Joy Morin, MM, is a teacher, pianist, composer, speaker, and writer of a blog at ColorInMyPiano.com. A devoted teacher and lifelong learner, she teaches students of all ages at her independent piano studio near Ann Arbor, Michigan. Joy is a frequent attendee and presenter at conferences and workshops, and enjoys connecting with fellow piano teachers through her blog and beyond.
I’m sending out this quick email today to let you know that I am preparing to offer a session of my online course, Excellence in Piano Teaching, very soon!
I’ve offered this guided piano pedagogy course to small groups of teachers over a dozen times now, with a total of over a hundred teachers having participated. But it’s been a year-and-a-half since the last time it was offered. That’s what happens when you move, have a baby, and then Covid hits. 🙂 I’m excited to be offering it again next month!
Here are the details for this session:
I won’t be talking about the course much here on my blog, so if you’re at all interested you’ll want to join the separate email list found at institute.joymorin.com. I’ll be sending more details about the course and registration info via email to those on the list next week.
PS: I received quite a few comments from you all, saying you’d to learn more about how I created my recent videos projects with my students. Stay tuned — I’m working on a video tutorial!
“Take the attitude of a student: never be too big to ask questions, never know too much to learn something new.”
OG Mandino
This message is a GOOD ONE for us to keep in mind as we all become older and wiser. We are naturally good learners as children, but as we grow up sometimes we become less willing or less open to learning new things.
But it doesn’t have to be that way! We can assume the attitude of a student, no matter how old we are. We can be comfortable with the fact that we don’t know everything. We can be willing to ask questions. We can be EXCITED when there are opportunities to learn new things.
Moreover, we can MODEL this attitude for the young ones in our charge. Have your students witnessed your excitement to try out new piano literature with them? Have they seen you introduce new resources, teaching aids, or projects? Have they seen you perform in your studio recitals? Have they heard about your own practice strategies? Have they seen you embrace new technology? If so, that’s awesome!!
As teachers, let’s strive to not only be the best teachers we can be, but also the best learners we can be.
As mentioned yesterday, my students collaborated to create a special video as the “grand finale” of our Countdown to the New Year project. Today, I’m sharing the video for you to see.
I hope you enjoy our fun little video. 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!
I’m thinking about doing it again next year. I have some ideas for expanding it a bit.
If you are curious to hear more about the behind-the-scenes planning and video editing, could you let me know? If there’s enough interest, perhaps I’ll write up a blog post or even create a purchasable kit with everything you need!
Thanks for watching!
UPDATE: The 12 Days of Christmas Project: A Collaborative Video Kit has been published and is available for purchase here!
Over the past few weeks, my students and I have been working on a “Countdown to the New Year” video project. I don’t normally organize a Christmas recital, but some of my students were asking if we were going to do something this year. And so, I came up with a project for us.
Inspired by an Instagram post by Amber Kao, director of the Faber Piano Institute, I decided we would do a virtual recital (YouTube videos) that was spread out day-by-day leading up to the new year. Because we started somewhat last-minute, we chose pieces that were well within reach for students to videorecord in only 3-4 weeks. We kept it simple!
Hi there! Christmas Day is nearly upon us. Today, I thought I would make an update this flashback post to share what I gave my students this year. (You can skip down to the bottom of this post to see!)
Things to keep in mind: I don’t think it’s necessary to give your piano students gifts at Christmastime, but it’s a nice gesture if you feel so inspired! Some years, I’ve kept it pretty simple while other years I have felt inspired to take on a more time-intensive project. I hope you’ll enjoy browsing this post and perhaps gaining an idea or two to tuck away for the future!
My little daughter, Aria, is ten months old now (can you believe it?). Since early on, we made it a priority to have plenty of baby-safe books around, kept within easy reach. Inspired by Pinterest, we put up a set of IKEA Mosslanda photo ledges (also available in black, and in a longersize) in our living room to hold our children’s books.
We enjoy sitting with Aria and reading together. She also enjoys reading by herself, after pulling the books off the lowest shelf. 🙂 It amazes me how long she can sit by herself and entertain herself while flipping through her books.
Some of our books were gifts, while some were purchased at our local thrift store, and still others were ones I specifically searched out and purchased new. As a piano teacher, I’m always interested in finding music-related books to add to her library. Today, I’m going to share my review of a book I happened across on Amazon that has become a fast favorite — for both Aria and myself!
Hello, friends! I’m excited to share with you today about a recent project that has just reached completion.
If you’re like me, you probably find yourself creating various digital/print projects such as flyers, worksheets, recital programs, and social media graphics throughout the year for your music studio. Perhaps you, like me, enjoy using music notes or symbols to spice up your projects visually.
But if you’ve ever done an internet search for “music note clipart” or “music symbol graphics”, you may have noticed there isn’t such a good selection of options available. This is especially true if you, like me, care about the music symbols being correct (e.g., no backwards treble clefs or eighth notes!). The choices become even slimmer if you are careful to observe copyright terms (as we all should!) and use only images that explicitly allow for what’s known as “commercial use”.
This is an issue I’ve run into more times than I can count, but I only recently decided to do something about it. So, I got out my iPad and Apple Pencil, and started drawing my own set of music notes and symbols. Here is the result:
The project was so much fun that one set soon turned into four. The “regular” handdrawn set was followed by sets of curly notes, hearted notes, and smiley notes. 🙂
Thanks to my Adobe Illustrator skills, I was able work some magic and transform my handdrawn designs into a folder of high quality images that can be used in Microsoft Word, Powerpoint, Apple Pages, Google Docs, Canva.com, or whatever program I might choose to use for my projects.
I had such a blast creating these, and I’m proud to offer them to you as well. The four sets have just been added to my shop so you can purchase them yourself and start using them in your projects!
Let me tell you more about what makes my clipart sets unique. What’s cool is that when you purchase a set, you’ll receive TWO versions of each design: PNG files and SVG files. If you aren’t familiar with these two file types, let me explain. PNG is a file format that supports having a transparent background — which means you won’t see an ugly white square surrounding the music symbol should you place it over a colored background.
Are you on Instagram? Although I’ve had an Instagram account for a long time, I have been surprised to realize that the enjoyment I get from Instagram has been increasing the more/longer I use it. Although Instagram is owned by Facebook, I like Instagram better than Facebook.
In this blog post, I’d like to share a little about how Instagram works, how I use it, and why you might enjoy being on Instagram, too.
[If you enjoy the content here on my blog, you’ll probably enjoy the content from my Instagram channel, too. I invite you to follow me there!]
Using Instagram
Instagram is available as a free smartphone app (iOS | Android). It is also free to create an account.
Instagram is a visual-based platform. It differs from Facebook in that all posts must contain a photo or a video — you cannot post text alone. This puts the visual element front and center. For that reason, there is generally less negativity (and less political talk) on Instagram than on Facebook. I enjoy scrolling through my Instagram feed!
[Here’s an example Instagram post from earlier this year. You can find the mentioned BINGO sheet here.]
Instagram is a fun way to connect with friends and contacts. You can use Instagram for sharing anything you’d like, whether personal or professional. You can also opt to create multiple accounts — one for your personal life and one for your piano studio, for example. Personally, I prefer using only one account and using it to share a combination of things from my family life and professional activities.
In short, I use Instagram as a “microblog.” As the name implies, microblogging is like blogging except the posts are generally shorter and quicker to read. I see my blog here at ColorInMyPiano.com as a platform for sharing lengthier articles, while Instagram can be a platform for sharing smaller, everyday things. When I have something fun to share that doesn’t warrant an entire blog post here at ColorInMyPiano.com, I can post it on Instagram!
“The child should love everything that he learns, for his mental and emotional growths are linked. Whatever is presented to him must be made beautiful and clear, striking his imagination. Once this love has been kindled, all problems confronting the educationalist will disappear.”
–Maria Montessori
I love this quote from Maria Montessori. It encourages us to be deliberate about choosing material for our students. It encourages us to present that material in a way that makes it BEAUTIFUL and CLEAR to the student, provoking their imagination. We would do well to remember that the child’s mental and emotional growths are linked. Montessori suggests that when we kindle the child’s interest and love of learning, other educational problems will melt away.
What learning material (concepts, music books, pieces, etc.) do you love using with your students, and why? How can we present it in a way that is beautiful and clear to the student? How will this help us kindle the child’s interest and love of learning?
