Happy Friday, everyone! Wow. It’s been quite a few weeks since the last Friday Finds post. I have a big stash ready to go, though, so you can look forward to one this week and next! Have a great weekend!
Recently, I discovered Canva has a desktop client! I’ve always loved using desktop apps for Evernote and Notion, so I’m curious to see if I’ll like using Canva more on my desktop or will stick with it on the web.
Piano Adventures by Randall and Nancy Faber has been a staple in the piano teaching community for a long time. The method books, supplementary PreTime to BigTime, and Developing Artist series are well-known and familiar to many teachers.
I feel like the solo sheets are less prominent, though, as it took me a few years into teaching before I realized they had Achievement Literature Sheets as part of the Developing Artist series.
It’s the same way with the Achievement Solo Sheets. I was familiar with a few but didn’t realize the full scope until recently browsing their website. There are more than 30 available (3-6 per level!)
While you can find all the Achievement Literature Sheets easily in the Developing Artist Piano Library, interestingly enough, there is no way on their website to easily see all of the Achievement Solo Sheets in one place. They’re not even listed where you might expect, which would be under the “Piano Books” segment with each level. The only way to find them is under “Quick Shop.” Let me show you quickly in this video:
The timing was important not only because I had been dreaming for several years about starting my own blog for piano teachers but because that was the conference where I first got to present at the national level. I wanted to be able to direct people to my own website!
As a thank you to all who follow Piano Pantry, you can get 20% off anything in the shop using the code 7YEARS at checkout, including Happy Birthday By Ear, Christmas By Ear, and more. The discount expires on March 24.
“When a Midwest dancer and a street-wise British musician meet in New York, they immediately clash, but there’s also an undeniable attraction. The two must navigate their differences for a competition that will change their lives forever.” (Amazon Prime description)
I’m excited to announce that registration is now open for the 2nd season of the Piano Pantry Retreat!
You might be surprised to hear this is the “2nd season” because I never announced the 1st season here on the blog! The reason is that the first year was a bit of an experiment. 🙂
Not only was hosting an in-home retreat something that’s not seen much (thanks to Joy Morin for being the first I know of!), but I was doing it alongside a personal productivity topic, not a piano pedagogy topic.
Unfortunately with the major website overhaul SheetMusicPlus just went through these lists are not shareable at this time.
I am leaving this blog post up in case that changes in the future with more site improvements and I can update this blog post.
Sorry for the inconvenience!
Since the closure of Primo Music in recent years, Sheet Music Plus has become my go-to site for purchasing music online. I’ve always had success finding music on the site and experienced good customer service.
While their discount (5% for two or more copies) is not as good as some sheet music sites like Primo have offered in the past, I can usually still get a discount either through MTNA or by using my Capital One Shopping Extension on Chrome.
That being said, I don’t worry about that too much because sheet music is a tax write-off for the business, and purchasing music is how we keep our composers paid!
Sheet Music Plus has a feature I didn’t know about in the early days (or at least didn’t start utilizing fully) until recently. That is, you can create your own “music lists.”
To save a book to a music list or create a new one, hover over ” Save to Music List” below the “Add to Cart” button.
(Be careful – clicking “Save to Music List” will just save the item to your “Default List.” You have to HOVER and then click on the list you want to save it to. Otherwise, you can select “Create New Music List.”)
To find your list on Sheet Music Plus, go to “My Account > Music Lists”
There are three scenarios in which I think using this feature would be useful.
(1) You want to have an easy way to save your favorite books without keeping a repertoire database of some kind.
(2) If you opt to have your studio families purchase books, you could keep a list of all your studio’s frequently used books so you can quickly reference and send links (the same could be done on Amazon as well!)
(3) You want an easy way to share repertoire lists with others (like me!). I honestly keep the lists mostly for my own record, but it’s a nice bonus that sharing the list with you is so easy!
My lists aren’t exhaustive, and I try to update them when possible, but they have a good start.
“Effective January 1, 2023, the FJH catalog will be exclusively distributed by Alfred Music in both print and digital forms. In addition, FJH’s educational catalogs will be exclusively available for interactive practice on MakeMusic Cloud, formerly SmartMusic, the reference online platform for music practice from MakeMusic.”
I couldn’t resist squeezing in one more goodies post before the end of 2022! I mean, who could let it sit at #254? LOL. Plus, I had a lot of Christmas fun to share with you, including a list of items I’m in charge of making for our various holiday gatherings. Let’s start there!
We always provide a tray of venison summer sausage and crackers for both family gatherings. This soft cheese spread will make a nice addition to the mix. I prefer about half the amount of green onion. You could even substitute with a 1/2 t. or so of dry onion powder.
When my brother texted my mom and me with who should bring what for our Christmas Day meal, my list included dessert and “Adam’s favorite salad.” I knew exactly what he meant!
As 2022 comes to a close, I just wanted to say a big THANK YOU to all of you for being here. It’s a joy and a privilege to share with you all through this blog, podcast, and social media.
This time of year, it’s always fun to peek back at what the year brought us before being present for the holidays and looking forward to the year ahead.
While the Piano Pantry Blog was a little quieter this year due to the launch of the weekly podcast, I still managed to share with you through the written word in 22 posts (now 23) and 13 Friday Finds. Included in that mix, we hit #250 in the Friday series, where many of you chimed in with YOUR favorites. Launching at the start of January 2022, the podcast hit a nice round #50 (which makes this Enneagram 3 very happy! LOL).
This post will highlight the top five blog posts and top five podcast episodes from this past year. Honestly, it’s hard to say how 100% accurate the stats are because posts that occurred earlier in the year have had more time to get more views, etc., and with podcasts, it can be hard to get clear and accurate stats between all the platforms.
