Today marks the three-year anniversary of Color In My Piano! HOORAY! It’s been such an exciting year, and I’m so thrilled to have been able to share my experiences with you all. Thank you all for your support and for making this blog such a fun place to share resources and ideas with each other. I can hardly believe Color In My Piano has been online for three years already.
Below is a run-down of the history of the Color In My Piano blog, as well as details about a GIVEAWAY! Read on.
The First Year:
- It was on February 28, 2009 that I first conceived of this blog and wrote my first post: a welcome and brief statement of purpose. I found my inspiration largely from Natalie Wickham’s Music Matters Blog and Susan Paradis’ Piano Teacher Resources. My blog was initially a free wordpress blog, titled “Piano Teaching Blog” (or something similar). At this point, I was running a successful piano studio of about 20 students out of my parent’s home, and finishing up my Bachelor’s degree in piano performance.
- In May of 2009, I graduated with my Bachelor’s degree. Over the summer, my husband and I moved so we could attend graduate school the next year. Unfortunately, this meant I had to “give away” all my piano students and find new ones.
- On July 9, 2009, I decided that I was enjoying blogging enough to go full swing: I came up with the title “Color In My Piano,” bought my own domain name and a year’s worth of web hosting, and gave the site a whole new look.
- In August of 2010, I started my Master’s degree in Piano Pedagogy at Central Michigan University.
- Color In My Piano continued to grow and change. A new Printables page allowed for easier navigation through free resources, and new Facebook integration gave readers a new way to stay updated.
- As of February 28, 2010 (the 1 year anniversary), Color In My Piano has had a total of 18,371 views and has about 50 subscribers. The record number of page views in one day is 425 on February 11, 2010!
The Second Year:
- I continued to work on my Master’s degree and teach between 5-10 students each week. My GA (Graduate Assistant) responsibilities kept me busy teaching college level Class Piano courses to music majors and collaborating with other vocalists and instrumentalists.
- Color In My Piano gained a Reading List page and a Highlights page, and begun asking monthly forum questions which quickly turned into weekly Forum Q&A’s.
- As of February 28, 2011 (the 2 year anniversary), Color In My Piano has had a total 169,274 views, 177 email subscribers, and 172 readers who “like” us on Facebook. The record number of views in one day is 1,192 on January 11, 2011!
The Third Year:
- In May of 2011, I graduated with a Master of Music in Piano Pedagogy. Over the summer, my husband and I moved to Ohio (where he is working on another Master’s degree in Creative Writing) where I started my studio over from scratch! I bought a piano, we started renting a charming little house with a perfect dining room for my studio room, and I am currently teaching 13 students each week.
- Color In My Piano recently updated to add a new horizontal navigation menu, which makes browsing a little easier.
- As of February 28, 2012 (the 3 year anniversary), Color In My Piano has a total of 573,423 views, 310 email subscribers, and 465 readers who “like” us on Facebook. The record number of views in one day is 2,576 on February 27, 2012 (yesterday)! All I can say is: wow, and thank you!!
In celebration of this anniversary, I’d like to sponsor a few giveaways this week. Today, I’m giving away this little vanilla candle, wrapped in vintage sheet music by moi:
Giveaway Details:
- To enter, leave a comment below describing what you love about Color In My Piano, or about something you’d like to see more of in the future!
- Giveaway ends Monday, March 5 at Midnight EST. The winner will be announced Tuesday, March 6.
- Winner will be chosen via random number generator.
Good luck! And stay tuned for a couple more giveaways coming later this week. 🙂
I love love love this blog, ever since I came across it a couple of months ago. It’s such an encouragement to have a fellow teacher blog. Your advice and expertise is so greatly appreciated. Thank you for starting it 🙂
I love your blog and appreciate your fresh approach to teaching! Your free printables and games are my favorite!!!
Congratulations, Joy! It has been so much fun to enjoy your blog and be inspired each time I visit. I am working on setting up my own piano teaching blog (thanks for the inspiration!!) and know I have a lot to live up to. Keep up the fantastic work!!
I love the games and composition ideas! They are great resources and inspire me in my teaching.
I love your fun and creative ideas and free printables!
You have such creative and fun ideas! I use them to spice up my lessons and students love them! Thanks for sharing.
I appreciate all the great tips and ideas that your blog gives to other teachers.
Love you blog, it is very inspiring! Lots of great tips here! I would love to see your opinions on how to maintain “sanity” on those busy days and weeks when it seems there’s hardly any time to refresh as a teacher. Thanks again, I really appreciate your dedication to teaching!!
I love your site. I look forward to each and every post. (P.S…..I’m from the Central Michigan area—-go Chips!)
I love everything about this blog. I have tried many of your ideas. And they are always wonderful!
Joy,
Love your site!! Especially your willingness to share yourself and your journey to becoming the piano teacher you are today! Very inspiring.
All the best,
MJ
I’ve been following your blog for over a year now and really enjoy it. I’ve used a lot of your ideas in my own teaching and love your creativity. My favorite part are the printables! 🙂
Congratulations! You’ve accomplished quite a bit in three years, bloggy and real! Best wishes for more success!
Congratulations! I love your ideas and often forward the posts to my daughter who teaches violin and other music teachers at our music school. Thanks for working so hard!
Tonya
Anniversary greetings Joy. I thoroughly enjoyed reading your history and seeing photos of your very welcoming studio and beautiful instrument. Such a special environment for learning. I immediately wanted to visit and play a duet! Love the colours in the balloon photo – perfect. Looking forward to many more hours of blog inspiration from ‘Color In My Piano’.
Congratulations Joy!! I really enjoy reading all your posts and you’ve inspired me in many ways. Keep up the awesome work and my best wishes for continued success with your blog!
Congrats, Joy! I truly enjoy all the ideas and printables that you share with us all. You are a special “music” angel!
Happy Anniversary, Joy! Congratulations on three successful years. What amazing progress and contribution to the community you’ve made!
I love the printables and the creative teaching ideas for elementary students that you have posted!
I badly want one of these necklaces. I have 17 piano teachers working for me and I always like to give them gifts because they work so hard and are wonderful teachers. I love making my own gifts and would like to make necklaces just like the ones you have in your Giveaway.
I love all of your cute composing ideas. I would like to see more of those!
I love how practical all of your topics are (wow, could that be any worse, grammatically speaking?). Yours is one of the first blogs I found & still one of my favorites.
I love the printables and games you make and share, you always do such a great job! I also love when you survey other teachers…they are such a great source of inspiration for the rest of us! I would enjoy seeing more of those.