Perhaps of you might recall that last year, I blogged about my students’ collaboration to create a special video as the “grand finale” of our 2020 Countdown to the New Year project. It was our own special take on The 12 Days of Christmas (click to watch)!
Credit goes to my student, Elijah, for the idea. Because it was a somewhat last-minute project, and we kept it simple — each student learned only the RH melody for their assigned day. But I think it turned out pretty great regardless!
Many of you responded last year and let me know you’d be interested in hearing more about the behind-the-scenes planning and video editing. And so, off-and-on over the past year, I’ve been gradually working on putting together a special kit providing audio files and handy printables to help music teachers be able to easily create their own 12 Days of Christmas video with their students!
My hope had been to have the kit published and available by November. But, as it often happens with large projects, it took longer than I expected to put everything together. In any case, I’m really proud of how it turned out. Better late than never, as they say! Even though it’s December 24, I’m publishing this today with hopes that you might like to plan on doing The 12 Days of Christmas Project with your students next year!
Here’s how it works: For The 12 Days of Christmas Project, students are assigned a short segment from the familiar 12 Days of Christmas carol to play on their instrument and video record. The teacher’s job is then to stitch all the student videos together into a final video that can be sent out to family and friends. Students will easily learn their part either by ear/rote (thanks to the provided Practice Audio Tracks) or by reading the provided sheet music.
Within this kit, you will find everything you need to organize and create your own collaborative video project with your music students — no matter what instruments you teach or whether you are a single-teacher music studio or a multi-teacher school. In it’s most basic form, the project is designed to work for 16-20 students, but there is much flexibility provided for working with more or fewer students.
For example, if you have a small or medium studio, you can assign students to cover two or more parts. This is especially great to do for students who happen to play more than one instrument. Just imagine how fun it would be to have the video involve piano, voice, guitar, ukulele, flute, violin, trumpet, sax, or French horn! (Transposed sheet music is provided.)
If you have a large studio or multi-teacher music school, you can involve more students by doubling them up on the same day so they will be dueting in the final video. It’s especially nice to pair up students on two different instruments. Or, students could sing the lyrics or provide harmony using the provided chord chart on piano, guitar, or ukulele for someone else’s part. The sky’s the limit! I encourage you to get creative to showcase the unique makeup of your music studio.
There are loads of handy printables provided to guide you through the planning and execution of this project. Plus, there are practice audio tracks, student parts in a variety of keys, full-length solos in a variety of keys (for those students who might request to learn the entire song!), a duet accompaniment, and much more. A STUDIO LICENSE for single teachers or a MULTI-TEACHER LICENSE for music schools is available.
The video-editing stage is arguably the most challenging aspect of the project (plan for it to take up to 3-4 hours). I would probably NOT recommend this project to anyone who is uncomfortable with technology and/or video editing — unless you’ve got a friend or family member who can help you with that step. That said, the provided Video Editing Guide, YouTube video tutorial, and Teacher Score for Video Editing will show you exactly what to do!
In short, this kit will provide you all the guidance and materials you need to successfully pull off a collaborate video you can send out to your studio families and friends to celebrate the holiday season! A complete list of everything included in the kit can be found on the shop page.
In case you’d like to sneak in one more business purchase before the end of the year, I’d like to offer you a special introductory rate. Enter the promo code “12DAYS” during checkout to receive $8 off your purchase. Offer expires January 10, 2022. Visit my shop page here.
Thanks for reading about my latest project, and Happy Holidays to you!
PS: Do you have a little bit of free time in the next week? If so, would you like to collaborate with me to make our own 12 Days of Christmas video?? I’d love to round up at least 20 music teachers or so, of any instrument! Please fill out the form HERE ASAP or by December 27, 2021 if you’re interested. I’ll email you soon thereafter to assign your part and provide instructions for recording and sending me your video clip. Videos will be due no later than December 31, so that I can hopefully edit and release our final video on New Year’s Day. Thanks for your interest!
Other questions or comments? Leave them below this blog post!
