Piano Teacher Must-Have’s: A Minimalist’s List

November 12, 2018
by Amy
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As the time gets closer and closer for us to move into our new home and eventually my new studio, I’ve come to realize just how much STUFF I have in my studio that will have to be moved.

While dreading the thought of relocating all these things, I began to ponder what it would be like to have a “minimalist” studio.

If I were a brand new teacher or if I had to start all over again in a very small space, what are the items that would be “must-haves”?

Thus, this “minimalist’s list” was born. Keep in mind that we’re talking bare bones. This list does not include equipment (like a piano),  office equipment like computers and printers, or pedagogical books.

I look forward to hearing some of your “must-haves” in the comments!

A Copy of Your Favorite Method Book

This is my first recommendation because it’s one of the most basic and important, in my opinion.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve either wanted to have a look at a student’s method book while lesson planning, needed a copy so I could make a video lesson for a student, or simply needed an extra copy when a student forgot their book. Whatever method you use the most, keep one extra copy on hand at all times!

Office Supply Must-Have

Post-its are kind of a “must-have” in any teacher’s world. I couldn’t go without these 1/2″ x 1 3/4″ Post-its for marking assigned pages. I like the paper ones because I can also write on them if needed instead of plastic-type tabs.

Erasable pens, markers, and colored pencils are God’s gift to teachers. I have four specific recommendations in this area.

Frixion Erasable Colors 12-pack.

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Manipulatives and Piano Games for Private and Group Lessons

March 6, 2018
by Amy
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How many manipulatives, piano games, and other resources do you have in your music studio? You probably don’t even have to count to know the answer. A lot!  Am I right?

Keeping track of all our teaching resources can be a daunting task. Lesson planning for private and group music classes can be enough work in itself without having to continuously recall and rehash all the different manipulatives and games we have each time we plan.

After finding myself physically walking back and forth regularly to my game files, flashcard box, and such, I decided it was time to put together a master list of every activity or manipulative I had or could use to teach a concept.

It can be very easy to lose track of what we already have. Having a document like this has allowed me to not only have an easy place to reference what activities I could utilize at any given time, but it was an awesome snapshot and inventory of what I owned.

Keeping a master list is also a great place to keep teaching ideas that may not necessarily have physical items to accompany the activity.

I thought you might find this document useful as well.

The Master List

Since it is a document that I update on a regular basis, I decided to simply share the public link to a Google Doc. Keep in mind that it’s a working document so it’s possible I will add to, edit, and even remove items as time goes by.

There are three ways you could utilize this document

  1. If you want to keep the document as is and not risk being at the mercy of my future edits, you could download it.
  2. If you want to always see the updated version, I would recommend bookmarking the link in your browser. This way, you simply click on the link, and you always see the most updated version.
  3. If you wanted to create your own list, you could even copy and paste it into your own document to get you started and create your own version with the materials you have!

May this document help you add a little more sanity to your lesson planning and studio organizational life. 🙂

Get Access Here

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Candy Jar Contest (Free Printable)

January 31, 2018
by Amy
8 Comments

Candy jar contests are sure to grab the interest of young and old alike. Let’s be honest here, when is the last time you turned down an opportunity to guess the number of items in a jar whether it be candy, pennies, or otherwise! 🙂

In my piano studio, I find the candy jar contest to be an easy way to build community. It may feel a little far-reaching, but since most music lessons are solo events, any time I can create an opportunity for all students to engage in the same thing (even if they’re not doing it together all at once), I consider that a win.

For more on building commmunity in your music studio, see the Varsity Musician’s Playbook series here on Piano Pantry.

In this post, I have a free download for you to run your own candy jar contest.

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Piano Pantry’s Top Posts of 2017: Your Favorite Topics All in One Place

December 26, 2017
by Amy
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The older we get it seems life tends to move more quickly every year. When you’re young it feels like life will go on forever. The next thing you know, you realize your high school graduation was 20 years ago (or 30-40 for that matter).

As I understand more and more how fast life passes by, I’ve come to appreciate the importance of reflection. We’re always working to do more, learn more, and be better. The result though is that it’s easy to forget where we’ve come from, hard to see all we’ve accomplished, and not realize all life has given us.

This yearly re-cap post is about putting all of your favorite topics from the past year (and from all-time) in one place. It’s also a chance for me to reflect on all that’s happened in my own life as a piano teacher at Studio 88 and blogger at Piano Pantry.

Before I wrote this post, I loved reading the recap post from last year. Here is Piano Pantry’s Best of 2016 recap.

In this post you will find:

  • A Month-by-Month Recap of 2017
  • The All-Time Top 5 Posts/Pages
  • The Top 5 Posts/Pages from 2017
  • The Top Friday Finds Post from 2017
  • My Personal Favorite Posts from 2017

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Christmas Gifts for Music Students: Who Couldn’t Use Another Idea?

November 6, 2017
by Amy
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Do you enjoy giving gifts to your Christmas students? I do!

I know sometimes teachers struggle with whether or not to do gifts. To that, I say, don’t stress over it! If it’s something you enjoy doing, then do it and if it feels more like it’s coming from a place of obligation, make the decision not to do so and be OK with that decision. Most students and families certainly do not expect it.

I like doing it as a gesture to acknowledge both my joy for my students and the season. Along with that, however, comes the difficulty of figuring out something new to do each year. When you have students that are with you for years, giving them the same ornament year after year isn’t very exciting.

This dilemma, if you will, made me procrastinate for several years. After cutting it a little too close a few years ago, I vowed to stop waiting until the last minute. (Year-ahead purchases have even become normal.) Bye-bye stress!

In his post I’ll share several ideas I’ve used over the past years because as this post title states – who couldn’t use another idea?! 🙂

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Trusty Christmas Favorites: Repertoire I Return to Year After Year

October 30, 2017
by Amy
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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.

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Favorite Hymn and Praise Piano Books

October 24, 2017
by Amy
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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!

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Lesson Planning: A king-size master spreadsheet

August 29, 2017
by Amy
8 Comments

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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Organizing Piano Games with Evernote

July 3, 2017
by Amy
5 Comments

This is a guest post by Missouri teacher, Anita Byers (bio at the end). After Anita commented on one of my posts here on Piano Pantry on how she organized her music games in Evernote, I quickly asked her to share. Many thanks to Anita!

Organizing Piano Games with Evernote Blog Post

As my collection of piano games has grown the past several years, I have needed to organize them in a way that I can find a game that reinforces a certain concept without physically searching through a huge stack!

My goal for this summer was to attack the game monster and make it easy to find and use games during lessons.

I use Evernote in my studio to keep track of weekly lesson plans for each student.  I am not sure why it took me so long to realize that Evernote could help organize my game inventory!

I set up a notebook in Evernote and named it “Games.”  Then for each game, I added a note.

The information I typed on the note included:

  1. Name of the game
  2. Where I found or purchased the game
  3. Objectives of the game

I took a photo or screenshot of the game board, instructions, and cards. (This was super easy to do with my iPad).

*Note that the following three photos are part of the same note (just taken in 3 screenshots).

 

 

I used tags to make categories for each game.  For example, tags I used for the Ladybug game were: grand staff, keyboard topography, music alphabet, and staff notation.  This will help me as I search for games in my Evernote notebook.

For more on the benefit and power of using tags in Evernote, see Amy’s video post, Evernote: Account Features, Tagging, and More.

The image below shows a search I did for “keyboard topography.” As you can see, the list of games that I have is shown on the left.  I really like that it brings up the photos!

I also took this opportunity to set up a file cabinet to store my games physically, and I added the drawer number right after the game’s name when I entered each note.  My games are easy to look up in Evernote and find in their file cabinet.

This system is working great for me so far.  Now, I just need to keep up with it as I add new games.  It feels so good to have the pile of games organized and the game monster conquered.  Thanks, Evernote!

Bonus tip from Amy: since Evernote can also house Microsoft Word, Excel, and Google Drive documents, you could even attach the digital file directly into the note or link directly to the webpage from which you found the game.

Anita Byers is the owner of Anita’s Piano Studio located in Nevada, Missouri.  She currently has a full studio of 27 students. She recently retired from Nevada High School after ten years as the choir accompanist.

 

The Varsity Musician’s Playbook Part 1: Studio Interdependence

February 20, 2017
by Amy
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The phrase varsity musician’s playbook likely stopped you in your tracks as it did me – especially if you’re someone who has ever said: Once my piano students hit middle school, I often lose them to sports.

At every conference I attend, while there are many excellent sessions, there are always one or two whose message sticks with me for good. At this past MTNA Conference (2016 San Antonio), my “sticky” session was by far:

The Varsity Musician’s Playbook: Commitment Building Strategies from Team Sports to the Studio.

Bam! Wow, the title hooked me. As someone who enjoys the business side of running my piano studio – this was my type of session.

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