In April 2019, Evernote came out with a new add-on, “Evernote for Gmail.”
If you’re not sure what an add-on (extension/plug-in) is, it’s simply an extra little program that extends the functionality of whatever program you’re using whether it’s your internet browser, WordPress site, or email client.
You are likely most familiar with add-ons in your internet browser. As you can see in this small screen-shot, in the Google Chrome browser, add-ons are viewable to the right of the URL bar.
Today I wanted to share with you a few thoughts on whether or not Evernote for Gmail is a useful tool.
Writing posts like these the last couple of years have been very enlightening, encouraging and really just a healthy exercise in gratitude in general.
The idea behind the “Piano Teacher World” recap is to take a look back at significant news, happenings, and impact in the world of independent piano teachers. The final part of this post also includes resources that have made a direct impact on my own teaching.
I tried to be as thorough as I could and will admit that the list is much smaller than it was last year. Be sure and share in the comments if there was anything you would add to the list!
For the sake of being thorough, I asked for recommendations on multiple Facebook groups and received a lot of excellent feedback on The Art of Piano Pedagogy group regarding overall trends – all of which I agree with. Let’s start with those. (If you’re interested in reading all the comments, which are much more specific, check out the full post here.)
2018 Trends
1 | Declining or leveled-off interest in iPads and apps. Better balance and understanding in the role they play in lessons.
2 | Teaching and learning piano online is becoming more and more viable and easily available.
3 | A shift in attitude and growing excitement toward rote teaching/learning.
4 | Increased curiosity and interest in Music Learning Theory and how it can impact piano teaching, not just Early Childhood Music.
5 | Continually improved quality and ease-of-availability in regards to self-published material.
6 | Rising interested in quality blogs, podcasts, and online communities.
7| Continual professionalization of the field.
8 | A renewed interest in pedagogy outside of academia.
9 | Ongoing concerns with declining membership in professional organizations such as MTNA.
A teacher friend shared this one specifically with me. She has always loved Marvin Blickenstaff’s method “Music Pathways” and Paul Sheftel’s MIDI accompaniment for the series. She says there are lots of good compositions by Lynn Freeman Olson.
THE FRANCIS CLARK CENTERis continuing to see changes as Dr. PamelaPike was named the new Editor in Chief/Chief Content Director and Dr. Andrea McAlister was appointed as the new Director of Content Curation and Senior Editor for Clavier Companion.
They also launched a Facebook group for subscribers called Piano Teach Learn.
Perhaps more than any other time of year, Christmas is a time when we, as a society, make music together the most. Whether it’s caroling, singing Christmas music in church, or as a family in the car while you drive to grandma’s house, there’s just something about Christmas music that encourages music-making together.
So if with our voices, why not also with our instruments? Each year, the week before Christmas, we have group classes in my studio. These classes are the perfect opportunity for ensemble playing.
In this post, I will share a few go-to resources I use in my piano studio so my students can make music as a group. The books and music mentioned in this post do not include duet repertoire, piano trios (such as piano, cello, violin), only piano ensembles of three or more.
I’m lucky enough to have four keyboards in my studio that we can use, which is, of course, ideal but not always realistic. If you don’t have four keyboards, don’t despair – there are options here for you and ways you can equip your students to make music together!
Granted, this is exactly a “piano ensemble,” but it felt fitting to include it in this post because it’s so incredible.
Downloadable Sheet Music Ensembles
Susan Paradis
Susan Paradis has several Piano Triosavailable on her website.
She also has a Jingle Bells Duet with Rhythm Ensemble that, while it’s a piano duet, includes an ensemble of 4 rhythm instruments. This is a fun ensemble to use during group class with elementary students especially.
When I first discovered podcasts years ago, I went bananas. Every free moment I was listening to one – working out, driving, making the bed, cooking dinner, laminating and cutting out teaching aids – you name it. I couldn’t get enough.
It almost got to the point where it felt like a to-do list. I didn’t want to miss an episode of any of the podcasts I was following (the list was much shorter then).
Then one day it hit me. I’m burnt out. I simply have not had the motivation to listen to any-more, especially those that are more than 30 minutes.
Keep in mind I’m talking about on a weekly basis. There are those times on long drives or when I’m mowing the yard in the summer when I’m happy to plug in and listen to a long show, but in general, I am now reaching only for those that are 30 minutes or less and even more frequently 20 minutes or less.
So, today I wanted to share with you my favorite podcasts under 20 minutes.
Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast
Host: Andy Stanley (Also known for: Pastor at Atlanta-based North Point Ministries)
Description: “A conversation designed to help leaders go further.”
Episodes worth mentioning: 03.02.2017 Creating a Culture of Continual Improvement 05.05.2017 Doing What Only You Can Do 07.07.2017 How to Lead When You’re Not In Charge
In this post, I’m sharing some recommended reads from my 2017 list—first, a little story.
Although I am an avid reader—as I’m sure you can relate—I’ve gone through a couple of periods in life recently that have not allowed that luxury.
One was grad school (you know what kind of reading happened then), and the other was the first few years of opening my piano studio. During that period, I read a lot on business, teaching, and productivity.
Even though it was all by choice, I still found myself continually saying how much I missed reading for pleasure. A few years ago I finally determined to allow myself better balance.
I started setting goals for how many books I wanted to read and worked to increase it by 1-2 books per year. In 2017, the goal was 20, and I hit it spot on. Next year, the goal will be 21.
If you see yourself struggling to read as much as you would like, set a small goal and only increase the goal in easily manageable steps. Before I know it, I’ll be reading 30 books a year – who knows, maybe even 50!
Inspiration
A couple of quotes also inspired the idea to try and start incorporating re-reads into the mix.
“If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.”
~Oscar Wilde
“It is a good rule after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between.”
~C.S. Lewis
I hope you can find some inspiration for your personal book list below. In the comments, let me know what you’re reading and some of your top recommendations from this past year!
Beware, this book is more of a manual than a pleasure read. 🙂 It is absolutely chock full of ideas for thinking outside the box as an independent music teacher. New teachers and those looking to build their businesses or explore new income streams will find this book helpful.
While Women, Work & the Art of Savoir Faire was geared toward women, specifically in the business world, I still found it an enjoyable and interesting read.
A popular and best-selling novel and now a major motion picture, Wonder is a beautiful story of a little boy with facial anomalies. We can all learn something by seeing life through his eyes. I even keep this one in my little studio library for students to check out.
This was my first “re-read.” I read Gilbert’s book when it first came out in 2007, and while I already knew the stories in the book, they still came to life and were as pleasurable to read as they were ten years ago.
This has been on my to-read list for a while. It’s a very motivating book choice – especially for the beginning of the year when many set their sights on goals for the new year.
A friend recommended this book to me. While I don’t wholly agree with their philosophy of food and eating, I gleaned a lot of practical advice and principles for having a healthy relationship with food from this book. P.S. It’s one of those books I didn’t read in full but skimmed a lot of sections.
Again, I like to stick with the same authors, hence book #2 by Ms. Guiliano in 2017. She has many great suggestions for personal care in general, including specific products.
The first book I read by Harold Best was in an undergrad music and worship class I took. I remember thoroughly enjoying the book Music Through the Eyes of Faith. The author is Dean Emeritus at Wheaton College Conservatory of Music and a Past President of the National Association of Schools of Music (NASM). The book took me quite a while to get through as it requires deep thinking and slow reading to help you absorb all he is saying, but it is very worth reading. It is already on my read-again list.
Don’t you just love it when you come up with an activity or game that turns out to be a real winner, making you wish you had thought of it sooner? I had one of those moments recently when reviewing major chords and 5-finger patterns and wanted to share the activity with you.
I was looking for a fun way to review all the 5-finger patterns and chords in one sitting in preparation for a festival in which a few students will participate.
The only game I really have for that concept is one of my favorite TCW card games (that’s Three Cranky Womenif you’re not familiar with it) – Flashy Fingers.
Most of the TCW card games, though, are not made for students just learning or even in the early-mid stages of mastering any particular concepts. They really have to know their stuff to play most of the games. I’ve tried a lot of their games with students who didn’t know the information like the back of their hand, and it makes the game a lot harder and not nearly as much fun if they have to sit there for a minute to figure out the answer.
Don’t get me wrong; they are high-quality, wonderful games (I own every card deck in the series); they’re just more helpful once the student really knows what they’re doing. The games really help students learn to think faster about concepts they already know and understand well.
Just because particular games are made to be played one way doesn’t mean we can’t utilize them in another, so that’s what I did!
We all have our favorites. Our favorite Christmas songs, our favorite composers, our favorite arrangements. Each year, when it comes time to pull out the Christmas books for students, while I try new ones each year, it seems I always return to the sturdy few.
Today I will share my favorite Christmas books for students from beginner through late intermediate levels. The repertoire in this post is what I consider good, solid arrangements. While several pieces I’ll highlight are jazzy, I’m not including any books that are specifically labeled with specific styles like “jazzy” or “Romantic Christmas,” etc. (those are for another post another time).
Today is just about good old trusty Christmas music.
After so many years, you begin to see which books seem to appeal most to students and which pieces within those books are the best. So, I’m also going to highlight some of the arrangements I return to again and again.
I always ask my students if they have any requests for Christmas pieces, so hopefully, seeing specific piece names within books will help you as you do your Christmas book shopping.
Faber Supplemental Christmas
I often give my students a Christmas book that is below their current method level, so if they’re playing in Faber 2B, I may choose to give them 2A Christmas. I want them just to be able to have fun playing Christmas music and to be able to play as many pieces as they can.
Level 4 is my favorite, especially because of the jazzy arrangements of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Winder Wonderland that use lots of 7th chords.
Finding quality arrangements of hymns and praise/worship music for piano students is not easy. To help make your search easier, in this post, I’m going to share a few that have proven to work well with my students in recent years. I’ll also share snippets from a church-music-themed piano recital I did with my students.
Let’s discuss why finding appropriate hymn and praise/contemporary worship music arrangements for piano students is tricky.
First, hymns are written in a homophonic (and even more specifically, homorhythmic) texture, meaning they sing the same rhythm in a blocked chordal structure – one that is not easy to play for even intermediate-level piano students.
Second, while many churches are moving away from hymns, contemporary worship music trends, and changes so quickly, many “praise” books published in years past no longer resonate with students.
This creates a struggle for piano teachers!
Functional Musicianship in Daily Life
One of my solutions is to ensure all my students learn to play chord charts and lead sheets so we can easily download any worship song they like and learn how to play it or at least sing and accompany using chordal patterns.
Part of my teaching philosophy is that I want to enable my students to be functional musicians who can operate in multiple situations, especially those they encounter daily. For many in my studio, the church is a big one.
One of my students just started playing in their youth worship band, and many others are providing music as preludes, communion, offering, and leading during youth-led services. I have several students who are also singers and love singing and playing contemporary worship music.
The next two photos are from our church music recital.
All my students learn to play from chord charts and lead sheets, and a few older ones work on 4-part hymns on occasion, even if their church doesn’t sing hymns. It’s still an important skill they may be able to use someday!
Favorite Church Music Books for Students
In my opinion, Alfred, in general, has the best collection of sacred music out there. Their Sacred Performer series is full of a plethora of any type of book you could imagine. A lot of sacred music I get for students is published by Alfred.
Disclaimer: All opinions regarding publishers and books are 100% my own. This is not a paid advertisement. However, please note that Piano Pantry is a participant in the Amazon Associates Program. There may be links to Amazon products in the post. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Simply put, being an associate allows me to make a small percentage from Amazon on items to which I link at no extra cost to you.
One of my all-time favorites
I had been on the lookout for a while for a book of hymns in their original state (not arranged) that were slightly simplified. The homophonic texture of most hymns is quite complicated for most students to play.
Praise Hits is a solid selection of music that’s generally not outdated. Often in the “praise hits” world, with the quick shift in contemporary worship music styles that occur, it’s easy for a lot of students to not be familiar with the music even in books marked as “Popular,” “Current,” or “Contemporary.”
Levels 1 and 2 are OK, but Level 3 is my favorite. The pieces are written in a very chordal style with inversions and voicing similar to what I might choose to play if I were playing from a chord chart.
All of the levels correlate with the Alfred Basic Piano Library levels.
Of course, I can’t go without mentioning Faber’s Hymns supplements.
Book 2Bis one of my favorites from this series since it focuses on using primary chord progressions.
Book 4 is one of my all-time favorite hymn arrangement books for students. There are lots of pieces, and the arrangements are all very pleasing. I go for this book before I go for books 3 or 4 in the Play Hymn Series mentioned above.
Bastien doesn’t make it into my studio often, but I have used the Hymn Favorites books quite a bit. Level 2, once again, is my favorite.
Like Alfred and Faber, the levels correlate with the levels of the piano method series.
The Popular Hymn series is similar. I’ll be honest; I’m not exactly sure the difference between the two series. Maybe one was published later with supposedly more “popular” hymns of the time?
Christian Hits for Teens is one of my newest discoveries. One of my students performed “The Prayer” from Book 3 at the recital.
As an intermediate-level student, not only was the piece a bit of a stretch, but I’ll admit I didn’t allow enough preparation time for her to master it.
We were about to cut the piece short during one of her lessons when we took a moment to listen to Celine Dion and Josh Grobansing the piece on YouTube. It gave me a brilliant idea!
Since we had two keyboards on stage, she played the first 2 1/2 pages, and I picked up when it became beyond her ability halfway through page two and played to measure 60. She played measures 61 through the downbeat of measure 64 then I played the final page. She joined me on the final two resting chord measures to close it out, and it worked quite splendidly – just like Josh and Celine! 😉
Carol Tornquist is one of my favorite arrangers of Christian piano arrangements. Her book Current and Classic Praise (Late Intermediate / Early Advanced) is one of my absolute favorites. A couple of my students have played from it and really enjoyed it.
The selections are current and classics, literally! My favorites, in particular, include 10,000 Reasons, How Great is our God, In Christ Alone, Your Grace is Enough, and Your Great Name. I have to say though that there’s not one arrangement in the book that I don’t like!
Christian Hits
She also has a book called Christian HitsI recently purchased and am excited to keep on hand. It’s marked as “Easy Piano,” but we all know that’s a lie. 🙂 Come on, publishers!
I have a student who plays around the Faber Level 3B level; this was perfect. It includes inversions, root-5th-octave-crossover accompaniment patterns, dotted 16th rhythms, and plenty of syncopation.
My biggest qualm with the whole “easy piano” mark is that when people other than teachers (like piano parents) go out to buy a book for their students for Christmas or something, they never pick the proper difficulty level because of labels like this. They think, “gee, my student has been taking piano for five years; they surely play harder than easy music,” and they get them an advanced level book that is not even close to what they can handle. We should all put our heads together and develop a better labeling system!
Super Easy Songbook: Hymns
This Hymnsbook from the Super Easy Songbook series by Hal Leonard is a great resource to have on hand as it’s full of 60 hymns in lead-sheet style in the keys of C, F, and G.
It includes charts with suggested chord inversion at the beginning of every piece.
One of my adult students, who has played by ear her whole life (and only in the key of F!), is playing out of this book. I also have her reading 4-part hymns in various keys and playing one-chord chart praise hit each week. She is doing great with the combination and is a star student!
The Phillip Keveren Series
One of my other favorite composers (even more than Carol Tornquist, shh!) is Phillip Keveren. The guy is brilliant. Hal Leonard has a gold mine with his incredible Phillip Keveren Series out there LOL. 🙂
This is from the Piano Solo Late Intermediate/Early Advanced series. My student playing in the RCM Celebration Series Level 6 is playing from this book.
There’s also a Hymns with a Touch of Jazzbook I came across while writing this post that’s already in my shopping cart. I can’t wait to try it out!
From his Easy Piano series, is the Weekly Worshipbook that is full of 52 hymns.
The leveling would be good for a student around Faber 3A-3B. It is also a great book for adult students interested in playing hymns that may find the homophonic hymn style too challenging.
As a bonus, each piece includes a short “hymn history” segment – a beautiful tool for discussing the piece.
One of my students, who’s big into praise and worship music, has gone through nearly every piece in this book!
Our Church-Music-Themed Recital
For our church-music recital, every student had the opportunity to perform two pieces. The first piece was an assigned “reading” piece arrangement. For their second piece, they were given the option of:
Another reading/arrangement
A piece by ear
A chord chart to play and sing
A lead sheet
4-part hymn with the possibility of the audience singing along
Other ideas they may have…
Four of my youngest students played a piece by ear. They included “The B.I.B.L.E.,” “This Little Light of Mine,” “God is so Good,” and “Jesus Loves the Little Children.” They played the melody in the RH, and we added single bass tone harmonies on the left.
This father/son duo played an arrangement of Christ the Lord is Risen Today. How special is that!?
I was especially happy to have a couple of students play hymns that the audience sang along with. One played “Faith of our Fathers” about halfway through the recital (I “led” the singing), and another did the “Doxology” as the final piece of the recital. It was a great way to close out a church-music-themed recital and to pull the audience in to make music together!
Aren’t they delightful?
What are your favorite church music books? Let’s keep the list going in the comments!
AFFILIATE DISCLOSURE
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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!
Recently, a teacher friend told me that I “dress my type.” Of course, this made me crane my neck a bit and look at her with a quizzical expression, wondering if this was a good or bad thing.
“I’m pretty sure you’re a Type 4, which means you wear a lot of bold, solid colors,” she explained.
At the time, I had a bright red dress on. Hmmm…maybe she’s onto something.
“Perhaps,” I said, “but I also wear a LOT of blacks.”
“Actually,” she countered, “type 4 also wears a lot of blacks!”
Well, there you go. Apparently, I’m a type 4, and I’m doing pretty good on my wardrobe—she wins! LOL.
Bright, Bold, Clean, and Beautiful
What does this short story have to do with my review? Not a whole lot except that solid, bright colors first drew me to this beautiful theory course. Maybe my friend WAS onto something. 🙂
Calling a theory course “beautiful” may be stretching it, I know, but when it comes to theory books (or any sheet music/method books for that matter), appearance goes a long way for me.
Perhaps more than any other time of year, Christmas is a time when we, as a society, make music together the most. Whether it’s caroling, singing Christmas music in church, or as a family in the car while you drive to grandma’s house, there’s just something about Christmas music that encourages music-making together.
The only game I really have for that concept is one of my favorite TCW card games (that’s 
I often give my students a Christmas book that is below their current method level, so if they’re playing in Faber 2B, I may choose to give them 2A Christmas. I want them just to be able to have fun playing Christmas music and to be able to play as many pieces as they can.
The Play Hymns Series by Melody Bober and Robert Vandall is really nice.
Of course, I can’t go without mentioning Faber’s Hymns supplements.
Bastien doesn’t make it into my studio often, but I have used the 
She also has a book called 
This 
There’s also a 
From his Easy Piano series, is the 
