187 – 15 Years In: What I’ve Kept (and What I’ve Let Go)

It’s hard to believe it, but I just finished my 15th year of running my own music studio. I thought it would be fun to look back and consider things I still use in my teaching as well as some things I’ve let go of.

While I could also get into how my teaching itself has changed in the last 15 years, that could be quite a rabbit hole and feels a lot more complicated, so I decided to stick with some of the more tangible items.

The easiest way I knew how to remember some of the things I was using back in the early days, was to look at photos. It was fun taking a stroll back to memory lane. The list is by no means comprehensive. Just a little selection to feature for you today.

I’m Amy Chaplin and you’re listening to episode 187 of The Piano Pantry Podcast. This podcast is supported by listeners like you on Patreon. If you are enjoying this podcast and can help support this endeavor, I invite you to join at pianopantry.com/patreon.

Before we dive in – two quick announcements.

First, I’m now offering mini consultations. It’s a 25-30 minute consultation and is currently on sale 10% off through the end of July. 20% off for my Patreon friends. I’ll post the link in the show notes as well as everything I mention today at pianopantry.com/podcast/episode187

Second, the extended deadline for registration for the Organize Your Life Retreat being held August 12-15, 2026 in my home in Indiana ends July 15. You can still register after that date but the $20 discount will have passed. Visit pianopantry.com/retreat for details and to register.

So here are 8 items I still utilize after 15 years and 4 items I no longer use.

Still Use

1. Believe it our not my Casio Celviano AP-620 keyboards are still going strong. I don’t use them on a daily basis as much anymore as I was when I was doing group classes, but they still get use on occasion with siblings practicing while waiting or other group activities I might run. I had purchased 4 back in 2011 when I was running group classes but a few years ago I decided it was time to sell two while they were still in good condition since I wasn’t doing groups anymore. They no longer manufacture this model but the modern day equivalent would be, look to the AP-750.
2. I still have a handful of games I printed which were all from Jennifer Fink’s old website Pianimation which is no longer available. These games are still a hit to this day including Alphabet Trail, Accidental Adventures, and Crazy Keys.
3. Adventures in Music and Ice Cream Intervals from Joy Morin. The first one I don’t use quite as much, but the ice cream intervals is definitely a favorite one of mine that’s easy to pull out and use for either a single student or a group.
4. Two games from Anne Crosby Gaudet: Flashy Fingers – a simple board with flashcards and students tap their fingers to the number pattern; and Quirky Birds and Puppy Dogs which teaches stem placement.
5. Clearly glass floral jewels as game markers. Do you know what I’m talking about? They’re like clear and come and all kinds of different colors and you buy them in little netted bags. I’m not sure how I even got started using these. I think we may have had some in a fake plant and I dumped them into a glass jar with a banks name on it – which I have no recollection of where that came from – and they’ve been stored in that jar ever since. They make the perfect game markers though outside of Japanese erasers. I will forever use those things.
6. Piano Safari and Celebrate Piano method books. These were my go-to methods back in the day and while I don’t use them in their entirety anymore, I do still on occasion utilize the first books in both series – especially when I have siblings in lessons and need different books for them to work from. I use Piano Safari Pattern Pieces Book 1 more than anything pretty regularly still and just recently resurrected the Celebrate Piano 1A book for a student but it’s been years since I’ve done so.Because I know you all and how you’re want me to tell you want I now use instead, the answer is of course, it depends, but a lot of my beginners start with Marilyn Lowe’s Keyboard Games Book A or B and/or Joy Morin’s Keys at Play Book. Who knows – in two years that might be different!
7. Way Cool Keyboarding by Will Bailey from Pedagogy in Motion. I used the pedagogy in motion Musical Moments books when I was doing adult RMM classes back in the day and that’s when I also discovered the Way Cool Keyboarding books. I don’t personally care for the Way Cool Keyboarding KIDS books but I like book I and II which are orange and teal. I’m pretty sure I’ve probably mentioned these to you in past episodes. I don’t use them with all my students but sometimes they’re exactly what a teen needs. They’re totally supplemental and I skip over a lot but like that they include some chord chart stuff and fun pieces my tweens and teens always enjoy playing.
8. Feierabend Song Story Books. This is a series of books based on songs by early childhood educator John Feierabend who wrote the First Steps and Music. I used to use these books some in preschool classes and parks and recreation classes way back in the day and – of any of the John Feierabend materials of which I experimented with when I was trying to figure out how to teach preschool lessons – this is the one thing I am still using. Mostly, I just use them in the first 6 months to a year of lessons for my youngest students as a fun little end-of-lesson activity. I just posted a blog post on these books on the Piano Pantry blog if you want to read more.

Don’t Use

1. Individual beat work. I used to teach rhythm by the note and the note count. I even had individual heartbeat cards that students would line up and place notes below them to show how many heartbeats they had. Now I teach rhythm in patterns of 2 or 4 macrobeats. I sometimes utilize heartbeat cards from Joy Morin that has 4 heartbeats. Students listen to patterns in duple or triple and indicate on the card with their clear glass jewels how what the pattern was they heard so if I say Bah-bah-bah Bah-bah-bah or Du-de-Du Du-de-Du they would put two jewels on the first heartbeat, one jewel on the next, two jewels on the third and one jewel on the final one. Everything I do now is in patterns not just individual notes or beats.
2. Feierabends Expressive Movement Videos. ****This is a series of videos also by early childhood educator John Feierabend. Students watch the video and move expressively to classical music, following those on the video. I still think these videos are great, I just don’t utilize them as much as I used to partially because I don’t do a lot of group classes anymore and don’t have many young students at the moment and partially because if I do any moving, it’s with me singing songs in various tonalities. I still think they’re wonderful, so if they would be useful for you, definitely check them out through the link in the show notes.
3. Music Labs. When I started back in 2011, this was still a big thing, doing music lab time but it’s not something I include as part of my student lesson experience anymore. Times just change and it faded it’s way out naturally. I do still have some resources on the Piano Pantry website though if you’re interested in something like this for your studio.
4. Performance score cards of any kind. I used to have several different active listening cards I got from other teaching websites that could be used during group classes where students could rate each other’s performances – sometimes with numbers or smiley faces or temperature meters or what not. I now prefer to either use my visual listening cards for younger students, which you can find in the shop or just have verbal conversations with students following performances on what they hear and how the performance went, etc. In fact, all of those performance cards are still stashed away in a storage file drawer and I really should just get rid of them but it’s hard to let go sometimes, isn’t it?!

I hope you have a great holiday this past week! I would love to hear some of the things that you still use after 15 years or even 20 or 30 years and things you’ve let go of. You can follow me on Facebook at Piano Pantry and on Instagram at Piano Pantry Amy.

If you haven’t yet would you take a moment to rate and review the podcast? On Spotify all you have to do is give it a star rating – easy – and on Apple, just scroll down to the bottom of the episode page to find the area to add a rating and review. This just help the podcasting world know people are enjoying it so they will share it with other teachers.

Hit that subscribe button so new episodes will download automatically.

Thanks for being here and we’ll see you soon.