August 2021 marks 10 years of my full-time piano studio (Studio 88), located in Bluffton, Indiana, 10 years of full-time piano teaching, and more than 20 years of teaching in general!
In a four-part series this month, we’re going to talk about marking time by acknowledging, reflecting on, and celebrating special teaching anniversaries/milestones.
In today’s post, I’ll share how I used social media to celebrate special moments and students of the past.
In the next post, you’ll hear from a teacher friend who really impacted me with her incredibly thoughtful ideas on this very topic (including a special commission) – you won’t want to miss it!
In the third post, I’ll share seven ways my teaching and studio have evolved over the past decade and encourage you to find new ways to continue evolving your own teaching and studios.
In the final and shortest post, I’ll reveal how I’m starting a new decade in my studio with new branding. That is, a new logo!
Whether you’re starting lessons up in the next week or two or at the beginning of September, now is the time to start gathering ideas for the beginning of the term and get your space in order.
A few years ago, after my friend Christina Whitlock told me how she avoids scheduling madness by doing only group classes in August, I’ve been doing it ever since! (Well, at least the first week or two.)
The first lesson of the year – whether private lessons or group classes – are a great time to focus your entire studio on learning to play Happy Birthday.
Today I’m excited to share with you a brand new product available in the Piano Pantry shop!
It’s a sequenced set of custom links to use with the Note Rush app.
This product was a result of wanting to give all my students well-sequenced, note-naming assignments to do at home each week that focused on small groups of notes at a time with lots of repetitions.
Rather than creating these assignments manually for every student every week, I sat down and designed an entire well-sequenced set all at once.
Teachers will find it especially useful when using it in conjunction with any kind of online assignment tools such as email, Google Docs, or Tonara (a software program for giving student assignments online.)
In this post, I’ll give a quick primer on Note Rush then show you how this product can be incredibly useful for you as a teacher!
P.S. Be sure and get the 15% discount code at the end of the post in celebration of the launch of the product.
Please note this product is not produced by or in conjunction with either Note Rush or Tonara and is of my own accord.
If you’re not recycling your batteries, maybe now is a good time to consider getting started. Check out Call2Recycle for places near you!
My husband and I keep a small plastic container in our cleaning closet that we throw old batteries in. Once that piles up, we take them into our local Lowe’s store who recycles them. Thank you, Lowe’s!
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My favorite cloth for cleaning my pianos (recommended by my piano tuner) is the Guardsman Cleaning Cloth.
It has a slightly sticky surface that grabs dirty but doesn’t leave a residue on your piano. Simply rinse the cloth and hang it to dry!
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One of my favorite MLT-practitioners and Ukulele Songbook creators, Robin Giebelhausen, has a Spotify profile with playlists of pieces in Duple Meter, Triple Meter, and all the “modes.” What a gem and fun way to start training your ear!
I have a lot of podcasts that I listen to – many of which I zip in and out of (basically, love it, but don’t feel the need to catch them all).
While The Next Right Thing has become one of those (and that’s OK!), her most recent episode, 185: Why Makers Struggle to Get things Done had me nodding my head in agreement and relief (that it was a thing) like a wild woman.
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I love Ashley’s podcast episode on having students make a short video reflection on why they make music. This would be a fun little project to do at your first group class of the year! (Ashley Danyew | Field Notes on Music Learning Episode 032)
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It doesn’t matter how many times I hear Marvin Blickenstaff, I always walk away feeling like teaching is a gem and he is my grandpa holding my hand along the way. (That’s a good thing, Marvin!) 🙂 It was no less so when I listened to his podcast episode with Ben Kapilow on the Nuts and Bolts of Piano Pedagogy.
My friend has been making this summer fruit salad at recent gatherings and oh my goodness, SO GOOD. The photo doesn’t show it but there are banana slices and they really add a nice creaminess. (All Recipes)
Joy has a giveaway going on of Wendy Chan’s Music Escapade products. You might know my luck, I ordered Wendy’s Grand Staff board just a week before Joy posted this giveaway. Darn! Oh well, one more chance for you! Enter before August 9.
This past week I went to my first in-person workshop since…well, who knows when. It feels like forever, right?!
It was a workshop at Sweetwater Sound in Fort Wayne with Melody Bober. She did a session on practice tips, a feature session on many of her books and resources, and a masterclass.
Today I wanted to quickly let you know some of the places I’ll be this upcoming school year.
The first is the MTNA National Conference which will be held in Minneapolis, Minnesota March 26-30, 2022.
I’ll be presenting a 20-minute “One-for-All” session called Reset and Refresh: Tidying Tips for Studio Teachers.
If your local or state group is still on the lookout for some unique and refreshing sessions, check out my speaking page. I only have one or two spots left for the 2021-2022 season!
It’s the end of the month which means I have a nice hefty list for you. Take what you need, leave the rest, and by all means, ignore it completely if you don’t have the bandwidth.
Otherwise, I hope you can find something that intrigues you, sparks your imagination, makes life easier, or even just brings a moment of joy.
Playlists are a fun little pastime for me so I was back at it again, creating a 4th of July one.
A disclaimer on the Independence Day playlist: it is not full of Patriotic marching band-type music but I will admit there might be some Country music involved (not normally my genre of choice). 🙂 Enjoy!
Eventually, I’m going to run out of playlist ideas. LOL.
I am absolutely loving the beautiful printable music posters that Joy shared recently. What a fun way to decorate your space! (Joy Morin | Color in My Piano)
While classic bate-click marketing, it’s a pretty good recommendation. Just to make it easier for you – the article says you should clean your dishwasher filter once a month.
Let me go further. I put a reminder on my calendar the last Friday of the month to do the following things:
Run the dishwasher through a cleaning cycle (apparently, I should also clean the filter).
Run the coffee maker through a cleaning cycle.
Give the kitchen sinks a good cleaning with Bar Keeper’s Friend. (Probably should do this more often but it can get away from you easily.)
Plunk a cleaning tablet (Lemi-Shine is my favorite) into the garbage disposals. (Yes, that was plural. I have two – one in my regular sink and one in my prep sink. #spoiled)
Wash all bedding (including mattress and pillow covers and blankets).
So, I went crazy when I saw Melody Payne also a whole series of this popular game. You can purchase them as a bundle or, as I did, just pick and choose which ones you want and purchase them individually.
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A studio teacher giving out a scholarship to a graduating senior? What a wonderful idea!
We eat a LOT of salads in the Summer. It’s so nice having a variety to choose from and really loved the take on the Burger Bowl. It kind of feels like a taco salad but tastes like a burger without the bun!
The latter set introduces 16th note patterns with 6 sets of color-coded patterns in a nice, progressive manner.
Download this set of flashcards from D’Layton here.
Free Reference Sheet
While I have always kept the sets bundled separately, I always find myself searching for which set to do first.
Today, I decided to take a few minutes to create a nice little reference sheet. It also makes it nice to see how the various patterns are introduced and then combined in a progressive manner.
Lauren is always a great resource for great repertoire finds!
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There’s a good chance with Summer being busy for many people and kids being out and about, preparation for a Summer recital may not happen as easily for all. Rosemarie over at the Unfinished Lesson has some tips for us:
Anyone else have students who love playing Billie Joel? One summer, one of my students requested “Rocket Man” and I must say, it was an excellent lesson in syncopation!
You’ll get my once-a-month “Secret Letter” which includes what’s been going on in my studio that month, books I’m reading, and more. You will also have the option to have new posts delivered to your inbox weekly.
Since the first day of Summer is just a little more than a week away and many of us are already on our “summer” schedule, let’s celebrate all things for this upcoming season.
Whether you gather ideas for your studio, permission to find ways to unplug and getaway, or
I hope you find a little something for yourself today.
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My favorite flip-flop is the Sanuk Yoga Spree. Every summer I buy one more pair. This year I went for the Summer Yellow. My arch’s never hurt when wearing these – even if I wear them ALL DAY!
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,
I’m really enjoying your posts, especially Friday Finds!
Regarding method books, my question is: what do you use after Piano Safari, level 3? Or do you design your own curriculum?
Many thanks, as always for your help.
Warmly,
-MJP
Hi, MJP!
As far as method books go, I am definitely a zigzagger. Rarely do I put a student in one method book series covering books 1-2-3 back-to-back.
Sometimes that works just fine and can certainly give the student a feeling of progress by “moving to the next level.”
I find many students, however, transition better through levels if I either supplement between each one for a few weeks (or months) or even cover the same “level” in two different book series. For example, I might have a student finish Piano Safari Level 1 and then do Piano Adventures Level 1 before moving into Piano Safari Level 2.
One thing to keep in mind is that (with the Piano Adventures series in particular), I’m not one to give students both the Lesson and Performance books. I usually just do one or the other, especially if I’m weaving it between levels of another series.
In answering your more specific question on what I would do after Piano Safari 3, I often go to Piano Adventures 3B or into a repertoire series such as Celebration Series Repertoire Level 2.
(The authors of Piano Safari say that book 3 transitions nicely into Celebration Series Repertoire Level 3 but I always find doing a little in C.S. book 2 first a nice transition.)
Piano Safari 3 covers Major and Minor keys and technical skills in the keys of C/Am, G/Em, and F/Dm. Piano Adventures 3B focus on the minor keys only.
Here’s an example scenario.
Piano Safari 2 (5-finger patterns)
Piano Adventures 2B (Chords)
Piano Adventures 3A (One-Octave major scales/keys of C, G, F)
Piano Safari 3 (Two-Octave scales/keys of C/Am, G/Em, F/Dm)
Piano Adventures 3B (Two-Octave scales/keys of Am, Em, Dm)
This may be a little excessive example overlapping however, something like this might work for a student who is professing a little slower. Also, as I said previously, keep in mind this would just include one book in the P.A. series (such as a lesson or performance)
I hope this gives you some ideas. Good luck!
~Amy
Reader friends, do you have any suggestions?
MJP and I would love to hear where you take your students when they finish Piano Safari Level 3. Please share in the comments!
