Is you Inbox overloaded with emails titled “Person/company name’s response to COVID-19″?
Are you feeling a little bit like you’re in the Twilight Zone?
Do you just want to make it all go away and get back to normal?
Is one side of you glad to know that “we’re all in this together,” and another part of you tired of hearing the phrase already?
Yeah, me too.
Strong Declarations
Over the past week as posts on Facebook have ramped up regarding online lessons, we’re seeing success, generosity, and encouragement, but also escalating anxiety and even negativity.
Several posts popped up of people expressing their frustration with online lessons and in the heat of those frustrations, they declared them to be “worthless.”
I’m guessing there’s a good chance one side of you is sick and tired of hearing about all of this and another side is wanting to stay abreast of the news.
I do hope if anything, we all continue to do our part no matter how big or small that may seem. Stay informed, make good decisions, keep calm, and enjoy the sense of community in all of this as we all live through a (likely and hopefully) once-in-a-lifetime type of pandemic.
Let’s use the new season as an opportunity to a deep breath of fresh Spring air and look at all we can in a positive light.
#1
Sweet!
If you’re a member of Music Teacher’s National Association, you’re about to be in for a big treat! The 2020 conference in Chicago that was supposed to go on next starting tomorrow is going to be made available online FREE to all members online over the coming weeks!
#2
Well, that was easy!
When it comes to going online, I agree with Joy about keeping it simple. Facetime is my #1 platform and Zoom my #2. Make sure you have either a copy of their book or screenshots you can view of their music.
#3
Preach
From Seth Godin:
“You have a chance to reinvent the default, to make it better. Or we can maintain the status quo. Which way will you contribute?
Rather than doing what we’ve always done in real-life (but online, and not as well), what if we did something better instead?”
One of my teacher-friends who used to live in Indiana moved a few years ago and took her studio with her – online! She’s been sharing a lot of great tips for online teaching via Facebook groups. You may have already caught some of her videos but if not, here is a link to Melissa Willis’s YouTube Channel.
“They jet off to Fiji with Harry and Meghan, hike the Himalayas with William and Kate, and hit the South of France with Charles and Camilla. But the life of the royal correspondent isn’t all glamour…”
How can this video series help make your life easier over the coming weeks?
The videos have been leveled into four sets based on the rough/general order in which concepts are introduced in most piano methods.
You can quickly and easily access videos that help reinforce new concepts your students may be learning. Here are a few examples of videos in each set:
Set 1
Key names and the music alphabet
How to draw the treble and bass clef
Landmark notes
Set 2
Skips alphabet on the staff
Sharps, flats, and naturals
How to build major and minor triads
Set 3
AB and ABA Form
Chord inversions
Circle of fifths
Set 4
Scale degree names
Augmented intervals
Double sharps and flats
Before, during, or after your online lesson, grab the link and text or email it to students/parents. (If you use a program such as Tonara, simply attach a link to the video in a theory lesson assignment. Easy!)
Should these videos replace a lesson? No!
Are they an easy and fun way to provide additional e-learning to your students? Yes!
Here’s a screenshot showing a few videos that are included in the series:
Tracking Sheet
If you’re interested in having a way to keep track of what videos you’ve assigned to each student, find the 3-page guide that accompanies this series in the Shop or add it to your shopping cart now.
P.S. All music labs are studio licenses, so you can print it as much as you need for your students.
Related Resources
If you’re interested in more resources like this, there are four more video series available you can access through the Menu > Resources.
Several of these – including the music theory videos mentioned in today’s post – can be used as part of an off-bench lab time at your studio or given as assignments online utilizing a digital assignment tool.
Hopefully, we’ll all look back someday and sigh a breath of relief that precautions were taken and that COVID-19 didn’t get out of control.
For just this moment, let’s close our eyes, take a deep breath and rest in a few good things as we end this week.
1
If you’re not already having students wash their hands before their lesson and wiping down the keyboard between students, now is the time. It certainly can’t hurt anything and is a good practice regardless of what germs are circulating our globe.
A well-written letter from a piano teacher to his studio families setting them up for the potential option of online lessons in future weeks if they so choose. (Daniel Light | Light Piano Studio)
Coronavirus and Piano Lessons (Dr. Sally Cathcart | The Curious Piano Teachers)
2
It’s taken years, but I’ve finally been experimenting with Irina Gorin’s “Tales of a Musical Journey” piano method this year. I’ve been pleased so far. If you’re interested in more training with Irina, you may want to first read Joy Morin’s review of Irina’s online course. (Joy Morin | Color in My Piano)
3
Thanks to the “This Old House” magazine that still makes it to our mailbox, I found a good source for recycling batteries! Check out the website Call2Recycle.com to find local places near you.
Unfortunately, while many Lowe’s stores do, ours only takes rechargeable batteries. Luckily I discovered from a friend a hardware store that will take them. Do some research and ask around!
Calling all Trader Joe’s Fans! Did you know they have a podcast? Inside Trader Joe’s
Are you lucky enough to have a Trader Joe’s near you? I’ve been hoping for one to come to Fort Wayne (40-minute drive). The closest one currently is in Indianapolis (90-minute drive) so I only get to go twice a year.
News broke that one may be coming our way! Yea for us!
Please note that items in the post may link to Amazon and that Piano Pantry is a participant in the Amazon Associates Program. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Simply put, being an associate allows me to make a small percentage from Amazon on items to which I link at no extra cost to you.
To incentivize or not to incentivize. That is the question.
(Or maybe you’re simply wondering at the moment whether or not “incentivize” is actually a word? It is, by the way. 🙂 )
Do you struggle with implementing an incentive program?
Is it because you’re torn between the philosophy of extrinsic versus intrinsic motivation, or is it because it’s a struggle to be consistent in implementing something? (Or maybe a little of both?)
While plenty of research supports both sides of this age-old question of extrinsic versus intrinsic motivation, today I’ll be sharing my journey with (and support of) implementing incentives. Specifically:
Why I struggled for years with implementing incentive programs.
Four things I found an incentive program (and I) needed for long-term success.
How others in the field helped inspire and develop my own philosophy regarding extrinsic rewards along the way.
How short-term rewards can turn into long-term joy, including a specific example from my studio.
In a later post, I’ll describe the incentive program I’ve been using successfully for several years and provide a list of popular prize box items.
It’s a new month and a new Friday Finds color! Just for fun, I was looking up what holidays there were in March (beside St. Patrick’s Day). Apparently there’s a lot! Today alone is:
National Day of Unplugging
National Dentist’s Day
National Dress Day
National Oreo Cookie Day (the best one of all, of course!)
No wonder we’re all so stressed. How are we supposed to do anything and celebrate four “national holidays.” LOL.
The last one has me wondering…what’s your favorite kind of Oreo?
Original? Double Stuf? (Yes, it’s spelled with 1 “f”) Mint? White cookie? Holiday? Or maybe you don’t like them at all? Continue the conversation in the comments! (I’ll tell you mine at the end of the post. See if you can guess…
1
If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen that this week I finally put out a sign asking students to go wash their hands before their lesson. It’s something I’ve been meaning to do for years but never put it into action. Now seemed appropriate.
Coronavirus and Piano Lessons (Dr. Sally Cathcart | The Curious Piano Teachers)
2
Many of you may have been following our dear colleague Leila Viss’s journey with her son’s boating accident since Thanksgiving. Not surprisingly, she put her journey to music in a piano solo: Angel 94.
3
Do you sponsor a child with Compassion, World Vision or perhaps through another agency? Do you know someone who has been a sponsored child? This is a heart-touching story of how a mailman who was formally sponsored through Compassion encourages other sponsors during his day-to-day work life. (Compassion)
4
We’re still slowly unpacking boxes from the move into our new house. The boxes were in our garage and barn. This week I unpacked all the books and sorted them. This article on minimalism and books is helpful when you have a lot! I’m celebrating the fact that I got rid of five books. It’s a start!
This week has been an off-week for cooking. Every night I’ve been super tired. Monday was all good – I did manage a healthy soup lunch and an easy casserole for dinner.
Pasta e Ceci (Italian Pasta and Chickpeas) – The New York Times
This morning I tackled one of those tasks that for years I’ve known needed to be done but it was never urgent nor really important.
Yeah, you know the kind of task I’m talking about. Stephen Covey would say that type of task should be forgotten because it’s not important or urgent, but it got out of control so it finally became important.
I cleaned up my contacts!
Google is my thing. I love Google Drive, Gmail, and Google Photos. I started using Google Contacts a little a few years ago, mostly to create a studio email list but was hesitant to take the time to mess moving entirely to it which would include merging iCloud contacts, yadda, yadda, yadda. I just didn’t want to think about it even though I was probably making it harder in my mind than it was.
The clean-up included:
Importing all my iCloud contacts into Google Contacts.
Deleting those contacts out of iCloud and making sure I had “contacts” turned off in my iCloud and turned on through my Google account on my phone.
Letting Google Contacts help me go through the automated process of merging any duplicate contacts.
Deleting old contacts such as students from 12 years ago when I taught in another location, people who have passed away, and even some contacts I couldn’t even remember who they were…Eek!
There were 1,150 contacts when I started and 450 when I finished. That’s a 60% reduction! Wow. I feel lighter.
1
Our oven will be baking Sheet Pan Gnocchi with Sausage and Peppers (Sheela Prakash | The Kitchn) for dinner tonight. It sounds like a quick, easy, and tasty meal. Fingers crossed!
2
If you live within a couple of hour drive of Indianapolis, Irina Gorin is giving a free workshop on March 17th, 2020 from 10am-2:30 pm with a short lunch break (bring it yourself) at Piano Solutions.
It’s kind of weird how being sick for two days can make you feel crazy-alive when you do feel better.
Today it may only be 25 degrees (Fahrenheit) outside, but I feel like Spring is in the air. My cold is subsiding, the annoying dry cough is letting up, my hoarse voice is slowly coming back, and I decided to wear flip-flops around the house today.
Maybe it’s the fact that I’m in the midst of planning and finalizing an Alaska vacation for July (our first big vacation in six years) or because I’m planning a short Spring-break getaway to Asheville, North Carolina and Biltmore Estates (sorry MTNA Chicago, I’ll miss you this year!), or maybe I just got enough sleep last night (ha!), I don’t know!
Today I feel alive and awake and I hope that I can transfer some of that to you. It’s the end of the week and sometimes that brings fatigue and sometimes it brings energy. May this week’s list and these words spark a spring in your step, if even for a moment.
1
Learning how to preserve joy in the same way we preserve food. The Art of Preserving (Gina Sutphin | The Rabbit Room)
2
The first day of spring may be exactly a month away, but the stores are already full of bright spring things.
These storage bags are wonderful (Amazon). I bought them with the intent to store square outdoor furniture cushions and they fit perfectly. They would be great storage for lots of other things as well!
We’re about 3/4 of the way through the school year. In the next month or so we may start experiencing some sluggishness not only in our students but in ourselves as well. As the end of the school year becomes busy, we can become tired and perhaps more easily frustrated.
Remembering how difficult it really is to play one’s instrument might be a pretty great empathy hack when we’re struggling with patience.
P.S. By the end of writing this post, my toes have been in flip-flops for 4 hours this morning and they now remember that it is still winter. Grr. Four more weeks.
Being known as an organized person means I frequently get asked what some of my favorite tools and resources I use on a day-to-day basis. If you’ve been around Piano Pantry long enough, you already know my #1 is by far Evernote.
When we talk about “tools,” though, we use daily a wide gamut whether it’s for organizing music, social media, our schedule, resources, etc. Today, I want to highlight four digital tools that help me stay organized that in 2020, I would now find it very hard to live without.
Evernote. The easiest way to describe Evernote is that it’s a digital filing cabinet where you can save multiple types of content formats in one location: documents, URL links, clips from YouTube, selections from internet pages, PDF files, and more. Highly useful for both our teaching and personal lives!
Feedly. Using an RSS Reader is, in my opinion, the only way to properly manage content in today’s world. An RSS Reader is like a personalized digital newspaper. You tell it the website you want to follow and it will stream all the newsfeeds into one location so you can keep up on new content in one place.
Grammarly. My English teacher and writing sidekick. With Grammarly Premium, you not only get the basic critical grammar and spell-check errors, but you also get instant feedback on over 400 advanced grammar rules. Microsoft Word spell-check can’t even touch the capability of this program.
LastPass. I couldn’t manage all my accounts and passwords properly without Last Pass in this day and age. Your life will be made easier (and more secure).
It hit me this week. For two days all I did was sleep.
Luckily this week was a group class week rather than a regular lesson schedule week – which always seems easier to make up. My policy is that if I cancel, I will do my best to make-up but there are no guarantees and I can cancel one lesson during the year without making it up.
Luckily we’re talking head-cold here, not the flu so my best friend has been DayQuil and Kleenex.
The “Omakase berry,” grown at an indoor farm in Jersey, is popping up at Michelin-starred restaurants like Sushi Ginza Onodera and Atomix (Eater New York)
Kitchn writer Elizabeth Licata wrote an article on how she 
