Rhythm Trees in Duple and Triple Meters

March 24, 2025
by Amy
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Today I’m excited to share the first of three rhythm resources I’ll be publishing in the coming days: Rhythm Trees in Duple and Triple Meters.

Next will be “Music Notation Parts: Cards and Cutouts” and the final a huge set of rhythm cards for building rhythm patterns.

I’ve been using all three resources in various forms in my studio for several years and am finally ready to share them with you!

While I believe this resource will be valuable for any teacher – regardless of your approach to teaching rhythm – I’d like to take a moment to share what inspired it, so you know where I’m coming from.

The Inspiration Behind This Resource

Over the past 10 years or so, I’ve studied the work of Dr. Edwin E. Gordon, whose research led to what we now know as Music Learning Theory (MLT). My biggest takeaway—and the easiest aspect I think most teachers can apply—is his approach to teaching rhythm.

MLT practitioners begin with how music is heard and felt, not how it’s read. Dr. Gordon coined the term audiation, which refers to hearing music in our minds with understanding and meaning (not just recalling it like pressing a play button). Audiation is being able to describe or give language to what we hear. MLT has given me the verbal tools to talk with students more clearly about what we hear in music.

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A Better Option: My Move Out of Evernote and Into Notion

January 3, 2025
by Amy
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We’re three days into 2025, and if there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that a lot can change in one year in the world of technology.

One year ago, I was sharing with you on the podcast how I had moved 80% of what I do into Notion but left 10% in Evernote. Mostly, I kept ahold of Evernote for articles and reference items I didn’t access much but didn’t want to let go of. I got tired of Evernote bugging me to upgrade, so several months ago, I finally exported the rest of my content from Evernote and into Notion.

Fast forward 12 months, and now, 90% of my life is organized in Notion. You may wonder, “What about the final 10%?” While we all have this fantasy of being able to do everything in one place, I just don’t think it’s realistic!

In this post, I’ll give you a little visual comparison of the difference between Evernote and Notion (two note-taking and productivity apps), share the process I went through for moving out of Evernote and into Notion, explain more of my reasoning behind the 10% that’s not in notion.

If you’re an Evernote user looking to move into Notion or just looking for a quality app for managing your studio and life, I hope you’ll walk away feeling inspired by what Notion can do for you.

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Beautiful Functional Furniture for Your Studio

July 14, 2024
by Amy
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As music teachers, our instruments are the most important piece of furniture in our studios (I love my Yamaha Grand!). However, a functional teaching space requires more than just our beloved instruments.

There are frequently used repertoire books to keep nearby, student files we may want to access daily, sightreading material, highlighters, tripods, pedal extenders, and more!

After five years in our new house, we finally finished my studio space this past January. Check out the finished product and get a full tour in this post: ➡️ Check out my Piano Studio.

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Check Out My Piano Studio!

July 5, 2024
by Amy
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Today is FINALLY the day you get to check out my piano studio – it’s tour time!

If you follow me on social media at all, you might have seen a few “in-progress” photos as we worked to finish the new studio space. It’s been six months since it’s been complete, and I’ve been dying to show you the end product!

Feel free to “snoop around” my piano studio at your leisure.

This is a phrase I state to any teacher who attends the Piano Pantry Digital Organization Retreat at my home in the summer months.

Why?

You know why! You LOVE seeing other teacher’s spaces!

In fact, I knew you loved it so much that I made sure it was the FIRST blog post I published in 2016. ➡️ Welcome to My Studio! (It wasn’t much of a “tour” but just a photo of my then-teaching space.)

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Friday Finds #274

May 3, 2024
by Amy
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1

Earlier this year, I splurged on something I’ve wanted to do for a long time: get a color consult. My wardrobe has been in need of attention for a few years now, and I wanted to approach it with a better process.

I hope to blog about this in more detail someday, but until then, if you’re interested, use THIS link or the discount code AMYCHAPLIN to get $20 OFF all products from Created Colorful, including consults, gifts, and the Love Your Closet Audio Course! (I am an affiliate, but purchasing through my link doesn’t cost you any extra.)

2

A new reporting requirement from the US Treasury Department went into effect in January. Andrea Miller’s podcast episode #139 on the Beneficial Ownership Information (BOI) Reporting Requirement was a great source of clarity on the subject.

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Join the New Piano Pantry Patreon Community!

September 22, 2023
by Amy
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It’s hard to believe the Piano Pantry blog has been active here on this crazy thing we call the web for almost eight years and the podcast for almost two.

If you’ve been hanging around here much at all, you likely know I love feeding people all kinds of good things (both literally and figuratively!), but, as you can imagine, it takes a lot of time and energy.

I decided it was time to take a leap and create a place for Piano Pantry fans to partner up and support the work that’s going on here.

Over on Patreon, you can choose between two levels of support:

For just $4 a month, you can become a Piano Pantry POWER Patron. Your silent partnership will help power the work that I do and will be your way of saying to me, “Thank you,” “Keep doing what you’re doing!” “I’m here for you!” even “Go buy a fancy coffee on me!”

If you want to throw a little support my way but would also love a little extra “Amy access,” you can become a Piano Pantry INSIDER for just $7 a month. My insiders will get support in one particular area in which I know most of you ALWAYS need a little extra help, and that’s with your email.

We will have a monthly Zoom power hour on the 3rd Wednesday of every month from 12:00-1:00 pm ET dedicated only to managing your email Inbox. Just a side note that October’s will be held the last Wednesday due to a pre-arranged vacation.

This means that you will get all my best email coaching tips as we work together to get a grip on a major pain point in our business each month.

Not only that, but we’ll have a special 30-60 minute BONUS session on Zoom once a quarter.

Each bonus session will be different – will be voted on by patrons, and could be anything from hearing one of my presentations normally only available to teacher groups to getting a behind-the-scenes look at how I organize my kitchen and pantry, and more. The sky’s the limit! All Insider meetings will also be recorded if you can’t join in at the set times.

Visit PianoPantry.com/patreon to join today.

Ten Posts and Podcasts You Loved in 2022

December 20, 2022
by Amy
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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.

Previous Top-Post Highlights: 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016

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500 Years of Keyboard Instruments

December 8, 2022
by Amy
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This past fall, my husband and I had the privilege of traveling to Europe for the first time. Countries visited included Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom (London), and France.

If you want to get a little peek into this adventure, listen in on episode #47 of The Piano Pantry Podcast!

The entire trip went quite smoothly. The only transportation hiccup we encountered was traveling via train from the Netherlands to London. One of our trains out of the Netherlands was delayed, causing a missed connection from Brussels to London. Luckily, they could get us on a train later that evening, but it meant we had an eight-hour overlay in Brussels, Belgium.

What at first seemed to be an inconvenience turned into a wonderful opportunity as we could spend an entire day exploring the city! A delay of two or three hours would have kept us waiting at the train station.

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Random Observations from Our European Travels

October 24, 2022
by Amy
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My husband and I recently took our first-ever European trip (and first-ever month-long vacation!).  After week one, we realized we should start documenting our observations – little things we especially felt were fun, interesting, and good to know and remember for the future.

Throughout the trip, we continued to add to the list. I thought it would be fun to share it here as both a way of passing on our knowledge and experiences and also simply for the sake of documenting it for ourselves for the future.

To make it easier to digest, I organized our random list into the following categories: food and water, language, bathrooms, money, gear, mannerisms and miscellaneous, and transportation.

A few disclaimers:

  1. This has nothing to do with piano teaching (hope that’s OK 🙂 )
  2. It is in no way exhaustive.
  3. As the title states, this list is completely random and consists only of our thoughts and opinions.
  4. While we know it’s important not to overgeneralize, sometimes there are just things that “stuck out.” We realize it doesn’t mean an entire population/culture is that way, it’s just little things that we noticed or found interesting from the moment in time /location we experienced.
  5. Our opinions were formed by the places visited including Germany, Netherlands, London, and France.

If you have had the same experiences and observations or found this post useful for your travels, I would love to hear about it in the comments!

Enjoy!

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