Episode Summary
Daniel Light is a pianist and piano teacher based in Louisville, Kentucky. He also enjoys composing and arranging and shares his music at daniel-light.com. Lots of piano teachers follow Daniel on Facebook to enjoy the posts he shares of funny things his students have said during lessons. Look for the hashtag #ThingsPianoStudentsSay.
Daniel Light Piano Studio
https://www.facebook.com/daniellightpianostudio
https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/thingspianostudentssay
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCf9zR9HsXgyuNEZ8nxBZ4Vw
Items Mentioned
Friday Finds series on Piano Pantry
021 – A Simple, Effective, and Magical Element for Student Evaluations (Videos)
Blog post: Creating a Seamless Musical Experience (Daniel-light.com)
National Anthem of Ukraine by Daniel Light
iPad Pro, Apple Pencil, and Bluetooth Page-Turner Device
Tonara (online lesson assignment app)
My Music Staff (studio management software)
Duet Partner (studio management software)
Transcript
I’m Amy Chaplin, an independent teacher from Northeast Indiana, and this is the Piano Pantry Podcast. In this podcast, every five episodes, I have a casual chat with all kinds of piano teacher friends. I’m excited to continue this popular series and am kicking off the 2023 season by talking to one of my piano teacher friends from Louisville, Kentucky.
If you’re on Facebook much at all, you might already know Daniel Light as the guy who helps keep a smile on his fellow piano teacher’s faces with his popular hashtag, Things Piano Students Say. Daniel was one of the first people I thought of when I planned this series, and I hope you enjoy my lively chat with him today.
Do you enjoy checking out people’s lists of favorite things? Hope Grove was probably the person that made this kind of thing popular, and I’ve always loved seeing what other people love and value in these forms of lists. So when I started the Piano Pantry blog back in 2016, one of the first things I knew I wanted to do for piano teachers was to do something similar.
Thus was born the Friday Finds series on Pianopantry.com. Where I share 8 to 12 things I think my fellow piano teachers should know about or check out. With 257 posts thus far, the series has been a reader favorite for years. Teacher Katrina Polsky says that she loves when Friday finds pop up in her email inbox, as they spark such great curiosity for her.
And Janna Carlson has told me that the roundup helps save time by cluing teachers in to what’s worth our attention. Thanks to both of you and all the teachers out there who have oh so enthusiastically supported this series for years. If this is news to you, there are a few ways you can start following.
You can either follow Piano Pantry on Facebook at pianopantry.com or on Instagram at amychaplinpiano or you can follow the hashtag Friday Finds. Your best bet, though, to ensure you actually see them is to join the Piano Pantry email list, which I will link for you in the show notes.
Well, Daniel, thank you so much for being on the Piano Pantry podcast. I’m super excited that you accepted my invitation. I’m happy to be here. Thanks for asking. So would you be able to go ahead and tell us a little bit about yourself and your studio? Maybe how long you’ve been teaching, what your studio looks like in this moment?
Daniel: Sure. I am in Louisville, Kentucky and started my studio here in 1990, the year I finished my master’s degree at UofL. I did a degree in pedagogy and performance. During that time, I had done an internship with a local teacher that was just a semester-long, but we got along really well. Her name is Carol Dennis, and she’s taught up until just retired about a year ago.
After that internship, she knew I was graduating the next spring. She asked me if I would like to join her and have studio space and rent space from her. And that was a really great offer because I was hoping to teach full-time. So she had this house where it was a split level and the whole first floor she used for teaching space. So she had her studio at one end, mine was at the other, and we had a waiting area in the middle. Between that very first year of teaching, in 1990, when I had just graduated, between the students, she had it on a waiting list. And the local Music Teachers National group that we, that we had here, those teachers filled my studio, and I had 60 students the first year.
Amy: Oh my goodness.
Daniel: I, that was such a gift from those people. And especially Carol, who helped me get started. And I can’t say enough how grateful I am for that great start. It had nothing to do with me. It was just the kindness of people that helped me get going. And it was really wonderful. And I hope we all find ways to help young teachers do. Be successful in that sort of thing.
I quickly learned that 60 students was probably too many and I was teaching some half hour lessons and I quickly learned that wasn’t a great idea, we all have to live and learn. I did whittle down the number and made my lessons longer pretty quickly, but I’ve been doing it ever since, so it’s been my full-time job, and I have 40 students right now, and that’s what I’ve kept through the years, about 40. I do private lessons. We don’t, I don’t do any group, necessarily, but we do have several times a year, we have groups group classes on Saturday where we just performance classes where we share and perform for each other.
And I’ve always done a church job on the side, which is part-time, just because I enjoy doing that. I’ve done it all my life, and that’s where we are.
Amy: I was trying to think back of how you and I first became acquainted with each other. So, the first time I remember meeting you was when I came down to present to your local group in Kentucky.
Daniel: Your memory is correct. That is how we first met. I had I’ve always enjoyed reading blogs and that sort of thing, so I’d followed your blog for a while, and when our teacher’s group was looking for speakers, I just volunteered your name because I knew you were close, you’re in Indiana, and I said, I bet Amy would be happy to come and speak so that was our first connection, I think,
Amy: can you tell us what one of your absolute favorite things about piano teaching is?
Daniel: There are so many things, but I think when I was really young, I knew I wanted to do something that allowed me to be independent and be creative. And I had already, because I had already worked with churches a lot, even as a really young person, I understood that bureaucracies can sometimes make it slow process to do the things you’d like to do; that, I think that was the motivating factor and it maybe still is the thing I love most. If I think of something I want to do, I can just try it, I don’t have to ask permission or creative freedom. Exactly.
Amy: And work freedom, to set your own schedule and, do it however works best for you in your life in that moment.
Daniel: I love that aspect of it. And there are many things I love, but that’s important. What’s maybe one of the biggest struggles that you find as a piano teacher with what 30 years of experience? I don’t think in terms of struggle very much because I enjoy what I’m doing, but I’m very aware that I have to be careful to carve out time for myself.
I told you, I started off working a little too much in the very beginning and some often was doing seven days a week. And I can still easily find myself doing that this past week. I worked seven days. It’s just because I work part-time as a church musician. So, this weekend, we had a choir retreat that went through the weekend.
I can often find myself playing funerals on Saturdays, and of course, I work every Sunday. I’m real careful to make sure that even though there are days and weeks like that, that I take time off. So I’ve scheduled a week off in February every year. I schedule a week off in October. And that helps me stay sane and take care of myself.
Amy: Yeah. And your studio year, do you do like a year-round, a thing where they’re, they get so many weeks throughout the year, or how do you set up your schedule?
Daniel: I do. I plan the whole calendar a year in advance, so the parents know a year ahead of time exactly when recitals are and that sort of thing. They know that they’re going to get 32 lessons in the school year, at least four in the summer, and they can take more in the summer if they want. So it’s planned out well ahead of time.
And it gives me the opportunity to take off the time that I need when you work at home, it’s so easy just to walk by the desk and think, Oh, I’ve got five, five things I need to get done, even when you intend not to be working, so important to be careful about balance.
Amy: Absolutely. Yeah. So one of the reasons I was excited to have you on is you have been doing this thing on Facebook for years that I just absolutely love. And I think it’s just. It’s so unique, and I really want teachers to know about it if they don’t. And that is a hashtag called Things Piano Students Say. Did I get that right?
Daniel: Exactly right.
Amy: So tell us a little bit about that. Like how did it get started? How long have you been doing it?
Daniel: Way back when I first got started, I think the first one I ever wrote down was in the ’90s. I had this student named John who was really witty and funny. And I remember one time he was, it was Christmas time, and he played Silent Night, and it was absolutely forte. It was just. Really loud, rambunctious version. He got done. I said “I think he woke the baby Jesus without missing a beat.” He looked at me and said, “I think if I were being worshiped, I’d at least stay awake for it.” And I laughed so hard and I thought I got to write that down because that’s really witty and funny. And I did, and that was the first one I ever wrote down. And then, years after that, I started writing funny things they said, and I have this silly little cookie jar over there on the shelf. It’s a lion, something I got as a kid, just whimsical and funny, so I keep it in the studio. I would write them down and put it in there.
I was really late to Facebook. I didn’t want to have anything to do with Facebook. And I didn’t until 2016, and I finally gave in. The third thing I posted on Facebook was one of something silly a kid had said to me that day. And then I just started doing it from there. So 2016, in January 2016, the first time I put it online, and I used that hashtag just because it seemed appropriate, and I’ve done it ever since.
Amy: Yeah, I was scrolling through it on Facebook just to see the history of it, and there were a couple of other people that I saw use that hashtag, but it was mostly just all of your stuff. And I think it’s amazing that you’ve been doing it for so long so consistently. Okay, humor us and share some of your favorites over the years.
Daniel: A lot of them have had to do with the kids telling me how old I am, which is fine with me. I am old and it always makes me laugh. So one of the ones that I remember really was me trying to get a student to, use his wrist and drop and lift appropriately at phrase endings he was pretty stiff. So I just played a phrase after he had played it really wooden and solid, and I played it again and did a wrist lift that looked like the way I wanted him to do it. I said, what’s different? He said, “your hand is old and wrinkly.” That’s true, but that’s not what I was getting at. So that became one of the things students say,
Amy: That’s a good one. Give us more.
Daniel: One of the students a few years ago said, “Mr. Light, did your Christmas tree have candles on it when you were a kid?” I think he was really serious. It was a first grader, I’m old, but I’m not that old.
Amy: Oh my gosh, I love it. It just feels so good to laugh, like we don’t get enough chances to laugh sometimes in life.
Daniel: Occasionally, on Facebook, teachers or other Friends will say, how do you keep a straight face? And I’m, why would I keep a straight face? I just go fall, and then they like, exactly. They like making me laugh. I don’t intend to keep a straight face. I wanna laugh. Wait, have fun. You don’t.
Amy: All right. Keep ’em coming.
Daniel: Oh, there was one from a fifth grader who attended the same church that I do where I play, and he said a few, this was a couple years ago, he said, came into his lesson. “My dad said he heard you play a wrong note in church” – I’m sure he did. I loved it.
Amy: Oh, that’s funny.
Daniel: Another one I wrote down to bring up was a kid said, “My parents made me play violin for five years. That was even worse than piano.” I think she enjoyed her piano lessons. I think, she seemed to…
Amy: Kids are so telling. Oh, that’s so funny.
Daniel: No filters, and that’s what makes it fun.
Amy: No, I love the honesty, yeah. So I was scrolling through, and I wrote down a few old ones; these are some of your old ones. “What’s Beethoven’s favorite fruit?” Ba-na-na-na. That was from a four-year-old.
Daniel: I had forgotten that one, yeah. That’s an old one.
Amy: And then you said a 12th grader said, “As of last night, I’m totally organized.” Which, I love that one.
Daniel: Needless to say, he wasn’t.
Amy: And then the third one that I wrote down was from a first grader. “Sorry I’m a little late. I had to go to the dentist to get my teeth painted.” I don’t know if they’re talking about what it’s called…. I can’t think of the treatment stuff. Is it fluoride? Is it fluoride? Yes, I kept wanting to say floss. Fluoride, they now paint it. But that was probably an older one, so I don’t know if they did it back then. But anyway.
Daniel: No, that was like a year ago, and it might as well be then. Yeah. And I just had that done. I thought it probably was fluoride, but it didn’t matter; whatever he, he, deserved it as painting his teeth and it just made me how,
Amy: Oh my goodness. So teachers, if you need a good laugh, if you’re feeling a little down, just follow Daniel on Facebook. We’ll link to his Facebook page and the hashtag in the show notes #thingspianostudentssay – you got to follow it.
Okay. So what I’ve been, from what I’ve seen following you online, you’re a pretty tech-savvy person. Are there any technology tools that help you that you almost just couldn’t live without in this day and age as a teacher?
Daniel: I do use technology a lot. I always feel like I don’t know anything you or everybody else knows, but I’ll share with you some of the things that are important. The iPad is probably the biggest thing that I can’t imagine teaching without now or playing without. I use an iPad using Fourscore. And it just makes my life so much easier, especially as a church musician. I just make a playlist for every Sunday, for every service, and I don’t have to carry around notebooks and stacks of choral anthems and, yeah.
Amy: Yeah. I have a teacher friend who texted me this week and said she finally got the 12.9 size, full-size iPad. And I’m like, yes. I was like, I don’t know how people have lived without this. What size do you have? Do you have the full size?
Daniel: I do have the largest one. Yeah. And it, it’s about the size of a regular sheet of music, and that just makes it so easy on my old eyes, too. To be able to read it.
Amy: I was gonna say, if you have the smaller iPad, Fourscore can do like a half-page turn, a deal, but it’s still just not the same. It’s just so nice to have that full size.
Daniel: I did use a smaller one the first few years I used the iPad for music, but it was awfully nice to be able to upgrade to a larger screen and make it easier on my eyes.
Amy: Do you have the Apple Pencil too? Because you gotta have, if you have the Pro, you gotta have the Apple Pencil, which is. Ugh, the old styluses. Do you remember those old styluses with the little plastic endings? Or, they would move around based on how you twisted your hair. Ugh, they were awful.
Daniel: So my scores have my fingering all over them. When you play for church you write in fingerings on an anthem that might need it. And then they put it back in the library, and you never get that one back, yeah, exactly. And now my fingering stays there. So it’s there when I need it again, all my markings, and I love that.
I like pulling it out and showing my students my markings. Cause I write all over my scores, I’ll highlight a dynamic I might’ve missed, or they have a lot of writing on them with that Apple pencil. And when I try to encourage students to mark their scores, I say, look at what I’m practicing. It’s got my handwriting all over it. And I can just whip out the iPad and show them they’ve. Get the big eyes, it’s okay,
Amy: yeah, you can’t encourage students enough to write and make marks in their music. I’m always telling them to write something down. You don’t have, it makes you not have to like, think about it again the second time around, I also love the four score app.
So like the church that I play for, it’s just a real small church. Maybe 30 people regularly, and they sing from their hymnal. And so I scan the hymns into it. And now after 10 years, I have built up a huge amount of my hymns in ForScore. And then I can just, like you say, you just create a set list from there and it’s all ready to go.
Easy. So yeah, I would definitely recommend investing in an iPad and Apple pencil. If you play any kind of regular set lists.
Daniel: I use the pedal to turn pages, too. Do you?
Amy: Yes. Yes. I have a Bluetooth pedal as well.
All right. So, since we’re on the topic of technology, I have to give kudos to Daniel because he is the person who introduced me to Google Photos back in whatever year it was when I Came to speak to your local group, and you came up to me afterward and, mentioned Google photos. I don’t remember how the conversation went, and my life has forever changed. I’m so glad I’m so dramatic about it, but it’s true.
Daniel: Google Photos was, I believe, the first online photo app I had used. I had not, I suppose I had used, Apple photos since the beginning, but I like, I never used. It’s online storage space with Apple for that, but when Google Photos offered their option, it just clicked with me for some reason. I started really making use of it. So in the beginning I would, I have for years wrote an assignment sheet for my students with pen and paper, right? I printed them out every week and had forms that I had created myself.
I know you’ve created a lot of assignment sheet forms. And I would just snap a picture before they left, and it automatically uploaded to Google Photos. And then preparing for lessons the next week was just easy. I would just open up Google Photos on my computer screen and look through the assignments and make sure I was ready for what should come next. and that’s how I was first using it, and I think that’s what I spoke to you about that day. Another thing I do with it, I don’t do that anymore because I use Tonara for assignments, but another thing I still use it for is every time I give students a new book or a new piece of sheet music. I just snapped a picture of them.
And you know how Google Photos has face recognition. So I can quickly pull every picture I have of any student and see their little face holding what books they have. It’s just a few touches on the screen of my phone, and I can see that I did it yesterday. A student, I wanted him to have some new classical stuff and I had planned ahead of time what I was going to give him. But I didn’t even look up to see what books he already had because I thought I remembered. But while he was here, we just pulled up my phone and said, Oh, I’m pretty sure you have this book at home and I’ll look and see. And sure enough, on my phone, he had it at home. So he sightread from my copy that’s here on the shelf, and I said, you’re not taking my copy home. You’ve got it.
Amy: That’s actually a great idea. I do the same thing I take photos when I give a student a new book, or of course I take pictures too when they finish books, for social media and stuff. But the funny thing is I usually just do that so that I can record what books a student has in my little Evernote list, and I don’t forget to write it down. But then I usually delete it, but I never actually thought about just keeping it in Google Photos. So that’s brilliant, actually.
Daniel: I’ve stopped writing it down. I really don’t need to. I really don’t need to. Now, I can go through Tonara and see everything they’ve ever been assigned since I’ve started using it, but it’s laborious. You, there’s not an easy way to see all their, you have to click every lesson, to bring those things up. So it’s easier just to pull up my phone and say, look up a certain student, and there’s all the pictures of them with all their books. Yeah, definitely.
And sometimes every once in a while, like from year to year, for example, with Christmas books, sometimes you’ll give a student a Christmas boo,k and they can easily use it for two, two years in a row.And so a lot of times they’ll have it at home and then you have to send them a message in October. Hey, can you start bringing this book? And it’s much easier for them if you can send them a picture of what it looks like because, bless their hearts, they probably have stacks and stacks at home, and I get that.
Yeah, that’s brilliant. We haven’t explained, so maybe we should say this: One of the things I love about Google Photos is that it automatically uploads those photos in the background. So you can take them off your phone. So, I don’t have many pictures stored on my phone at all. They automatically get uploaded to Google photo server and then I can just delete them off my phone.
Amy: Yeah. So it saves storage space on your device. Yeah. And you can count that it’s there.
Daniel: Exactly. My phone would have filled up long ago if I had to keep them all stored on the phone. They’re stored in the Google Photos app, and that’s off the phone. Of course. Yeah,
Amy: One way that I use it is by…like at the end of the year, I started doing this actually last year was a new thing, but as I was doing evaluations with my students, I thought, gosh, what a great way to share their progress and piano lessons, not just by listing a list of here are the skills that they’ve done, which honestly, most of the time they don’t understand or care, but gosh, what if I went back and I actually me.
Show the videos of them. They’re playing because I try to record pretty regularly. Now, these days of them playing pieces and lo and behold, during our evaluation time, we went back. I just each of my students, you can either keep an album of them that will automatically file all the pictures and videos into that album for you, which is what I do, or you can just easily also use face recognition where you just name the student’s face.
And then, if you click on that face. It’ll pull up all their stuff. But yeah, and I just thought it was so amazing. And I think that the parents and the students really enjoyed it. Oh my gosh, look at this. You were only using one hand last year, and actually, I did an episode, one of my podcast episodes last year on that. I’ll link to it in the show notes because I can’t remember exactly what number it was.
Daniel: Yes, I remember it. Yesterday I took a video of a student who was, a little student whose fingers were collapsing. And I knew he could do better, and he’s done better so many times, but I wanted him to see it. And then, and I showed it to him, and he, of course he looked at me crazy while I was holding the video up close to his hands, but he enjoyed watching himself.
And then I thought, I’m going to use that at his evaluation at the end of the year, when I can say to the parents that he’s gotten so much better because I’m going to make sure he gets better at holding his own position, yeah. And yesterday ,when he first started his lesson, they were really collapsing pretty badly. And just by seeing it, he improved it right away. And I know as I keep after him during the year, he’ll do much better.
Amy: So you are also a bit of a composer as well. You besides having your piano studio website and stuff, you have your own website, daniellight.com. I think it’s daniel-light.com. Is that correct?
Daniel: It is. There’s that hyphen in the middle. I grew up improvising, that’s the reason my piano, my parents put me in piano lessons. I was picking out tunes by ear. So, I’ve always been an improviser and somebody who liked to noodle and make things open. And that easily leads to making arrangements and compositions.
It’s just something that came naturally and easily to me. Yeah, a few years ago, a lot of time,s people would say, can I get a copy of that? And so I started putting them online. And I don’t have a lot, I don’t have a great deal, but I keep adding to it little by little. It’s not something I spend a lot of time on, but when I create something, I put it there.
Amy: They’re really good, though. I have to say I especially appreciated, back about this time last year with the whole Ukrainian war thing going on, you published a download of the Ukrainian National anthem, which I played for my students during group classes when that was all going on, so I really appreciated that. And it was a great arrangement. I also had a post recently where you shared about transitions. That was super fascinating. It was around Christmas time. I think, wasn’t it?
Daniel: Yes. At the church, I worked at a pretty large church, and they do a really amazing choral concert every year. And there we have the two directors that I’ve worked with who have always been very careful to create a Christmas program or any concert where things flow seamlessly. And so pieces will; they’ll make sure that pieces are in related keys or there’s some connecting so if they happen to have back-to-back pieces that don’t connect easily. They asked me to create a transition. So I get to create a few piano transitions. They’re usually about a minute long, but I’ll take thematic material from maybe one of the pieces or both of the pieces, tie them together ,and work into the new key. It’s just fun. It’s a fun, creative challenge. And I shared a few of those in my blog.
Amy: Yeah. Yeah. I really enjoyed reading that and I’ll post a link to that particular article in the show notes as well. Great. Thanks. Is there anything that we haven’t talked about today, Daniel, that you would like to share with our listeners?
Daniel: Along the technology forefront, I thought I’d mention that I do really enjoy using Tonara. When I first became aware of that, I thought it was just for tracking students’ practice, and I really wasn’t interested in that. And I’m still not. I don’t spend; I don’t really use it for that at all. Although, if students enjoy doing the tracking, I’m happy to acknowledge that and pat them on the back. Good for you, but some students just don’t want to use that part of it. And that’s not why I use it. I love being able to include recordings and that sort of thing in Tonara. So I could never do that, of course, with pen and paper when we were writing assignments that way.
During the COVID experience, we had to find a different way to. To assign students, give their assignments. And so I got used to using Tonara and really loved it. So, all my students are preparing for a duet recital that will take place in three weeks. We do that every year. So, I’ve recorded all of their duets and put them in their Tonara assignment at multiple tempos. So even when they’re first starting at a slow tempo, there’s a recording there that they can practice with and hear their partner’s part from the very beginning. It makes the process of preparing for an ensemble recital so much easier because they’re so accustomed to hearing that part from the very beginning and it; it’s investment of time, but it’s worth it and I love the fact that you can just pop those into Tonara and they have them from the very beginning.
Amy: Yeah. That’s a great way of using it. Yeah. I agree. I think the practice is great, but I don’t stress over it. If your students don’t log in and use it, I don’t stress over that as well. Some of them do, some of them don’t, and it’s nice that even if they’re ones that don’t like maybe log in regularly, that at least there is an opportunity if they need to, if there’s a recording they need to hear or whatever, you have a particular ensemble thing that they really need to work with, and they can have that available.
I also super love that I can communicate directly with my students. I don’t have to text a parent and say, Hey, can you tell such and such that, a recording is available or whatever?
Daniel: I love that aspect, too. And I’ll say that I always encourage the parents of my students to have it on their phones, too. I want them to be aware of all the communication that’s going back and forth. Sometime,s when you’re able to message a young student, you have to be careful, and I say to parents, I always want it on your phone so that you’re completely aware of everything that’s there and that sort of thing,
Amy: I knew we would get some great technological tips from you today. Thank you so much for being on the podcast today. It’s been really great catching up, and I’m excited for listeners to hear our chat together.
Daniel: I’m honored to be part of it. And thanks. So much for asking me.
Amy: Today’s tiny tip is actually something Daniel shared with me in our chat. Rather than including the conversation portion, I thought it would be perfect for sharing as today’s tiny tip. Scheduling piano lessons can easily become a stressor if we let it, especially in the summertime. Why not, then, consider moving the ball from our court and placing it in that of our families?
Consider utilizing an online scheduling tool for booking lesson times during busy times of the year, like summertime. You tell the scheduling tool when you’re available, and then using your booking link, studio families can look at their schedule. And book the times that work best for them, without worrying about feeling tied to the same lesson time week after week.
Now, Daniel and I definitely wouldn’t recommend this during the school year, when you need that weekly consistency. But, there are times when it makes life so much easier for all involved. You can either use special software designed just for music studios, as Daniel does, like MyMusicStaff or Duet Partner, or you can use other scheduling tools like Calendly or Acuity Scheduling.
Currently, I’m using Acuity simply because I wanted something I could use both in my piano studio, and for booking things like my digital organization coaching series, one on one consultations, and my summertime piano teacher retreat for teachers. Save your sanity this summer by simplifying your scheduling process.
Thanks again to Daniel for sharing with me how he does this in his studio in the summers so that I can, in turn, share more with you. Happy teaching!