Hello, friends! I just wanted to share an update I made to the repertoire tracking sheet I first shared last year.
You can read more about my thought process behind building this personalized repertoire tracking sheet in the blog post: Tracking Student Repertoire (A Free Download)
Here’s what the original sheet looks like (which is still available via the original blog post).
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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Do you keep track of the pieces your students learn? I’ve done it for as long as I can remember, although I can’t recall what made me get started. There are two reasons one might consider tracking student repertoire.
(1) As time passes, it can be easy to forget the work that students have done. Writing down pieces makes it easy to look back on those accomplishments.
(2) You might need to intentionally track pieces in order to meet specific goals or challenges (such as the 40-piece challenge.)
While this post is not necessarily about the 40-piece challenge, here’s just a brief background if you’re not familiar.
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Thanks to summer, I finally had a chance to sit down and put together a little creative project I’ve had on my mind for a while!
I’m always looking for fresh, uncluttered, and visually appealing images to use on my computer desktop background or wallpaper.
Years ago, one of the food websites I was following offered a new set each year. Unfortunately, she no longer does this and ever since I’ve never really put any effort into finding something new – I just rotate through her old ones along with a few others.
If you’re interested, she has a live set you can still get your hands on. Visit the blog post: Free Backgrounds for Food Enthusiasts from Chocolate and Zucchini.
Back in those days I would have had no idea how to create my own but it occurred to me last year I could easily do so with Canva (which I swear I use almost every day! LOL).
So, I’ve created a set of 12 images featuring 12 of my favorite quotes (one for each month of the year – which is about how often I try to rotate). I tried using a combination of both educational quotes, life quotes, and productivity quotes. I hope you find the choices well-balanced and inspiring.
My goal was to keep it simple and visually appealing. I think the Piano Pantry dark blue color looks amazing as a desktop background and makes for a really sleek and clean feel.
Here is a slideshow preview. Click on the arrows on the bottom left or hoover along the right or left sides to go forward or back.
When coaching teachers on digital organization, it’s always my recommendation to keep your desktop free of shortcuts and to use your taskbar to pin quick links to your most used programs. This allows your screen to be clutter-free and more aesthetically pleasing.
For any links you do keep on the desktop background, try and relegate them to the side as much as possible. As you scroll through the images you will notice I tried to keep the quotes especially free of the left margin which is my preferred location for anything on the desktop.
Sign up here to get the download delivered to your inbox. It will send you a link and when you click on the link, you will receive access to a ZIP file. From there you will want to download the file to your computer and extract the file. Be sure to save it in a location you will remember to access.
*By submitting this form, you acknowledge that you’re signing up for my email list and agree to receive regular communication (generally once a week).
While I think it’s fun to change my desktop background each month, I would never remember if it didn’t place a recurring reminder/task in my calendar. For more tips like this, listen in on episode #006 of The Piano Pantry Podcast – Tasks: They’re Not All Created Equal
Enjoy!
If you would like to see more of these in the future, let me know in the comments!
Recently, I shared a couple of blog posts related to building a lending library in your studio of music-themed children’s books and comics.
After purchasing a few more books from some of your recommendations, I noticed I had quite a few books that had suggested listening lists in the back of the book. Thus was born the idea to create listening playlists to accompany some of these books!
I’ve been using Spotify for years to create playlists of my own. It’s a wonderful place to create public playlists anyone can listen to.
In this post, I will share brief synopses of each of these 9 books as well as the direct link to each playlist.
For quick access to them all in one location, simply click on the link to my public playlists.
As a bonus, as a way of sharing these playlists with your students, I’ve created a free printable of bookmarks you can print on heavy paper or cardstock and stick inside each book when it’s checked out.
This will be an easy way to give parents the link to listen to these playlists at home when reading these books with their children.
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One of the most downloaded free resources here on Piano Pantry is 147 Tunes to Harmonize: Traditional, Popular, and Christmas.
Due to the popularity of this download as well as the recent release of my new book Christmas by Ear: 8 Tunes to Harmonize, I thought now was a perfect time to share with you a FREE handy quick reference guide of Christmas tunes to harmonize!
Each of the 20 tunes included are well-known traditional ones that are in the public domain.
Often, students are happy to play only a portion of a favorite tune. While many Christmas tunes have a little more complicated harmonizations, sometimes the opening portion or the chords are more simplified. For this reason, a few are listed twice.
For example, you can harmonize the open two phrases of Deck the Halls using only tonic and dominant. Many’s students might get a kick out of being able to play even a few phrases of favorite tunes by ear without having to learn the whole thing!
Here are a couple of quick ideas on how you could use it:
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I’ve used and loved a set of “flashcard” patterns created by D’Net Layton over at Layton Music for several years now.
There are two sets:
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.
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.
As we move into the Spring festival and recital season, consider taking time to talk to your students about good performance practices.
It’s easy to get tied up working on students’ skills with their repertoire and forget that there’s much more to it when it comes time for them to actually perform their music!
I sometimes find myself forgetting that students don’t just automatically KNOW these things, we have to take time to talk to them about (and practice) things like…
This free download includes TWO CHECKLISTS:
The first is a “Piano Performance Checklist”. This page is great to use with students either individually or during a group performance class. It’s not an adjudication sheet, just a nice list of things that make up a solid performance.
The second is a list of helpful points for students to remember “The Day-of Your Piano Performance.”
I’m sure there are a whole plethora of other items that could be added to each but the goal was to keep it fairly concise and keep it to one page each. You don’t want to overwhelm students with TOO many do’s and don’ts.
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Every year at our Spring Recital, students are given a “Music Study Award” celebrating the milestones of their years of study and dedication to ongoing music lessons.
Made available by MTNA, (only members have access to this award), they have a free certificate available for download signed by the current MTNA President and the Executive Director/C.E.O.
For more details on how to find the award on the MTNA website, see this post: Studio Awards Policies and Procedures.
There is space for the teacher to fill in the student name, years of music study, and for the teacher’s signature and date given.
This form is usually fillable but for some reason this year it is not.
I have terrible handwriting and while it’s one thing to sign my name and write the date, it’s another to write out the student’s name and years of study and make it look nice.
So, I created a printable template I’m sharing with you today for free.
4/27/2021 Update: Thanks to fellow colleague/reader Jan Fulford for pointing out to me that her fillable form WAS working. We contacted MTNA and found out it was flux and it was supposed to be fillable. It has been fixed now so YEA!
I’m going to leave this template available anyway just in case since I’ve already put the work into it.
First, you will want to print the certificate.
P.S. If you are using a certificate paper that has a large border on it, you will need to scale down the print area. Here’s a 2-minute tutorial to show you how.
Next, return the printed page to the printer tray (be sure and put it in the correct direction).
Then, print the template on top of it. (You will, of course, have written in the student’s name and years of study. 🙂 )
P.S.S. If you had to scale your document based on the type of certificate paper you’re using as per above, remember to scale the template as well. 🙂
It’s a little tedious because you have to do it one by one for each student, but it is a project that can be knocked out quickly with a good rhythm.
I would print as many awards as you need then put the full stack in your printer and print the names out one by one.
The template is available in Google Docs.
The document is viewable only which means you cannot edit it. In order to edit the document for your own use, you will need to either download it or copy it onto your Google Drive. Here’s how:
Click on the image below to enlarge it.
Recently, I went through a big overhaul of the annual One-Minute Club Note-Naming Challenge we do in my studio including an update to the levels as well as putting together a new display/tracking board. I updated the original post to show you some of these most recent updates (including photos!). It also contains all the details you need to get it started in your own studio.
Part of my big update was moving to a leveling system based more on a landmark approach to teaching note names rather than the skips-alphabet approach.
While I find the skips alphabet approach to be a really useful way to help students understand how the grand staff comes together, I personally found my students spending too much time counting up the staff to find the notes and struggling to name them quickly.
The landmark approach highlights 12 “guide notes” if you will that outline the mirror-like relationship of the grand staff. I especially love how it makes sense with the location of the Bass Clef (or “F” Clef) and the Treble Clef (or “G” Clef).
Rather than students learning individual pitches, they recognize the pattern of the entire grand staff in relation to the piano and from there simply go up or down a step or skip to find the notes surrounding the landmarks.
In the process of all my updates, I created a beautiful visual aid with three different pages to help students see all of the landmarks in a variety of patterns together. Print it off and laminate one copy to use in all your lessons or print off copies for each of your students.
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Original Post on this annual challenge:
The One-Minute Club Goes Virtual!
Do you teach online?
You might be interested in this follow-up post:
The One-Minute Club Goes Virtual!
