Friday Finds #68: A Musical Highway and Brain Surgery

 

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Absolutely fascinating. This Music Teacher Played His Saxophone While In Brain Surgery.

 

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A great organizational tip from Jennifer Foxx on organizing your iPad.

 

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PepperMate. My pepper grinder of choice for years now. I love how the removable clear bottom cup conveniently catches fresh pepper grinds which allow you easily to grid and measure for recipes. It’s also Ina Garten’s pepper grinder of choice! (We’re tight, me and Ina 😉

 

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Using Bullet Journaling in your studio.The View From My Studio

 

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11 Ways to Involve Parents in Lessons.

 

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7 Self-Care Rituals That Take 15 Minutes or Less.

 

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A musical highway. This is SO on my bucket list. Has anyone been? Too bad I didn’t know about this when I went to my first MTNA Conference (2010 was in Albuquerque!)

 

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Recipes that made it into our bellies the past couple of weeks included Mushroom Casserole, Roasted Root Vegetable, Feta, Spinach Salad, and a simple pulled pork. (Note: for the pork, I find 8-12 oz. rather than the 32 oz. of stock is plenty, you can also skip the BBQ sauce recipe and use store-bought or keep it really simple – none at all).

 

Retreat at Piano Manor: Food, Photos, and Recipes

Several weeks ago, I was lucky to get to participate in playing hostess to a wonderful group of piano teachers during Joy Morin’s Piano Teacher Retreat, “Retreat at Piano Manor, where I got to play the role of foodie/caterer!

I thought it would be fun to share the weekend with you from my perspective including meals and recipes I used (links to those available online).

Keepin’ it Healthy

Knowing that we had a gluten-free guest, I decided it was easier to keep that in mind for the whole shebang. Needless to say, I think we ate pretty healthy! Now THAT’S the kind of grocery cart I could aspire to every week. Color and real food.

(Two) Breakfasts Included

Blueberry Baked Oatmeal

Raspberry Orange Almond Muffins with Sprouted  Wheat Flour

Maple Candied Bacon

Honey Vanilla Yogurt

Fresh fruit

Scrambled eggs

Unfortunately, I missed getting photos of my breakfast tables!

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Descriptive and Imaginative: A review of music by Lynette Sawatsky

Today, I want to share with you a review of the music of Canadian teacher, composer, and adjudicator Lynette Sawatsky. She has quite a few collections available, but I’ll focus on Seasons Change and Once Upon a Time.

Once Upon a Time

One of the things I like most about the Once Upon a Time collection is Lynette’s attention to connecting the music to the imagination. She encourages the student to paint a picture in their mind of the piece and the story it is conveying.

For example, in the piece “Spicy Burrito,” she makes the connection between spicing up our snacks or mealtime with different flavors and textures and encouraging the student to customize the piece on the repeat by changing one or more RH quarter notes into double eighth notes in specific measures to “spice it up.”

The book includes 11 pieces that are perfect for captivating and encouraging students’ imaginations. I mean, how often do you see a piece with the title “Discombobulated Pigeon”? I would love to hear all the conversations regarding the story that piece is telling!

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Lesson Planning: A king-size master spreadsheet

When I started teaching piano full time, my biggest challenge was finding a method for lesson planning and tracking student progress and materials.

Eventually, as I started using Evernote more, the latter problem of tracking student progress and materials was quickly resolved. (See Evernote Part 1: Studio Management).

Lesson planning, however, took a lot of trial and error – as I think it does for many of us and is something that continues to evolve and change.

One thing I’ve learned about myself is I’m a very visual person. I don’t do well simply making a note or two here or there for items I need to remember for students’ next lesson. I need to see the big picture.

Finally, in 2014 I was inspired by an article in the September/October 2014 issue of Clavier Companion written by Arlene Steffen, Stephen Hughes, and Craig Sale called “Lesson Plans: A teaching essential?”

Thanks to their detailed article, my king-sized spreadsheet was born. 

Because a spreadsheet like this will be completely customized to your teaching style (and studio calendar), it doesn’t do me any good to give you a copy of mine. So, in this post, not only do I walk you through the details of what I include, but I’ve also created a video showing you how to create your version, including tips and tricks for using Excel like a pro!

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Friday Finds #65: Passwords and Pianos for People

 

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The 1 Percent Rule: Why a Few People Get Most of the Rewards | James Clear

 

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Students, did you know you can get 50% off a full year of Evernote Premium? I’m telling you, my life would have been changed if I had a program like Evernote through grad school for all the research and papers. Believe me, the Premium version is the best for students because you can search the text of pdf files, your own handwritten notes, Microsoft documents, and you can annotate on PDFs. It’s gold.

 

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If you want to hear a fabulous jazz/pop one-man band listen to Jacob Collier. His harmonic progressions and voicing are extremely innovative.  Gershwin Fascinating Rhythm (his piano playing occurs at 3:00 minutes).

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Catch Me If You Can: 2017-2018 Presenting Schedule

This year is going to be chock-full of opportunities for me to share with teachers at both the local, state, and national levels.

Let me know if you’ll be attending any of these and we can be sure and meet up. Feel free to contact me if you need details. I’m excited to connect with more of you in person and learn together!

I’ve also created a permanent page here on Piano Pantry listing all these upcoming events as well as my previous events and topics. Find it here.


Friday, September 8, 2017

Teaching the Way We Learn: Applications of Gordon’s Music Learning Theory for Piano Teachers (with co-presenter Joy Morin)

Location: Wood-Ottawa Counties MTA (Bowling Green, OH)


Friday, September 29, 2017

Teaching the Way We Learn: First Applications of Gordon’s Music Learning Theory (with co-presenter Joy Morin)

Evernote for the Independent Music Teacher (Lightning Talk)

Location: Indiana MTA state conference (Marion, IN)

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Friday Finds #64: Grit and Google Gadgetry

 

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Last week my first find was a James Clear article and this week is another. I just love his posts. They’re always well researched and thought out. The Paradox of Behavior Change.

 

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How Reading Old Books Gives Us New Perspective | Michael Hyatt. This is one of my goals this year  – to include re-reads in my reading list. C.S. Lewis is also known for encouraging the re-reading of books, stating something along the lines of:

I can’t imagine a man really enjoying a book and reading it only once… To me, re-reading my favorite books is like spending time with my best friends. I’d never be satisfied to limit myself to just one experience each with my favorite people.

The first book (and if we’re being honest, thus far the only book) I’ve re-read this year was Eat, Love, Pray by Elizabeth Gilbert.

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2017 GIML Conference (and two piano teachers in Chicago)

Following the 2017 NCKP Conference in Chicago, my travel buddy, Joy Morin and I had a few days to explore Chicago. It was great having a little brain break anyway!

I’m going to first share with you a little of our 3-day P.T. vacay followed by some of the great things I attended at the GIML (Gordon Institute for Music Learning) Conference. If you’re not familiar, the conference focuses on teaching inspired by Music Learning Theory (MLT).

Joy and I did a two-week training course in MLT and its practical application for piano in Boston, August 2016 so this was the perfect follow-up.

Chicago Food and Fun

In Laverne and Shirley style, we took to bikes and did the 10-mile (ish) lake shore bike track—we couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful day.

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