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.
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
If you want to keep the document as is and not risk being at the mercy of my future edits, you could download it.
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.
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 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.
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.
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?! 🙂
Crafts are not my strong suit, so my kiddos will probably never get a hand-made craft from me. Since I love to cook, homemade goodies do make it into the mix.
The gifts I give each year are often influenced by where life is in the moment. If money is tight, some years may be homemade and less costly. On the flip side, if time is more of a commodity, I just purchase an item – even if I spend more. I’m sure you’ve experienced the same thing!
My comfort zone is between $1 – $5 per student, with $3 being my sweet spot. With a full studio, the cost can add up quickly!
The XL size is about $1.50 apiece and can be found on Amazon 12 for $18.
The GIANT version is also fun to give and is around $2.50 apiece. (At the time of this post, they were not available in bulk on Amazon but can likely be found in your nearest grocery store.)
Ornaments
Ornaments are probably the easiest and most popular gift teachers give – for a good reason!
One fun way to distribute them is to decorate a Christmas tree in the studio. You can either do the same ornament or different ornaments they can choose from. Decorate the tree after Thanksgiving, and tell the students that at the last lesson in December, they get to pull one off the tree!
At the time of this post, the price on Amazon is $22.99 for a dozen. You can get these at Oriental Trading for $15.99 but may pay more depending on shipping.
(Sara’s Music Studio suggested adding a ribbon around the neck like a scarf. How cute would that be? )
The other one was this assortment of black glitter ornaments.
I especially liked that students had three to choose from (which means you could give them away for 2-3 years in a row, and they could choose a different one each year!).
The only downside is that they’re glitter; to me, that equals messy. If that doesn’t bother you, though – go for it! The students will still love them.
In 2014, I purchased them from Hobby Lobby in a package of 12 for $10. I’m not sure they still carry them, but I found them on this website for $20 for a pack of 3. Do some searching, though – I’m sure you could find something similar for cheaper.
Homemade Hot Cocoa
Homemade Hot Cocoa Mix is a perfect gift. What kid doesn’t love hot chocolate?
Ball jars are so easy to decorate with something as simple as a colorful ribbon. Be sure to include the directions!
Consider recipes made with powdered milk so students only have to add hot water. Along those same lines, don’t do the layered-type cocoa mix where you must dump the whole container into a pot to mix.
My favorite recipe is from Cook’s Country, but since it’s a paid recipe service, here are some other versions you could try from Pioneer Woman and AllRecipes.
Japanese Erasers
Will the Japanese Eraser craze ever go away? I would be surprised if it did – they’re just too cute! Students will love these grand piano erasers.
Purchase a mixture of black and red and let students choose. Based on what my students chose, I would suggest purchasing 30% red and 60% black.Or if you want to keep it simple, just go for the black!
Puppy Chow
What kid doesn’t love Puppy Chow? To that end, what adult? Ha! It’s such a fun thing to make and a very traditional American holiday snack.
The year I did the Japanese erasers, I wanted to do more than just the little eraser, so I made Puppy Chow and attached the eraser to the bow.
Before we go, let me give you one organizational tip regarding student Christmas gifts:
Keep a list of what you give your students each year!
The first year I opened my studio, I didn’t record the gift I gave, and I regretted it because it is SOOOO nice to be able to look back and see what you’ve done in the past.
Knowing how long it’s been since you last gave a certain gift means you can confidently repeat gifts (depending on how long your students have been with you).
It’s as simple as writing it down in your favorite note-taking app (like Evernote, of course!).
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
Please note that Piano Pantry is a participant in the Amazon Associates Program. 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.
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!
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!
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:
Name of the game
Where I found or purchased the game
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.
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 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.
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 
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.
