Merry Christmas, readers!
I will be taking a break from blogging for the next couple of weeks. My husband and I are looking forward to spending time visiting family and enjoying the holidays!
Happy holidays, and I’ll “see” you in the year!
– Joy
Merry Christmas, readers!
I will be taking a break from blogging for the next couple of weeks. My husband and I are looking forward to spending time visiting family and enjoying the holidays!
Happy holidays, and I’ll “see” you in the year!
– Joy
Thank you to all who entered the giveaway for Elena Cobb’s beautiful piano solo, Star Dust! Here are the three winners, chosen via random number generator:
Congrats to our winners! Winners, please check your email inbox for an email from me.
If you didn’t win but still want Elena’s Star Dust, visit her website here to learn more about her music. Many thanks to Elena for offering her music for this Christmas giveaway! 🙂
To follow up on the Forum Q&A post about gifts for students, here are some photos of the Christmas cookies I gave out to my students this year:
A week from last Saturday, I held another piano party with my students. Unfortunately, I neglected to take photos AGAIN, despite the fact that my camera was ready within reach. Bummer! 🙂
Here is a list of the activities we did during our hour-and-a-half together:
I always try to hit on a variety of skills during these group classes, and we sure did this time! We covered terminology, rhythm, dictation (aural skills), performing, and music history!
Remember the review I wrote in October about Elena Cobb’s books? Well, Elena has kindly offered a Christmas giveaway for the pdf sheet music for my favorite selection from her Blue River book: “Stardust!”
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IG-ra8QXhAE
To enter, all you have to do is leave a comment on this post before midnight EST on Sunday, December 16, 2012. The THREE winners will be announced Monday the 17th.
On Pinterest, I saw an idea for a sight-word game called BANG and decided it would make an excellent music game. Here is my musical version:
I tried it out with my students at our Piano Party last Saturday, and it was a hit. The BANG! cards add an element of fun to an otherwise ordinary flashcard drill. Continue reading “Bang! Rhythm Game”
“As long as there is a song in your heart, there will always be hopes and dreams.”
— Patrick N. Nagovan
Every Wednesday brings Words of Wisdom here at the Color in my Piano blog in the form of a musical quote or joke, intended to bring inspiration or humor to the middle of your week. Have suggestions? Send me a message here.
This weekend, my students and I are preparing to play Christmas pieces at a local church’s “Come To The Stable” event. I reserved an hour on Thursday and Saturday when we are going to play (I will fill whatever time my students don’t use). Our music will serve as the background music as people come and go (open-house style) to admire a beautiful display of nativity sets.
In preparation, I’ve been practicing all my favorite Christmas arrangements – and learning a few new ones, too. I discovered a wonderful free arrangement of “Joy To The World” on James Koerts’ website — take a listen below, and then click here and scroll down to download it yourself!
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bFXRNDKNH4
I can’t believe it is December already! This year, I decided to design my own music-themed Christmas photo card to send out to my family and give to my piano students. My husband and I have started a tradition of taking a photo of ourselves with our cats (donned in their mini Santa hats) each year. 🙂
The best part about designing your own photo card template is that they are much cheaper to print. I paid the normal rate for printing 4×6 photos at my local store (rather than paying extra to use the templates provided in the machines at photo centers).
If you would like to use this template too, you are welcome to it! Due to the size of this file (15MB), I have added it to DropBox and you can download it here. You will need access to a program like Photoshop (Photoshop Elements or Lightroom is fine) to edit the text and insert your own photo. Here are the directions:
I hope your holiday plans are going well!
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