As 2016 comes to a close, I’m looking back at this past year and can’t believe what a whirlwind and blessing it has been. It’s been a year of opportunity, growth, challenges, and firsts.
Today I would like to share with you a personal reflection as well as the best posts from Piano Pantry in its first year.
Goal-Setting
This past year, I decided not to make any “New Years Resolutions” but to instead, sit down and set specific goals for myself. Evernote guru Michael Hyatt wrote a post How Evernote Can Help You Achieve Your Goals in 2015that I used as inspiration.
Speaking of Evernote if you missed it, check out my post on using Evernote as an independent music teacher.
One of those goals was to start this blog and my studio website by March 1 (the latter of which I accomplished this summer). This site’s first post, “Welcome to My Studio”,was published on March 20, 2016. Check!
When I first started teaching piano as an independent music teacher, I learned quickly there was more to the profession than being a pianist and pedagogue. I was managing a business and, in a way, people. Tasks like tracking student information, lesson plans, overall student progress, music to be ordered, recital participation, and repertoire lists became a big part of the job.
Before Evernote…
I would find myself unable to recall the materials I needed to purchase when I happened by the music store unplanned.
Oodles of information and ideas that I intently recorded during sessions at local, state, or national conferences found themselves in paper stacks without a second glance.
I read valuable and detailed advice regarding iPad to MIDI capabilities in a Facebook thread, but it was later fuzzy in my mind when I needed it most. When I tried to find it, the conversation was lost in a sea of never-ending social media posts.
If you’re like me, you long for anything that streamlines the business side of your work. While today’s digital world offers many tools and applications to help us manage and organize the tasks we juggle on a daily basis, one stands out:Evernote.
Piano Safari has been a method on my radar since the first version of the books came out. I’ve known about it since (I’m guessing) 2008. Julie Knerr, one of the authors, went to grad school with a girl I did my undergrad studies with (they may have even been roommates, but I can’t remember for sure). My friend told me about the method, and I haven’t looked back.
I was drawn to Piano Safari due to my disappointment with the technique books on the market. I hated them to be quite frank. I didn’t feel they were effective and they were…well, what they were – exercises – and boring to boot. Even though most technique books do correlate with what the students are learning in the lesson book, I never felt the transfer of learning happened.
It wasn’t until 2013 that I started using the method heavily. With the increased use came the desire to maximize the “fun” of the safari theme more with stuffed animals.
Building up my safari-themed animal collection was a bit of a chore! I remember asking the authors where they got theirs, but mostly, I was on my own finding them. Today, I hope to help YOUR search a little easier than mine.
I’ll be sharing not only where I purchased the animals but also why they’re a good investment and how I use and even store them.
Originally published June 2016; Updated May 2020 & March 2021.
The “One-Minute Club” Note-Naming Challenge is a program that focuses on the skill of naming and playing the notes on the music staff in one minute or less.
Made famous by Jane Bastien, the idea has continued to be promoted and developed by Susan Paradis, and now myself! :-). (Susan has a wealth of free downloadable materials which she redesigns each year including downloadable charts, flashcards, and full-size and business-card size certificates.)
One of the nice things about this program is there is quite a bit of flexibility in implementing it in a way that supports the way you approach teaching note names. This post will look at six items to consider when setting up this challenge in your own studio, including goals, timeline, levels, rules, tracking, and rewards.
I’ll also share some really good bonus tips to help students reach their potential during the challenge, recommend a few favorite flashcard sets, and share a free download to help you get started!
Do you give out awards to your students for various achievements from the past year?
Would you like to do more awards but aren’t really sure what to do besides recognizing student achievements in festivals and competitions?
Do you struggle to implement or track something like this with any kind of consistency?
This post is going to look at a few types of awards that can be integrated into your studio’s awards program, as well as how to track everything by creating a simple “policies and procedures manual” of your own.
The iconic spiral-bound piano lessons notebook. Is there a piano student in all the world who can be found without one?
One of the first, if not THE first one I had was small (approximately 3″ x 5″) with a red cover and side spiral. I kept it for years but cannot seem to find it in my old memorabilia. Knowing me, I probably threw it away during one of my “reduce and minimize” streaks.
As a teacher, I used notebooks for years, but in my effort to grow and manage the structure of lessons better I started making my own assignment sheets. I distinctly remember this as a period of intense growth and scrutiny of myself as a teacher.
During this time, I was trying to figure out how to be a piano teacher as opposed to a classroom music teacher. Although I had been teaching piano part-time for years, it felt like a whole new world as I learned about true piano pedagogy. I had no idea there was so much that should be incorporated into the lesson!
In this post I’ll share the story of how and why designing assignment sheets became an important part of my growth as a teacher. You’ll also get access to a bundle of more than 20 of these assignment sheets for FREE.
Methods are to Recipes…
I’m an avid cook. I grew up watching and helping mom out in the kitchen. Mom is a good country cook who raised her family through the 80 and 90s – a time of Campbell’s soup and casseroles. Although she had her trusty favorite recipes, we often called her MacGyver in the kitchen as she could make a meal out of nothing.
When I was first married, I used all her recipes, but when the poundage began to add up for both my husband and me, I realized I needed to learn to cook healthier and incorporate flavor through herbs and spices instead of butter and sour cream. Thus, I embarked on the world of cooking shows and an endless recipe obsession.
Stick with me…
When we lived in Australia, one of my favorite shows was Chef at Home, hosted by the Canadian chef from Prince Edward Island, Michael Smith. He advocates using your instincts and what you have at home to create simple, easy, and delicious meals. At the time, I thought, “Yeah, right!” I can follow a recipe and make a fantastic meal, but I don’t have a deep enough understanding of food to come up with something on my own – I’m no MacGyver.
Stick with me…
A few years down the road, one day, it suddenly dawned on me that I was cooking something for dinner with complete confidence—no recipe in front of me! What an intense and rewarding feeling that was!
Do you see where I’m going with this? Method books are recipes. They help us know what musical concept to introduce in what order. However, when we understand pedagogy, how children learn music, the foundations of healthy technique, and more, we understand the flavor of the ingredients and how those ingredients come together to make a pianist. It’s kind of like knowing how the ratio of flour, sugar, butter, and egg makes a cookie as opposed to a cake.
There is a connection to my assignment sheet addiction, I promise…
While I still regularly use and rely on the sound progression and solid pedagogy of several methods, I was freed the day I realized I could teach a student without a method in front of me if I wanted.
Why the Addiction?
My assignment sheet obsession started somewhat as a way for me to write out my own “recipe instructions.” Their role became a way for me to help guide my lessons and remind me of what I needed to incorporate. Each one tells a different story of the goals I had at the time and the things I was focused on as a teacher.
I create new assignment sheets at least once a year, sometimes twice, dare I say sometimes even three times? Often, I have different sheets for my school-age students than I have for my preschools or adults, so I could have three different sheets going on at once, though not always. Summer always proved a good time to try a new sheet before launching it with my full studio in the fall.
Over the past 5-8 years, I’ve created more than 20 different sheets. At first, I was going to pick my favorites to share, but I realized that each one was, at one point, a wonderful, new, and perfect solution to a fresh assignment sheet. Who am I to say which one will work best for you?
There were times in the early days when it almost felt that if I could just make the perfect assignment sheet, I would be a perfect teacher. Bahahaha, yes, we’re all laughing—I know! Looking back now, I realize that is ridiculous.
I’ve learned to let it go, and honestly, the main reason I switch assignment sheets now is that I am completely out of boredom. I get tired of looking at the same sheet day in and day out. Plus, I start thinking, “Gee, maybe if I add a new joke or quote to the sheet each week, I’ll get some of them to fill it out more regularly.” Bahahaha, it’s a laughing matter once again, I know!
There are always students who fill it out diligently and others who don’t bother, no matter what I do. I’ve called them anything from “Weekly Learning Guide” to “Assignment Sheet” to “Assignments for the week of…,” to “Piano Homework” to “Daily Practice Steps” and more. Does the title make a difference or inspire them more? Nope, not one bit.
I have a few students who hate it when I switch in the middle of the year, so I just use the same assignment sheet for them all year. Others find the switch refreshing, as I do, and some don’t care either way. There have been times when I’ve used the same sheet for everyone and times when I’ve used a different sheet for adults, preschoolers, elementary schoolers, and high schoolers.
They’re kept in color-coded hanging files next to the piano, and I just pull a fresh one out and place it in the front of their binder on top of last week’s sheet. Most have been designed in Microsoft Word and Microsoft Publisher, but I’ve also experimented with designing in Canva.
Get these assignment Sheets.
Preview and download the bundle of these sheets on Assignment Sheet Central. Take your pick! You name it, I probably have it.
Do you still have or remember your first notebook? What did it look like? Do you use a spiral notebook for assignments, binders with printable assignment sheets, or are you 100% digital? Share your memories in the comments!
Have you ever had moments when you feel like banging your head against the wall during a lesson with a student? Those moments seem to happen to me most often with musical terms and symbols.
I’m not shy to say there are times I’m screaming in my head, “Seriously, how many times have we used this term during lessons? It’s called a ‘staccato!'” While my more experienced and sensible teacher side calmly says“Ssssttttaaaa” trying to draw the word out of them with a verbal cue or gives them multiple choice.
When asked what “Andante” means, the student looks at you sideways, eyes squinting slightly in uncertainty as if they had just eaten a piece of sour candy, hands twisting, and mind whirling. “It means…it means like slow….or well, maybe fast?”
At this moment, my teacher conviction takes over, and I remember:
