Color In My Piano » piano teaching

My Summer Camp Plans for 2012!

joy (admin) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:27:33 +0000

I recently started to do some in-depth planning for the summer camps I plan to offer this summer! My studio policies provide students with two options for the summer months (June-August):

Students ages 6-12 may participate in a camp each month plus take 5 lessons scheduled approximately every other week around family vacations, or…
Students may continue weekly lessons (10 total) as normal. Students who choose to continue lessons as normal are welcome to sign up for 1, 2, or all 3 summer camps on top of their lessons if desired, at a special rate.

Because I have such a range of ages/levels in my studio, I decided to make my camps very flexible so that students of a wide range of musical backgrounds (even those with no music background) can attend camp. When my studio is larger, I will probably design camps for certain ages/levels. For this year, I think it’s best to be flexible. I’m encouraging my students to invite their friends to attend camp and I’ll put posters around town too. I’m hoping for a turnout of about 4-8 students attending each camp.

Below are the descriptions I came up with for each camp. What do you think — do they sound like fun?! :)

JUNE 11-14: Musical Olympics!
This camp is designed to get students experiencing and learning about music through movement activities and team games like Rhythm Toss, Musical Hoops, Rhythm Splash, and the Musical Alphabet Relay. On the first day of camp, campers will be divided into two teams that will compete for the gold medal throughout the week! Campers — be sure to wear your swimsuit under your clothes, because there just might be a game involving water planned for each day of camp!

JULY 9-12: So, You Want To Be A Composer?
During this composition bootcamp, campers will gain inspiration and tools for composing their own music! Students will examine the creative process of a famous composer each day, and then create/notate their own composition in a related fashion. For example, the French Impressionist composer Claude Debussy was inspired by colors, so we will learn to notate a composition using various colors of paint! In addition to individual work, there will also be opportunities for improvising and composing as a group throughout the week. Students will also craft a musical instrument to take home each day.

AUGUST 6-9: Music History Blast From The Past!
During this camp, we will be traveling back in time to get a glimpse into the lives of the great classical composers. Each day, we will focus on a time period from music history and create a scrapbook page of pictures/notes to take home. As we study the composers we will be not only listening to the music of each time period, but also looking at the instruments, clothes, and art of each time period in order to make the past come alive. Campers will be sure experience the thrill of a blast from the past during this music history camp!

Many of the activities I’m planning for each camp are from Sheryl’s blog (because she has lots of great game ideas and lots of experience with summer camps too) and from Pinterest. I’m sure I’ll be sharing more of the details — and hopefully photos too — eventually! Are you planning any summer camps this year?

DIY Floor Music Staff for $10

joy (admin) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 13:01:43 +0000

I’ve been wanting a floor staff for a long time. Now I finally have one!

Here’s the materials I used:

oblong vinyl tablecloth (mine is 52” x 90”) or a shower curtain. (I paid $8 at Wal-Mart for my tablecloth.)
black masking tape, or electrical tape. (I found a roll of black masking tape for $1.29 at my local craft store. Masking tape is 1” wide. If you want thinner lines, use electrical tape.)
ruler
pencil

I’m happy with my decision to go with a vinyl tablecloth over a shower curtain. I got the tablecloth suggestion from a friend of mine from back in Michigan (thanks, Michelle!). The vinyl is a little bit stiff which helps it stay flat on the ground (although it’s pretty wrinkly from the packaging – hopefully those little bumps will smooth out with time), and the fabric backing prevents it from slipping around on my hardwood floor. The vinyl will be easy to sweep or wipe off if needed, and I love that my floor staff folds up easily for storage!

After some math, I determined that I would make the spaces 3.5” wide. Using a pencil and ruler, I marked where the tape should go using a little dash every 18” or so. I wanted to make sure the tape lines were nice and straight!

I would have liked to make the spaces larger so I originally considered using the tablecloth vertically instead of horizontally, but I also wanted to have plenty of room down the length of the tablecloth. My own two feet don’t really fit well in the spaces, but it will probably be just the right size for my students’ little feet. Fortunately, my beanie animals fit just right too!

The plush alphabet letters pictured in the first photo came from Goodwill. It was a near-complete set of 2 of all 26 letters for just $1. I removed A-G from the set and plan to give the rest to my 3-year-old nephew, who is obsessed with letters right now. :) If you wanted to make your own set of colorful letters, you could make them by cutting letters out of felt.

I’d like to sew some black, round bean bags to use as music note heads, but I think for now I’m going to buy a package of small black paper plates at the dollar store and cut out the middles to fit on the staff. Another idea is to buy a package of pre-cut round foam discs from a craft store or dollar store.

Now I just need to make a treble clef and a bass clef! I don’t think masking tape is going to work well for making the curvy treble clef shape, so I’m trying to think of an easier way. I might just cut the clefs out of cardboard or out of a dollar store shower curtain, and then spray paint it black. Any other ideas?

I can’t wait to show my new floor staff to my students! I found a few floor staff games here at Jennifer’s Pianimation blog. Please let me know if you know of some other great floor staff games. :)

Musical Instruments Quizzing/Sorting game

joy (admin) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:14:55 +0000

My Homeschool Class and my Piano Readiness Class both recently finished their Musical Instruments Workbooks. We usually complete just two pages each class, so it took us awhile to get through it!

Now that we’ve finished it, we’ve been playing a fun little sorting/quizzing game using the deck of instrument cards that came with my MiniMusic kit. This competitive game has been quite a hit!

Instructions for Gameplay:

On his/her turn, each student draws a card from the top of the deck and has the opportunity to earn three possible points:

By correctly naming the instrument.
By correctly categorizing the instrument into its instrument family. We make piles for each family on the floor as we go.
By stating a fact about the instrument (e.g., how the instrument makes sound, what the instrument is made out of, how the instrument is played, etc.).

I keep track of each student’s points on a piece of paper. My students having been playing this game with a great deal of enthusiasm, and I’ve been impressed with how much it has helped them review / memorize the instruments! They love the satisfaction of being able to name facts about each instrument and being able to sort them correctly.

Note: If you don’t have any instrument flashcards, here is a website that has some beautiful (and free) ones to download. (The link in the post to download the pdf isn’t working when you click on it, but I found that it worked to copy and paste the link into my browser.) To play the game I described above using those cards, you will need to cut off the instrument names from the bottom of the card so the answer isn’t there for the students to read! :)

Forum Q&A | Perfectionist Piano Students

joy (admin) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 15:40:21 +0000

Last week, our Forum Q&A discussion was about saying goodbye to piano students before moving away. Today, I’d love to hear your thoughts about students who are perfectionists. We’ve all had them! Sometimes they are so hard on themselves when it comes to making mistakes that they stop having fun. They may even stop making progress in their piano study as a result of their intense fear of making mistakes.

On the other hand, as a professor at my alma mater once said, music is one of the few professions where perfection is not only expected, but it is considered the norm. We have to admit, our goal is perfection in a way.

And so, I think a balance is necessary.

What are your thoughts? What can we do about students who become too hard on themselves? How do you help the perfectionist student become “okay” with making mistakes? How do we help students achieve a balance when it comes to reaching perfection?

Humidity and My Piano

joy (admin) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 12:22:42 +0000

Here in Ohio, the winter snow is finally upon us! We were spoiled with an extraordinarily mild December, and only recently have have had a few inches of snow actually staying on the ground for more than a few days without melting.

The snowy weather outside means, of course, that the air gets very dry indoors. The old radiators in our home are running almost constantly! As a recent first-time piano owner, last week I decided I should buy a hygrometer to see just how low the humidity is getting in our home, for the sake of my piano. I ordered this hygrometer from Amazon and it arrived just a couple of days later (love that). I was shocked, however, to find that the humidity in my studio was under 20%! Not good.

My parents’ piano had a Dampp-Chaser “Piano Life Saver” system installed on it to help with the extreme humidity changes that Michiganders typically experience as part of the Midwest’s highly distinctive four seasons. Having one of these systems installed on my Kawai isn’t an option financially at this point, so I’m doing my best to figure out how I can keep the humidity more stable by other means even if they aren’t as convenient.

So, I started doing more research about humidity levels and pianos. I found a multitude of information available online. Here’s just a few articles:

Basically, I learned that I need to keep the humidity between 30-45% if possible. So I got out my humidifier from the attic. The last few days, I’ve been successful in keeping the humidity level right around 30%. I do think that my piano’s tuning is a little bit better now that the humidity is closer to where it should be.

This is all new territory for me. If you have tips or suggestions for maintaining a constant humidity level, leave a message in the comments below!

(By the way, I would highly recommend the hygrometer mentioned above to anyone looking for one. It not only shows the current humidity level and temperature in the room, but it also records the highest and lowest humidity and temperature levels taken throughout the day. There’s a magnet on the back, or it can also sit quite nicely on any flat surface.)

Forum Q&A | Saying Goodbye to Piano Students Before Moving Away

joy (admin) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 13:37:02 +0000

At our last Forum Q&A discussion, we talked about new year’s resolutions for piano teachers! Click here to view the responses.

Over the weekend, I received an email from a reader who is preparing to move and must say “goodbye” to all her students. I’d love to start a discusion about piano teachers saying goodbye and moving, so here goes:

Have you ever had to move and “give away” all your students? How did you break the news? Was there anything you were able to do for your students to make their transition to a new piano teacher easier? What other advice can you offer to a piano teacher who is preparing to move?

I’ll post my answer in the comments below, including the “goodbye letter” I wrote for my students last Spring when I moved after graduation. Please add your own thoughts to the comments below!

Pictures from the Studio

joy (admin) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 16:18:04 +0000

Thought I’d share a few photos of random things from the studio…

Here’s a first composition created by one of my young students last week. It’s called “Hush Little Squirrels.” I love her inventive notation system! You can see the black key groups of 2′s and 3′s pictured, and the L’s and H’s mean high or low. I was so proud of the work she put into creating and notating her piece.

My parents gave me this for Christmas to hang on the wall in my studio:

I’ve been looking for something to put on the wall over my piano for awhile now. I think this looks nice there!

My homeschool students are still working their way through the Musical Instruments Workbook. I used to store my crayons in a zipper bag and dump them out on the floor in little piles. Then I came across these cute little tin buckets that I bought at the dollar section at Target (probably a year ago), and found that they are absolutely perfect for crayons! Cleanup is a lot easier now that we don’t have all the crayons spread across the floor. :)

So that’s what’s new around the studio!

January Blog Roundup

joy (admin) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 13:07:29 +0000

Today, I’ve got some blog links to share! Here’s what I’ve stumbled upon recently…

Leah’s “For Love of Piano” blog has moved, gotten a facelift, and a new name! You will now found her blog at MyPianoPlayground.com.

Tim Topham is an Australian pianist & teacher who has a very nice blog at timtopham.com.

Tara is both a piano teacher and a adjunct professor teaching classes in neuroanatomy! Her “Training the Musical Brain” blog provides an interesting, scientific perspective on many issues related to teaching and learning music.

At the Teaching Children Music blog, Tamsyn shares printables and other projects:

Natalie’s Music Matters Blog has also gotten a complete redesign! Check it out the new look if you haven’t already.

First Thoughts Regarding Faber’s “My First Piano Adventure”

joy (admin) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 15:15:19 +0000

As big of a fan as I am of Nancy & Randall Faber’s materials for piano students, somehow I’ve never had a chance to try out their “My First Piano Adventure” books — until now. After trying out this book with a new 5-year-old student last week, I am wondering why in the world didn’t I check this out sooner?!

My First Piano Adventure ">My First Piano Adventure is designed for young beginners, ages 5 and 6. I suspect that 4-year-olds would also thrive using this book, and maybe even precocious 3-year-olds — but don’t quote me on that until I’ve had more time to test it out.

The Lesson Book comes with a CD full of fun songs and activities that teach the student about basic technique, how to make different sounds on the piano, and much more. The CD alone is worth the price of the Lesson Book!! Parents can play the CD at home or in the car so the student is hearing them all week long. I bought my own copy to play during lessons — but I also plan to use some of the songs on the CD with my Piano Readiness Classes and Homeschool Music class because they are that good. :) Many of the songs involve some pretty creative activities for learning basic piano technique — which is great, because I am always on the lookout for finding effective ways to teach young beginners proper technique.

The accompanying Writing Book contains worksheets and activities that reinforce that concepts the student is learning about in the Lesson Book. Both the Lesson and Writing books feature some “piano friends” who show up throughout the books to teach the student about different concepts, and show up in the pieces’ illustrations. The piano friends are: Marta and Millie (the twins), Carols, Dallas, Katie, and Mrs. Razzle-Dazzle (the piano teacher). Their pictures are shown on the cover of the book. Students will be excited to meet these friends and learn about the piano from them.

After the student completes level A of the Lesson and Writing Books, there is a level B and C that follows. Once the student has completed all three levels, they are ready to jump right into Level 1 of the regular Faber Piano Adventures method books (skipping the Primer level).

These books are so colorful and fun, I can’t imagine what young beginner wouldn’t find piano to be a blast! I’m super excited to have (finally) discovered these and be trying them out with my students.

You can learn more about “My First Piano Adventures” on the Faber website. The Video Lesson Guide section is fabulous — watching Nancy Faber teach in the videos is sure to get you inspired. :)

Forum Q&A | New Year’s Resolutions for Piano Teachers

joy (admin) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 13:15:24 +0000

I’ve already blogged a bit about my New Year’s Resolution. Now it’s your turn!

Our previous Q&A Forum brought about a great discussion about whether or not to lesson plan for piano lessons (and if so, how to feasibly do so even if you have a large studio). Today, let’s start a discussion about what change you’d like to make in your teaching this year! I think it’s important as teachers to continually be making little changes and looking for ways to improve our teaching. It not only makes us better teachers, but it also helps keep things fresh for our students as well as ourselves. :)

So, tell us:

As a piano teacher, what would you like to START doing this year?
What would you like to STOP doing this year?
What would you like to KEEP doing this year?

Comment away!

Color In My Piano » piano teaching

My Summer Camp Plans for 2012!

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DIY Floor Music Staff for $10

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Musical Instruments Quizzing/Sorting game

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Forum Q&A | Perfectionist Piano Students

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Humidity and My Piano

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Forum Q&A | Saying Goodbye to Piano Students Before Moving Away

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Pictures from the Studio

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January Blog Roundup

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First Thoughts Regarding Faber’s “My First Piano Adventure”

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