Friday Finds #272: MTNA 2024 Conference News

March 29, 2024
by Amy
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Welcome to a special edition of Friday Finds! I thought it would be fun to follow the 2024 Music Teacher National Conference in Atlanta with a list of announcements, favorite new products, and special features. (Thanks to all the teacher friends who sent me items to add to the list! You know who you are! 🙂

Let me know in the comments which item(s) you are most excited about!

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Announcing: The new CEO of Music Teachers National Association

Effective July 1, 2024, Brian Shepard has been named MTNA’s new CEO. Shepard began his career at MTNA in 2003 as the Director of Marketing and Public Relations. In 2008, he was promoted to Chief Operating Officer.

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Announcing: Faber’s Piano Adventures Exams.

There will be a free webinar on Tuesday, April 23, @ 1:00 pm EDT for those who want to “get an overview of the exam requirements, explore fun ways to prepare, and learn how to get started.

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27 of Amy’s Favorites on Sale

March 22, 2024
by Amy
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Amazon is running its Spring Sale from March 20 – 25, 2024.

I did some leg work for you and compiled all items from my favorites lists that are currently on sale (there were 27!).

Categories include:

  • Studio Organization – 4 sale items
  • Teaching Tools & Gadgets – 4 sale items
  • Personal “Life” Products – 7 sale items
  • Kitchen Gadgets – 12 sale items

Enjoy!

Studio Organization

Plastic Organizer Bins

36% OFF

Acrylic Magazine Rack

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Friday Finds #270

February 23, 2024
by Amy
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Registration is now open for the two-day workshop Organize Your Life With Notion (Amy Chaplin & Joy Morin)

 

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This a delightfully light and flavorful egg salad recipe for you to try this week. I love the swap of avocado and cottage cheese for what would traditionally be mayonnaise, and the small amount of corn and dried tomatoes gave it a nice twist!

My husband and I, though, have to eat our egg salad on some good sturdy wheat crackers. The lettuce bed doesn’t bring joy to our palette. 🙂

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Registration Open! Organize Your Life With Notion

February 12, 2024
by Amy
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I’m excited to announce that registration is now open for Organize Your Life With Notion, a 2-day online workshop with Joy Morin and myself!

If you’re tired of having your life scattered across multiple websites and productivity apps and would love to see everything you manage on one beautiful dashboard, this workshop is for you!

My friend Joy Morin of ColorinMyPiano.com and I have both been using Notion (an awesome productivity and note-taking app) for several years now and aren’t exaggerating when we say it has changed our lives.

We’ve become pretty passionate about all the ways we’ve utilized Notion to make our lives easier as independent teachers and now are teaming up to offer this special live shop to pass along these methods.

In this 2-day live event, we will help you build a custom, personalized digital workspace in Notion and, in turn, revolutionize the way you work in 2024. (Replays will be available for 6-months.)

You’ll get access to a starter pack of Notion page templates built by us, including things like a prospective student inquiries tracker, student curriculum notes, a studio communication calendar, a tax preparation checklist, and more.

For more details and to register, visit this link.

If you would like to hear a little more from us on how Notion has impacted the way we work, join us for a Live Chat on Instagram on Monday, February 19 @ 1:15 pm Eastern.

Find us on Instagram @pianopantryamy and @joymorinpiano.

P.S. If you would like to hear a little more on how I use Notion, check out these podcast episodes:

The Piano Pantry Podcast Episode 105 – Evernote vs. Notion

The Piano Pantry Podcast Episode 109 – Joy & Amy: Ways We Used Notion This Week

Friday Finds #269

January 26, 2024
by Amy
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OK, I have THREE things relating to actress Jennifer Garner to start us off on this week’s list:

(1) Her movie “Family Switch” on Netflix is really fun and totally worth a watch.

(2) I absolutely love following her @Jennifer.Garner on Instagram – she is so fun!

(3) She interviewed Adam Grant on his podcast ReThinking about his new book Hidden Potential. It is AWESOME. It was such a humorous conversation to listen to!

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An Introduction to Notion – A Customizable Digital Workspace to Organize Everything In Your Life (Joy Morin)

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Google Podcasts is going away in March, but don’t worry, there are plenty of good alternatives! My favorite app for listening is the Overcast app.

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CSV File for Expressive Movement Videos

January 22, 2024
by Amy
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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.

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Promote Active Listening with these Visual Listening Cards

January 16, 2024
by Amy
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Years ago, one of my go-to sites for games and activities was Jennifer Fink’s Pianimation. Unfortunately, the site is now closed, but I continue to use several of her resources, including a set of “Listening Race Cards.”

I’ve used these visual listening cards for years but always felt a few elements were lacking in the original set that I wanted to include – such as the terms Duple vs. Triple when talking about a meter and more generalized terms, such as loud vs. soft and separated vs. connected for my very beginners.

Thanks to her inspiration, I finally decided to make my own set of visual listening cards.

These cards are a fun way to help students actively listen to music—especially during group or performance class time. Here’s a photo of some of my students using them (although in this photo, it’s Jennifer’s original set with a couple of additions I had made, so it’s not this exact set I’m sharing with you today).

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Save the Date! Organize Your Life With Notion

January 15, 2024
by Amy
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Hey, teacher friends!

Today, I’m excited to announce, along with my friend and colleague, Joy Morin of the Color in My Piano Blog, a big event we’ll be hosting in March.

Many of you have come to know and trust me regarding all things workflow, digital organization, and productivity. You’ve seen me blog a lot in the past about using Evernote as an independent teacher and seen the growth of the digital coaching series and retreat.

Joy is known in our circle as an advocate for excellence in piano teaching from many angles and has supported teachers as a blogger, speaker, and more for around 15 years.

Knowing the sucker I was for good organizational apps, in September 2021, Joy introduced me to Notion, a newer app that launched in June 2018.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that it rocked my world!

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Friday Finds #268

December 1, 2023
by Amy
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Do you still need to put together your holiday recital program? Check out this really cool “vintage” one from Wendy Stevens at Compose Create!

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I’m not a huge ginger fan, but I do use it a lot more in the winter for Hot Toddies and such. Even though using the back of a spoon makes it easier, it’s still a bit of a pain. I finally decided to quickly research if it was even needed and found it’s not!

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