in your studio in some way, shape, or form? Do you have at least two pianos? If so, then consider incorporating ensemble playing into this time!

Piano ensembles are a fun and easy way for students to experience collaborative playing and have been a staple activity in my group classes for years. I’ll share some great sources for piano ensemble music in today’s post.

(For holiday-specific ensemble music, check out the post: Christmas Collaborations: Recommended Piano Ensemble Music)

Before we dive in, one point of advice I wanted to mention is that I have always approached this as a sight-reading activity. I do not send music home prior to a group class for them to practice.

Music is chosen based on what I know students can easily sight-read. Since I am lucky to have four keyboards with headphones, they spend a few minutes playing through their part a couple of times, and then we unplug and play together.

Also, erring on the side of easier than I think they could play has proven to be a good rule of thumb for successful experiences. I’ll try to give you some specific examples throughout.


Interested in hearing more on how I run my group classes?
Listen in on Episode #3 of The Piano Pantry Podcast: Group Class Scheduling Experiences and Ideas


 

Hal Leonard Student Piano Library

My favorite over the years has been the Hal Leonard Student Piano Library Piano Ensemble Series.

Reasons I like this series:

  • They don’t require 4 pianos.
  • The spine is perforated so you can easily remove the parts from the book.
  • There is a teacher score.
  • While the difficulty levels are equal for each part, sometimes they will have 2 parts with one hand only and 2 parts with two hands so that’s a small way I can divide between students based on their sight-reading strength.
  • It includes suggestions for fun midi sounds – a different one for each keyboard. I don’t always use these but sometimes it can be a fun twist. Here’s a fun example (two of these teen students were beginners and two had been in lessons for a few years):

Things I don’t love about this series:

  • The kiddy artwork and song titles. While it’s not terrible, I often choose the piece based on how “un-kindergarten-like” it feels.

 

Buy it on Sheet Music Plus

Hal Leonard Piano Ensembles, Level 1
Hal Leonard Piano Ensembles, Level 2
Hal Leonard Piano Ensembles, Level 3
Hal Leonard Piano Ensembles, Level 4
Hal Leonard Piano Ensembles, Level 5

 

Alfred’s Basic Piano Library

Similar to Hal Leonard, Alfred has a piano ensemble series as part of their Basic Piano Library method.

Reasons I like this series:

  • Each book includes a lot of pieces – more than 4.
  • There are some pre-reading ensembles in 1A.
  • There is a teacher score.
  • It includes suggestions for fun midi sounds – a different one for each keyboard.
  • The pieces are written for 4 keyboards and every part is two-handed
  • Overall, the titles and artwork feel less “kiddie-like” than Hal Leonard’s so it can work better for older students.
  • There are 4 levels but you can opt to purchase two “complete” sets rather than 4 individual levels.

Things I don’t love about this series:

  • The music is harder. There isn’t a lot (even in book 1) that students who have been in lessons for even a couple of years would be able to sightread and play successfully almost immediately. Again, I think this is a good indication that this series might be better for students that play at the intermediate level.
  • The pages are not perforated like Hal Leonard’s (allowing you to purchase 1 book). You have to either tear the pieces of the spite to distribute or purchase 4 copies of the book.
  • The pages of each song are printed back-to-back so there’s no way to separate them out (like Hal Leonard’s) For example, part one is printed on the backside of the previous piece, parts two and three are printed on the same page back to back, and part four is on the front side of the next piece. That means that you either have to purchase multiple copies or tear the pages out of the book to distribute then (dare I say) photocopy one of the parts (the one that’s on the backside of part 2).

 

Buy on Sheet Music Plus

Alfred’s Piano Ensembles, Level 1A
Alfred’s Piano Ensembles, Level 1B
Alfred’s Piano Ensembles, Level 1 Complete
Alfred’s Piano Ensembles, Level 2
Alfred’s Piano Ensembles, Level 3
Alfred’s Piano Ensembles, Level 2 & 3 Complete

 

Self-Publishers

There are two other good locations that I currently know of for piano ensemble music online. I have not used either one extensively as I have the Hal Leonard or Alfred Ensembles but I like what I see and think they are a great option!

Please note that I am not being paid in any way to promote these products. I’m just letting you know what’s out there! 🙂

The first is Lauren Lewandowsi’s site: Piano with Lauren. She has 12 arrangements available.

Each piece includes:

  • A short summary about the song
  • Rhythm Practice
  • Individual parts for harmony (chords), bass notes, and melody
  • Advanced variations of each part
  • Each part is notated in its simplest form first and then as more advanced variations. The variations allow for a group of multi-leveled students to play together.

 

The newest one I’ve discovered is Miss Dorla’s Piano Pyramids.

Each piece includes:

  • 5 parts (at 5 different levels – a real gem!)
  • Conductor Score

 

Any More?

I hope this post has given you some great resources for gathering your students to make music together!

Do you have any favorites to add to the list? Let me know in the comments. I’m always looking for new resources for piano ensembles.


Please note all of these links are affiliate links which simply means I get a very small percentage back without it costing you extra as a way of helping me run this blog. Thanks!

 

Listening Playlists to Accompany Music-Themed Children’s Books

Recently, I shared a couple of blog posts related to building a lending library in your studio of music-themed children’s books and comics.

After purchasing a few more books from some of your recommendations, I noticed I had quite a few books that had suggested listening lists in the back of the book. Thus was born the idea to create listening playlists to accompany some of these books!

I’ve been using Spotify for years to create playlists of my own. It’s a wonderful place to create public playlists anyone can listen to.

In this post, I will share brief synopses of each of these 9 books as well as the direct link to each playlist.

For quick access to them all in one location, simply click on the link to my public playlists.

As a bonus, as a way of sharing these playlists with your students, I’ve created a free printable of bookmarks you can print on heavy paper or cardstock and stick inside each book when it’s checked out.

This will be an easy way to give parents the link to listen to these playlists at home when reading these books with their children.

Continue reading

Piano Lesson Warm-Up / Focus Activity

What kinds of activities do you do to help your students get focused at the beginning of a lesson?

I saw this question recently in a Facebook group post and realized it was time to share an activity started doing this year.

After attending a workshop by Melody Bober a couple of years ago, I was inspired to come up with a little warm-up routine to use at the start of each student’s lesson.

Not long after that, I was listening to an episode of the All Keyed Up Podcast where he was interviewing Marvin Blickenstaff. At one point, Marvin called warm-ups at the beginning of a lesson a way of “stimulating circulation.” I loved that phrase and it was another element that convinced me to come up with a fun little routine of my own.

The benefits of including something like this in your lesson are:

  1. It helps students take a moment to transition from their day into the lesson time.
  2. It helps students loosen up a bit and serves as a reminder of the elements of good posture and technique such as arms approximately at tabletop level, forearm rotation, relaxed shoulders,  natural hand position, etc.

The routine I designed is now available in my shop. Here’s a look!

 

Piano Lesson Warm-Up / Focus Activity

While this was developed with piano students in mind, it could be used with music students of any instrument!

Some of my specific goals in developing this routine were:

  1. Be something students of any age would feel comfortable doing (delivery and vocal tone have a lot to do with this. 🙂 )
  2. Be easy to remember and take less than 1:00 to complete.
  3. Be something that can be done sitting or standing.
  4. Include movements for as many parts of the body used in playing piano as possible including head, back, shoulders, arms, wrists, hands, and fingers.

As a bonus, the words flow in a somewhat chant-like manner. The first two  of the seven-line chant are:

Look to the left and right;
Tilt your head side to side.

Gentle twist, from the waist;
Body circles, that’s the way.

Here is a 0:15 snippet of the 0:50 routine.

 

Final Tips and How to Purchase

A couple of final things to keep in mind when incorporating a routine like this:

  1. Yes, it’s good to be consistent, but it’s not the end of the world if we don’t do it every week. Sometimes students plow into their lesson and are so focused on being ready to play one particular piece, we just dive right into that.
  2. Don’t force it. If you sense a student doesn’t like it or that it doesn’t work well for them, then don’t do it. Don’t feel like it has to be used with every student even though it was written in a way that all ages could be comfortable.

This product includes a PDF printable of the full warm-up chant as well as the full video displaying the motions.

Add it to your shopping cart now or from the Piano Pantry shop.

 


Do you have any favorite warm-up/focus activities you use in your studio? Share in the comments!

 

What iPad and Page-Turner Device Do You Use?

This post is part of a series called Your Questions Answered that highlights questions from readers just like you. If you have a question you would like to submit, you can do so here.

 

Hi Amy,

Which iPad do you use and what type of page-turner device do you use with that?

Do you use SuperScore or something else to play digital music?

Do you have your students purchase iPad if they don’t have one?

Need your advice as I would like to update my old mini iPad and stay current with tools.

Thanks,

Twinkle R.

 

Hi, Twinkle – good to hear from you!

For the last 5 years or so, I have been using the iPad Pro 12.9. There are two reasons I like the 12.9″

  1. Once I started a full-time church job, I much preferred to read music off the larger screen.
  2. I do not have a laptop so for travel, having the larger iPad makes it nicer to work from.

I like the Pro version because I can use the Apple pencil with it. Over the years I tried several different types of stylus’ but not of them has come close to the smooth use of the Apple Pencil. I find it to be much more accurate for annotation on my music and as a bonus, it charges directly from the iPad itself and does not need a separate plug to charge.

That being said, if I had a laptop, I would probably be OK with the 11″ iPad for sheet music. I know several people who have and like that size.

I have also always used and loved the Apple Smart Keyboard. The one that goes with my current 4th generation is a folio-style, which envelops the iPad.

The Apple Pencil 2 works with this 4th generation iPad and charges through magnetism along the side of the iPad.

While my current iPad is the 4th generation, if I were to do it all over again, I’m not sure if I would go with the 4th generation iPad 12.9″. It’s not because of the iPad itself – I actually love the 4th generation iPad 12.9″ because it’s a little smaller edge-to-edge than the 3rd generation 12.9″.

It’s because of the smart keyboard. I really loved the style of the original smart keyboard. The folio-style only allows you to set it up as a keyboard or fold it back and hold it as an iPad. The older Smart keyboard allowed you to prop up the iPad without having the keyboard out. Plus, since the old one did not wrap around the entire iPad, the backside of the iPad was exposed which means when I set it down it would slide more nicely on a surface.

This is just a personal preference though.

The first-generation Apple Pencil that worked with my old iPad Pro had a lightning plug directly on the end with a cap – you would charge by plugging into the iPad female end.

My page-turner is the iRig BlueTurn. I love it and highly recommend it. For years I used the Airturn PedPro. While I liked the slim profile, I had too many troubles with it not responding when I needed it to or turning more than one page at once. There’s a chance it was just a user error but I’ve found having the feel of actually pressing the button makes a big difference for me.

As for sheet-music readers, I have been using ForScore for years and love it. You can create setlists, annotate, export PDFs either with or without annotation, crop, and do all kinds of crazy amazing things with it. I highly recommend it.

As for your question regarding students purchasing iPads, no I do not find any reason to require my students to have iPads.

I hope this helps – if you want to check out more of my recommended resources including apps, business tools, and more, check out the Recommended Resources page here on Piano Pantry.

~Amy