This month marks a big milestone here at Piano Pantry as I’m celebrating 5 years of blogging!
This platform has been such a wonderful creative outlet and way to “dump” my brain of all the ideas that swirl around. Thanks for being here and for sticking with me!
Today I thought I would share a little about how I got started and highlight some of the milestones along the way (including the release of a new Happy Birthday by-ear teaching resource!).
We’ll also be celebrating with a discount in the Piano Pantry Shop and a giveaway later in the month in Friday Finds #211.
The Beginnings
NCKP 2015 was where it all began. I was searching for a roommate and Joy Morin reached out and offered to let me room with her and a friend. There was one late-night conversation in particular where I shared all of my ideas and subsequently, her encouragement was all I needed. Thanks to her help brainstorming name ideas, we came up with “Piano Pantry.”
This is part of the fun conversation I had recently with Leila Viss on her podcast.
Our look when you’re woken up in the early morning to a fire alarm. Anyone else remember this?
I drug my feet a little getting it off the ground but when I wrote my first proposal for an MTNA National Conference and had it accepted, the anticipation of having my first big platform was the final push to get the blog up and running.
Initial Content
The first post, Welcome to My Studio, went live on March 20, 2016.
For the next two weeks, I was in a frantic race to get content before MTNA San Antonio 2016, so I wouldn’t look quite like the big newbie I was. 🙂
Interestingly enough, two of those early posts are still quite popular:
Dynamic and Tempo Meter: A Free Download
Another was a look into the future of piano teaching as it was my first experience conducting a FaceTime Lesson! Who knew?!
I got seven posts out pretty quickly, including the first Friday Finds!
In the early days, they were titled pretty unimaginatively:
(You should actually check it out – it was pretty good!)
Weekend lists were something I always looked forward to on other websites, and combined with my love for following lots of content in Feedly and my quest for quick blog content, made it an easy decision. That series of posts has always come very naturally to me – I love writing them!
If you would like to be added to my email list, you can sign up here.
Why “Piano Pantry?”
Part of this site’s title was because I enjoyed cooking and didn’t really know where blogging would take me. The title allowed flexibility.
Over the last five years, I have found, that while I love to cook, I don’t find myself blogging about it directly, but it’s simply woven into who I am and peeks out here and there.
My topics of interest have frequently bent toward studio business, organization, and productivity. Here are a few of the most popular of all time:
Business / Organization / Productivity:
- Evernote: An Independent Music Teacher’s Handbook
- Lesson-Planning: A King-Sized Master Spreadsheet
- Studio Awards: Policies and Procedures
- File Fever: Organizing Student Files
- Recital Preparation Timeline and Checklist
Piano-Teaching:
- Piano Safari Stuffed Animal Shopping Guide
- 147 Tune to Harmonize: Traditional, Popular, and Christmas
- A Visual Guide for Formula Pattern Scales
- One-Minute Club Note-Naming Challenge
Highlights Along the Way
Just for fun, I thought I would share the actual photo where my first gravatar photo was extracted from (see above). We’ve all done it! My husband and I captured this while on vacation in Hawaii with friends. It’s one of my favorite photos of us.
A few big milestones you may have seen on this site over the years include:
2016
Assignment Sheet Central was launched, and there have since been over 30,000 downloads of the 21 different sheets!
I produced the Evernote for the Independent Music Teacher video series and became part of the Evernote Community Leader’s program.
2017
I hosted my first “Readers’ Dinner” at MTNA 2017 in Baltimore and got to play hostess and cook for a great group of teachers at Joy Morin’s first Piano Teacher Retreat.
2018
Celebrated Friday Finds #100 and launched the “Secret” Letter which is an end-of-month email I send out that is not shared anywhere on social media -> sign up here.
2019
Opened up a shop while launching the Music Lab series.
2020
Started a monthly Your Questions Answered series kicking it off with one of the most popular so far: Online Music Labs and Organizing Repertoire in Tonara.
2021
Published Piano Pantry’s next big resource in the shop: Happy Birthday By-Ear: The Ultimate Teaching Guide.
A Big Thank You and A Birthday Discount
Once again, thank you so much for being here, my dear piano teacher friends, and for being such great cheerleaders! It’s a joy and privilege to create and share things with you each week, and I look forward to many years to come!
In celebration of this 5-year milestone, you can get 15% off your entire order in the Piano Pantry shop, which includes the entire Music Lab series and the new Happy Birthday-By Ear resource through March 31, 2021.
Use the code BIRTHDAY15 at checkout.
Birthday Giveaway
Since the first post went live on March 20, 2016, the giveaway will happen in Friday Finds #211 on March 19th – the day before PP’s actual birthday.
I’ll be giving away a copy of Kevin Olson’s book Impressions on Color.
Stay tuned!
I can’t believe it’s been 5 years already. Time flies! Happy Birthday Piano Pantry!
I know, right?! Thanks, Jennifer! 🙂