My piano was long overdue for a tuning. The start to the semester is always a good time to give a little extra care to our instruments. This time around, my sostenuto pedal needed to be adjusted. In order to fix it, my tuner had to pull the key bed out which was a perfect time to give it a little cleaning!
Besides dust, other items that had found a home below included a sticker and a key letter-name manipulative that students set on top of the keys when they’re learning key names. All in all, I would say we weren’t doing too bad!
While we’re on the topic of piano care…
1
My Local Music Teachers group met last Friday at a local piano shop for a program on piano care. One of the items they recommended was the Cory products for cleaning your piano keys and polishing the body of the piano. Pay attention to the finish of your piano before choosing the polishing product.
You can get a kit on Amazon that includes the Key cleaner and polish for super high-gloss
piano finishes.
2
“Naked Piano Week”. Exploring the piano and understanding how it works is something I’m sure we all think is important but likely forget to do. Ideally, I think it would be nice once a year to set aside one lesson to refresh with students how their instrument works!
3
This blog post on using multiple computer screens by Rosemarie Penner was an excellent idea to share on productivity for teachers. I’ve been using two screens for a couple of years and should have done it sooner. My husband has been using 2-3 screens at work for even longer. It’s not hard to set up and it saves a lot of time flipping between screens.
4
Speaking of flipping between computer screens/windows, if you’re not using some of the basic keyboard shortcuts (like “Alt-Tab” for switching between windows), you will save yourself a lot of time by learning some of those shortcuts. Here are shortcuts for Windows users and shortcuts for Mac users.
5
Several of you have emailed me after I write the post on how I manage internet content. Part of managing internet content is also managing your email inbox. Here’s a podcast I listened to a couple of years ago that helped me improve how I manage my inbox.
6
Oxo products are amazing. See what items Oxo employees love.
My absolute favorite Oxo product is the cutting boards. I would recommend owning all three sizes (especially the 14.5″x 21″)
7
Like Nicola, I started using My Music Staff this year. One of the biggest things I like about it at the moment is having professional-looking invoices emailed to families. Check out Nicola’s review.
8
What a lovely thing. See how this woman transformed a rotting tree into a useable space for her neighborhood.
