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Amy chats with Jennifer Foxx of MusicEducatorResources.com. Jennifer shares many tools she uses for content creation, including one very surprising one!
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Items Mentioned and Other Related Content
The Piano Pantry Podcast #012 – Share Your Stuff, I’ll Go First
The Piano Pantry Podcast #050 – Teacher Talk with My Piano Teachers
[Radaar.io](http://Radaar.iohttps://www.radaar.io/) (social media scheduling)
Flodesk (email marketing) *Use this link to get 50% off your first year. Please note this is an affiliate link which means I may earn a small commission if you sign up using this link at no extra charge to you.
Transcript
[00:00:00] Amy: You’re listening to episode 145 of the Piano Pantry podcast. I’m your host, Amy Chaplin, a piano teacher who loves connecting our teacher community. Today’s episode is what I call a teacher talk, where I have a casual chat with a teacher friend. So far, the most popular of these episodes is number 50, with my own piano teachers.
[00:00:30] It was certainly a special one. Today, you’ll enjoy hearing a few surprise answers from my guest, Jennifer Fox, a dynamic educator and entrepreneur with business, technology, and creative pedagogy expertise. Nationally recognized for her blog, musiceducatorresources.com, she’s passionate about inspiring both students and colleagues, continually innovating and engaging resources, presentations and curriculum development to stay at the forefront of music education.
[00:01:00] Welcome to the Piano Pantry podcast, Jennifer. I knew you would eventually be on here someday. I didn’t know when it would happen. And here we are, episode number 145. Why don’t you go ahead and take a moment to introduce yourself to everyone?
[00:01:14] Jennifer: Okay. I’ve been teaching piano for 35 years. I think a little bit over, but I run my studio in Arizona and I am just passionate about inspiring both students and my colleagues. In addition to teaching, I blog and I share music teacher tips and create innovative and creative music resources at musiceducatorresources. com.
[00:01:40] Amy: Now you mentioned your teacher tips. That’s like a video series that you have going on, right? What number are you on now?
[00:01:46] Jennifer: See, I’ve slacked this year. I don’t know. I think it’s in the 40s.
[00:01:54] Amy: I thought we had quite a few going on.
[00:01:55] Jennifer: It’s, it’s on YouTube. Yeah.
[00:01:58] Amy: So, how did you get into piano teaching? [00:02:00] Take us back a little bit.
[00:02:01] Jennifer: Okay. S,o I actually started teaching when I was 15 years old.
[00:02:07] Amy: Wow. I don’t think I knew that. Wow.
[00:02:10] Jennifer: Yeah. I was. So then, now you can figure out my age.
[00:02:13] Yeah, while I majored in elementary ed, I ultimately decided I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom. And so I realized that teaching piano was actually where my passion was. And so that’s the direction I decided to go with. And I have to say, I am really glad that it worked out that way. Cause I really, I truly love what I do.
[00:02:33] Amy: So you got your degree in, like, elementary education, but were you ever a classroom teacher at all? Or did you go straight from college into teaching piano lessons?
[00:02:42] Jennifer: Yeah, I went into the piano lessons.
[00:02:44] Amy: Okay, I did not realize that. I always have thought in my mind that you were an elementary teacher, and then you quit doing that, and
[00:02:51] Jennifer: I taught for a year when my son was in kindergarten; I taught the kindergarten music class while he was in there, but that was the extent. Yeah.
[00:03:03] Amy: So now your blog, did you start that right away, or did you start that several years into your teaching? What does that timeline look like?
[00:03:12] Jennifer: Yeah, I started my blog in 2010. So, it was after following blogs like those of Natalie Weber and Susan Parody. Yeah, they inspired me to start my blog, and I had things that I wanted to share. So I decided, Hey, why not? I’m going to start a blog too. Yeah.
[00:03:29] Amy: I did a podcast episode. I don’t know if you remember. I don’t know what number it was, but it was something like the bloggers’ timeline and when they started. I just thought that was so interesting, so I was messaging everybody going; when did you start your blog? I want to find out the order in which these things happen.
[00:03:42] Jennifer: Yeah. That was a fun one.
[00:03:44] Amy: Yeah. Okay. So it’s your site called Music Educator Resources. Before that, it was called Fox Piano Studio or something. I remember cause I followed you in the early days, Jennifer.
[00:03:57] Jennifer: Wow. Yeah. It was called FPS Resources for Fox Piano Studio because I didn’t know what to call this thing.
[00:04:06] Amy: Yeah. Back when none of us knew better in the blogging world, yeah, exactly. So, do you find that you have a lot of music educators in your audience because your website is called Music Educator Resources? Seems like good marketing to me. Sounds like a very smart move.
[00:04:27] Jennifer: Yeah, I do. I actually think a lot of my audience came from when I started selling on Teachers Pay Teachers in 2014. I was part of a music seller group, and most of that group consisted of school music teachers. And so we collaborated a lot, and I feel like I was able to get an audience from that first.
[00:04:47] I also feel like I have a bond with costume teachers, especially in the style that I teach while majoring in elementary ed. I noticed a lot of my what, how I teach, and what I do really stems from that. You know everything with that and stuff, but I would also think of my name, I’m sure, too.
[00:05:09] Amy: I remember when you did that, I thought, Oh, that sounds like that’s a good move.
[00:05:15] So you do a lot of selling on Teachers Pay Teachers. Are you still doing Teachers Pay Teachers? Have you moved stuff onto your own website? The resources that you sell. I know that you, at one point, weren’t selling stuff on your website directly at all. Am I correct?
[00:05:29] Jennifer: Yeah. So when I first started selling stuff, I started with TPT because I was clueless as what I was doing.
[00:05:36] So I didn’t want to do something alone, so that was a great way to start. And then a couple of years ago, I just said, okay, now’s the time I need to take it to my website. And so that’s when I added it there. Another thing. The reason I started on TPT is if there are any tech problems, they take care of it.
[00:05:54] Amy: Definitely. Yeah. There are some benefits there.
[00:05:56] Jennifer: So when I learned that having it in my store for a couple of years now, oh man, I have to deal with the tech stuff.
[00:06:04] Amy: Do you have some in both places now? Or
[00:06:06] Jennifer: I do. Yeah, I still have the store. I haven’t removed it. It’s still there. Cause I know some teachers, especially if they’ve been purchasing from me there for a while.
[00:06:15] They’d like to keep all their stuff there. But it’s nice to I want to. Lately, I’ve been trying to get them over to the website more.
[00:06:24] Amy: Do you have some of the same resources in both places or are you just starting to put like stuff that’s not on teacher pay teachers on your website and then slowly moving it off of there, is it in both places or?
[00:06:35] Jennifer: Most of it is in both places. I must say that I’m mostly my freebies, and I’m starting to have more on my website versus TBT.
[00:06:44] Amy: Do you have your website built on WordPress or Squarespace, or what do you use?
[00:06:48] Jennifer: Yeah, it’s WordPress.
[00:06:50] Amy: Do you have someone that helps you, or are you a solo gig? Like I am
[00:06:55] Jennifer: for many years, I was a solo gig. I started what, especially when I [00:07:00] got my store, I started hiring somebody to make sure every. The thing was still working, and if it went down, they took care of it. So that’s been nice.
[00:07:11] Amy: The thing that triggered me to get you on here, I was trying to decide who I have on for episode 145, and I’m like, that’s Halloween week. I was like, Jennifer Fox. Because over the years, I have seen you online just always doing fun stuff for Halloween, so that just triggered my mind quickly. So, what do Halloween celebrations look like in your studio? Do you spend the whole month of October focused on Halloween activities and such? Or what do you like to do?
[00:07:36] Jennifer: I love Halloween. I love this time of year. Halloween is the thing that kicks off the holiday season for me. So it’s always, yeah, it’s that time of year. Yeah, there are several things that we do this month. Last week was our Halloween masquerade, where students dressed in costumes and played their Halloween pieces.
[00:07:57] During the performances, I always like to do something. To keep the audience engaged a little bit more. And so this year we did a pass along game where I would share part of a poem and it would tell them where to pass the treat. So it’d be all over the audience.
[00:08:13] Amy: Fun.
[00:08:14] Jennifer: Yeah. Then, at the end, the last part of the poem tells who gets to keep the treat.
[00:08:19] Amy: How do people know where to pass it to? Did you like to have certain names? Because not everybody would know everybody.
[00:08:26] Jennifer: Yeah. No, it’s not named. So it’s things like the scariest costume, the person with the longest hair, or the person who traveled the farthest. So it’s adults, it’s kids, it’s,
[00:08:38] Amy: that’s fun.
[00:08:39] Jennifer: Everything in between. Yeah. And then last year I did for our performance during the performance between performers, we did Halloween musical. Jokes, Halloween-themed music jokes. And that was a lot of fun. I was dressed up as Lucy Ricardo last year. So it was perfect.
[00:08:55] Amy: Yeah. What are you dressing up for this year?
[00:08:57] Jennifer: So this year, I am a butterfly, and I love my butterfly costume. It’s so fun.
[00:09:04] Amy: Do you ever reuse your costumes, or do you do a new one every year?
[00:09:09] Jennifer: Oh, I like to do a new one every year, but there are times Lucy Ricardo, that was the second time I was her, so I will rotate every once in a while, but and then I also, I don’t teach the week of a group, or I don’t teach the week of Halloween.
[00:09:24] So we do group lessons the week of Halloween. And this year we did, the last two years, actually this year and last year, I did a glow group lesson where everything was glow in the dark or black lights or invisible ink or something that glows. And that was fun. We did rhythm dictation with glow sticks and rhythm like with YouTube videos, where they had the rhythm, the glow foam sticks.
[00:09:53] Amy: You like boom whackers or?
[00:09:54] Jennifer: They’re like boomwhackers, but they light up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that kind of stuff. And yeah, it was fun. [00:10:00] And then, and then, in the last couple of years, we have just done a lot of Halloween games and stuff. And then, just Halloween games, I have a game that we do that only takes five minutes to do after at the end of the lesson, which is perfect like that.
[00:10:14] Amy: So what about other seasonal things? Do you like to do this for all the other holidays, like Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving, or how do you celebrate the other seasons?
[00:10:23] Jennifer: Yes. I love themes and traditional things for Christmas. I hold a Christmas camp, which allows us to take a nice break from the norm and just take a holiday break.
[00:10:33] I started doing that about 25 years ago or so, and I will never return to weekly lessons in December. It is wonderful to just have it done. And then we get a nice. Break and parents love it because December is a crazy time of year, and a lot is going on. There’s a lot of things they want to do.
[00:10:52] And then so they can do it. They can have their Christmas camp session and then don’t have to worry about piano. So we do that. And then I also, my students, perform at Music at the Mall. It’s through our music teachers association. They always do that in December. And so we’ll play our Christmas songs during that time. And then in November, I have a tradition where students write down why they’re thankful for music. I will share it every day that month on my Facebook or Instagram page. So that’s always fun. I always love to see what they write down. Yeah. Yeah. It’s fun. And especially when I’ve been teaching a student how their answers change.
[00:11:34] Amy: And that’s neat to hear directly from the students, like even sharing that on social media, that’s. A good marketing tool, even, for your studio without it being marketing,
[00:11:43] Jennifer: yeah. Yeah. And then the other holidays, I don’t have anything big. I, we might do like a themed game or something, but.
[00:11:49] Amy: in December, are you, are the kids only coming to one group class for the whole month or do they come once a week for two or three weeks?
[00:11:56] Jennifer: So they come. It’s two weeks, once a [00:12:00] week for two weeks. It’s a two-hour session, so it’s four hours in total.
[00:12:05] Amy: I’ve been doing group classes for the last 14 years as well, in lieu of lessons every six weeks or so.
[00:12:10] In December especially, it’s nice, like the week right before Christmas to just like the last week of teaching, whatever that may be, just to have that be a group class week at least. Because everybody’s done learning their Christmas music by then, and yeah. All ready to be done in general.
[00:12:24] I would love to hear a little about how your studio has evolved. What’d you say, 35 years of teaching or something like that?
[00:12:33] Jennifer: Because I was a teenager when I started. Yeah, it has evolved. Honestly, I think the biggest thing that has helped me evolve was joining MTNA.
[00:12:43] I’ve been a member. I joined in 2000, so it’s been 24 years that I’ve been a member, and I don’t think I’d be the teacher I am if I didn’t join and get involved. So whether it’s going to conferences, which I love, and that’s a huge [00:13:00] benefit. But also volunteer in positions in your chapters. I served as president twice in each of two different States.
[00:13:09] That alone has stretched me, who I’ve become, and the kind of teacher I am. And yeah, I enjoy the traditional things that we do. I’m also mindful of the burnout on some things that we do. So as far as. Evolving. I’m mindful of that. So when that happens, that’s either assigned to brush it aside.
[00:13:31] It’s had its time and, maybe it could come back later or change it up in some way. I think that helps evolve, too. Do you have any specific examples? One thing that changed that I didn’t do at the beginning was that I’ve been doing it for a while: rotating lessons where students rotate into different stations.
[00:13:52] I didn’t start that way when I started teaching. It’s something that I added. And that was an [00:14:00] experience. And I also learned how, okay, some students this doesn’t work for, and others it works very well for. And you learn as you do things.
[00:14:08] Amy: So what kind of rotating lessons are you referring to? Is it like an overlapping type of lesson or like your music lab? You’ve done something like that before.
[00:14:17] Jennifer: Yeah. So I do a couple where two students are here at the same time, and one is in the lab, and one’s with me. Then, I have three students here simultaneously, and we rotate in three stations.
[00:14:28] Yeah, so that when they’ll, they can be on the digital piano that I’m not with them, and they can do practicing, sight reading, composing, or anything else. Then, the other station is an iPad or work physical things. Sometimes, I’ll have them do physical activities.
[00:14:48] Amy: The student that’s on their own at the keyboard, do you give them assignments?
[00:14:52] Like you’re giving the student doing the lab assignment, or you just let them have that as free time to use it however they like?
[00:14:58] Jennifer: It depends on the student [00:15:00] and what I think they need. Yeah, sometimes I’ll be like, okay, you’re practicing.
[00:15:06] Amy: So, is that like a 20-minute rotation? So it’s over the course of an hour, and then your other ones are 30, 30, flip-flopping. And how do you determine if it is just based on what the students are interested in or where you think it would best fit them? How do you work that out with scheduling?
[00:15:22] Jennifer: It starts off the rotating; I don’t like it under seven years old. Cause anything younger really needs longer with me and a little bit more help. In fact, under seven, I don’t even have them do lab at all. They do the lesson. Teenagers typically do the longer lessons as well. It just depends on cause I have teens that. Are more recreational and they have just busy lives. And so they might be okay and rotate rotating. So, it just depends on what their life looks like. How much are they involved in? How much time do they have to practice and do things at home versus not?
[00:16:04] Amy: So the decision is based. Roughly explain their desires and needs and what you think would be a good fit. Gotcha. All right. So, as always, I have to geek out just a little bit and ask you how you like to keep yourself organized.
[00:16:16] Jennifer, any tips for everybody?
[00:16:18] Jennifer: I am a paper calendar person, but I also have my digital calendar. There’s something about writing. I really like to write down my schedule. I want to check. I like the check mark. But I do have an online calendar,too, and you also have the family calendar.
[00:16:41] But I actually use it for notes and organization stuff. I use Microsoft OneNote. I’ve been using it forever. And I tend to organize things also in categories, whether it’s digital or physical, I’m very a category person. Like studio life. Yeah. Search for different things like that. Yeah. I do that as well.
[00:17:00] Amy: I’m going to say I’m like you. The check marks are not necessarily physical, but I have an app that I use. It’s a task app called Todoist that has this wonderful little sound. When you check off that you did something, it goes a doop. Oh, nice. So pleasing. One item is done. That’s great. Yeah. So, I asked you a little bit earlier about some content creator stuff that you had online with your website.
[00:17:23] I thought it would be fun to hear some of the tools you use outside of your WordPress site. Do you like using Canva to create resources? Do you use Adobe? Yeah, what do you use?
[00:17:33] Jennifer: So to create resources, I use PowerPoint.
[00:17:36] Amy: What? No way.
[00:17:38] Jennifer: That’s my husband too. He’s, but I can’t believe you’re doing this on PowerPoint. I know PowerPoint really well.
[00:17:48] You can do a lot of things. With what you’re comfortable with.
[00:17:50] Amy: That’s the question you told me at the beginning. You’re going to be surprised by some of these answers. Is that the one you meant?
[00:17:55] Jennifer: Yeah, yeah.
[00:17:57] Amy: That’s great.
[00:17:57] Jennifer: And then I use Canva for social media. Canva, you have to be actually really careful if you’re going to sell things because they have some terms of use. And then you have to make sure that you’re not crossing.
[00:18:09] Amy: So what about email management? So, like your own personal email and then your subscriber email.
[00:18:14] Jennifer: Yes, I use Flodesk.
[00:18:16] Amy: Woohoo! Good choice! That’s what I used to.
[00:18:21] Jennifer: Yes. I was really excited when they released the platform. I jumped right on it because I was using MailChimp before. And MailChimp is, You know, As it’s formed. And it also is getting really pricey. Cause it’s so many subscribers and all that stuff. So I really liked the look of the Flodesk and everything. So I definitely jumped in when it happened.
[00:18:44] Amy: Yeah. My friend Joy Morin messaged me about it. She’s you should try out Flodesk because I was, I had been using also MailChimp and was just starting to feel frustrated by it. Like it was just feeling It’s like heavy and antiquated and it’s just. This should be so much easier, and like you, yes. Pricing starting to go up with [00:19:00] subscribers. And I’m like, okay, so I got in Flodesk and I locked it in the beta price. And it’s like much more now,. Just so sleek and so easy to use and just very modern feeling and beautiful.
[00:19:11] What about for lead magnets? Like when you have freebies that Have for people to download on your site. Do you use forms on Flodesk that they can go through there? Do you use a plugin on your WordPress site? What do you like using for lead magnets?
[00:19:24] Jennifer: Yeah, I use Flowdesk forms.
[00:19:26] Amy: You do? Okay. Same thing. They’re beautiful. They’re easy to use. You can embed them on your site. Any other tools that you use that I haven’t asked about that you think have been really useful to you and your professional?
[00:19:36] Jennifer: I would recommend the social media scheduling tool of some kind. I use Radar R A D A R, but there’s a ton out there.
[00:19:44] Amy: So I’ve heard about Radar recently and it’s like on my to do list of things to check out. So what did you use before Radar? Or did you use anything?
[00:19:53] Jennifer: I did. And now I don’t remember because I have been using this a lot.
[00:19:57] Amy: For things like hootSuite Buffer? I [00:20:00] think that’s another one.
[00:20:00] Jennifer: Oh, yeah, yeah. Buffer.
[00:20:02] Amy: Yeah. So you like Radar then, huh?
[00:20:04] Jennifer: I do, yeah.
[00:20:05] Amy: Okay.
[00:20:05] Jennifer: It works well. And I could use it for my studio and my music educator resources, like in the same, I don’t have to have two accounts or anything like that,
[00:20:16] Amy: cool. I’ll have to check that out. I’ve been using tailwind a little bit and then also just Facebook’s meta. Yeah. What’s it called? The back end. Yeah. Their scheduling tool. But everything’s not, nothing’s perfect. You know how that goes. I’m like, eh, it’s just not exactly what I want, but I don’t want to just change for the sake of changing either.
[00:20:32] Yeah. I like to ask everyone to just share one random fun fact about themselves that we may not already know about you. Something preferably unrelated to teaching, but it could be anything.
[00:20:43] Jennifer: I have a couple. Years and years ago, I was a wedding photographer.
[00:20:48] Amy: What? There’s another surprising fact.
[00:20:49] Jennifer: My husband, when we first met, was a wedding photographer, actually.
[00:20:54] Amy: Oh, really? Huh.
[00:20:55] Jennifer: Yep. Yes, it’s a stressful job. It’s a stressful job. Yeah. [00:21:00] My husband did a wedding videography and so we, we would just do it together. Yeah. It was fun, but we’re, yeah, totally over it. It was very stressful because you’re dealing with, somebody’s huge day and you have to be on all, Very stressful, but yes, that was that.
[00:21:15] And then this year I danced at a WNBA game for the Phoenix Mercury, during their pre, or what is it? Pre show, their pre show.
[00:21:26] Amy: That’s so cool. Was that with your, I know you’re doing like Zumba or something?
[00:21:32] Jennifer: Yeah, so the one of the instructors where I go for Zumba and commit dance is what it’s called. She set this up and yeah, we were able to dance.
[00:21:43] Amy: That’s so fun.
[00:21:45] Jennifer: Yeah, it was fun.
[00:21:47] Amy: Jennifer, is there anything else that we haven’t chatted about today that you think would be fun or useful for teachers to know?
[00:21:52] Jennifer: Yeah, I’ll just leave with some advice. As teachers, we give it our all every [00:22:00] day while teaching. And even when we aren’t teaching that can eventually lead to burnout. So, just be mindful of how you’re feeling. Give yourself grace when you need it. Give yourself some love, whatever that looks like to you. And give yourself some breaks. I’m a huge believer and advocate for breaks. I know some teachers won’t take breaks because they’re afraid of backsliding with their students, but I’ve been doing this a long time, and that has not been my experience. So I promise your students need the breaks just as much as you need them because they burn out, too.
[00:22:35] Amy: I agree. Yeah, I have always been a strong advocate for at least two weeks at Christmas and between the end of the school year and summer lessons. More if you can, but it’s just really important to have that downtime and step away from things sometimes. It gives you a better perspective when you return.
[00:22:50] Jennifer: Yeah.
[00:22:52] Amy: Thank you so much for being here today. It was great chatting and learning a few new fun things about you that I didn’t know.
[00:23:00] Jennifer: Thanks for having me.
[00:23:03] Just a heads up to save the date for the next Organize Your Life with Notion workshop by Joy Morin of Color and My Piano.
[00:23:12] It will be held Friday, January 10th, 17th, and 24th. Yes, that’s three Fridays from 1 o’clock to 3 p.m. Eastern Time. You can join our waitlist to be notified directly when the registration opens by visiting pianopantry.com/notionwait that’s pianopantry.com/notionwait.
[00:23:40] If you would like to support this ad-free podcast, I invite you to join me on Patreon. I love having my inner circle of piano teacher friends. Will you be one? Visit pianopantry.com/Patreon to join today. Thanks for being here. Be sure to subscribe so all new episodes download automatically.
[00:23:58] You can follow me on social media at Piano Pantry on Facebook and at Piano Pantry Amy on Instagram.
