Hello friends,
I’m so pleased to announce the arrival of Brenna Rose, born 08/20/2022 — two weeks before her due date. The birth and recovery went well, and we are so grateful for the new addition to our family.
Baby #2 is here!
Category: Announcements
A Bit of News to Share…
Aria’s shirt bears the latest news around here: we are expecting baby #2! It’s another girl, and the due date is early September. <3
We’re thankful for this gift! And I’m feeling happy to move beyond the first trimester symptoms (for me, fatigue and nausea)! 🙂
I had originally been planning to offer a session of my online course for piano teachers, Excellence in Piano Teaching, this summer (see institute.joymorin.com), but I’ve decided to put this on hold for now until after baby. Sorry to anyone who was hoping to take it this year! If you’re on my email list, you’ll be sure to receive any updates about when the next offering will be.
Despite dealing with first trimester symptoms, I’ve tried to prioritize keeping up work on a particularly exciting project which I hope to be able to share more about in the upcoming months. I won’t say more at this point, but I hope your curiosity is piqued and you’ll stay tuned! 😉
In the meantime, I’ll still be blogging here-and-there. I also invite you to follow along with my occasional personal updates and everyday photos HERE on Instagram!
Thanks for reading!
The 12 Days of Christmas Project…Music Teacher Edition! (2021)
Hello, friends! As previously announced, I recently released a new resource to my shop: The 12 Days of Christmas Project — a kit to help you and your students create a collaborative video performing the traditional carol, The 12 Days of Christmas. I know it’s an odd time to be talking more about it, because Christmas has just passed. But I wanted to share just a couple more things about it before I let it rest. 🙂
First of all, you might remember in my last blog post I had put out a call for music teachers who might be interested in being part of a “music teacher edition” video of the 12 Days of Christmas. We ended up with 26 music teachers total who participated! Here’s our resulting video. Hope you enjoy!
Second, I wanted to let you know that I created a walkthrough video that gives you a peek at what’s included in The 12 Days of Christmas kit. You can check that out here.
Continue reading “The 12 Days of Christmas Project…Music Teacher Edition! (2021)”Announcing… The 12 Days of Christmas Project: A Collaborative Video Kit
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)!
Continue reading “Announcing… The 12 Days of Christmas Project: A Collaborative Video Kit”Giveaway Winners and 20% Sale
Congratulations to our TWELVE randomly-chosen winners from the recent giveaway!
- Shelley Pritt
- Anne Marie Archibald
- Michelle
- Phyllis
- Grace Tan
- Brandy Fort
- Kristina
- Laurie
- Emily
- Roberta Collins
- Samantha
- Cheri Mae Berti
Winners, please check your inbox for an email from me. Everyone, thank you for entering — I love reading all your wonderful comments!
Our twelve-year anniversary celebration isn’t over yet: I’m running a sale for the next few weeks! Use the promo code 12YEARS to receive 20% off any item in the shop. If you’ve been eyeing my favorite Ice Cream Intervals game, rhythm cards, composer lapbooks, or are thinking ahead to music camp curriculums for this summer, now’s a great time to buy! The sale runs between now and through March 31, 2021. Browse the shop now here.
Stay tuned: Soon, I’ll be featuring some flashbacks to some of the best resources — both free and paid — from the past twelve years here on the blog!
Celebrating 12 Years of Blogging (and a Special GIVEAWAY!)
Hello readers,
Guess what! This Saturday, February 28, 2021, marks the twelve-year anniversary of Color In My Piano! Can you believe this blog has been around for TWELVE years now?
In this post, I will share a bit about ColorInMyPiano’s history, my own story, a celebratory sale, and finally a giveaway. (Have you ever wondered how ColorInMyPiano got its name? You’ll find out if you keep reading!)
Continue reading “Celebrating 12 Years of Blogging (and a Special GIVEAWAY!)”My online course is coming soon! (Winter 2021)
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!
Happy Friday, friends!
Best wishes for 2021!
The new year is nearly here, my friends! Sending love and all best wishes for 2021.
–Joy
NEW: Handdrawn Music Note & Symbols Sets
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.
Continue reading “NEW: Handdrawn Music Note & Symbols Sets”
News: Studio License Update, and MTNA’s 2020 Virtual Conference
Studio License Wording Update
Hello readers! I’ve had a few teachers ask me about the terms of the Studio License for items in my shop (my composer lapbooks, for example), now that we’re all teaching online. When I originally wrote the terms of use, I can’t say I had online teaching on my radar yet! 🙂 So, I’ve recently adjusted the wording. In case more of you are wondering about this issue, I’ve pasted the new terms below. These licensing details can be referenced anytime on the Terms of Use page here on my website.
STUDIO LICENSE
Permission is granted for the purchasing teacher to make unlimited printouts and use the digital files for the purpose of teaching their own students. Sharing printouts or the digital files beyond that purpose is not permitted. The purchaser is not permitted to resell the item(s), or alter, modify, or create derivative works.
Basically, I want you to be able to freely use your purchased files with your students, but I also appreciate that you don’t aid others in avoiding purchasing the items for themselves. (For example, don’t email out the files to all your fellow teachers!) 😉
MTNA’s 2020 Virtual Conference
In other news… Did you know that MTNA’s 2020 National Conference went virtual this year, and that they’ve made all the sessions available to ANY music teacher worldwide? Check out the MTNA Virtual Conference here! So far, I’ve watched a handful of the sessions and am planning to gradually make my way through them all.
It certainly was disappointing for MTNA to have to cancel their plans to hold the national conference in Chicago last month, but how generous of them to pivot and move everything online. As usual, I’m proud to be an MTNA member!
11th Blogiversary — Thank You!
Hello, friends! I have two things to share with you.
First of all…
I want to say THANK YOU for the many congrats and well-wishes I received from you upon the announcement of our new baby girl, Aria. My husband and I have been waiting a long time for our precious bundle. We feel so blessed to have her in our lives — as well as such a supportive community of friends and family. It was so nice to receive so many kind comments and personal emails from you!
A few of you were curious about what I am doing / plan to do music-wise with Aria. I’ll answer this question in a future post. (Probably Monday.) Stay tuned!
In other news…
Today, February 28, 2020, is a momentous day: it’s my blog’s ELEVENTH blogiversary! How shall we celebrate?!
For starters, I’d like to continue our annual tradition of offering a promo code for 20% off everything in my digital shop. The sale is live today through March 31, 2020. Be sure to enter the promo code 11YEARS to receive the discount.
If you’ve been following my blog for awhile, you know that I rarely hold sales. So, if you’ve been eyeing my favorite Ice Cream Intervals game, my rhythm cards, or are thinking ahead to music camp curriculums for this summer, now’s a great time to buy! Browse the shop now by clicking here.
Thanks for celebrating our eleven years, friends! I’m so looking forward to the next year together.
Baby is here!
Hello friends,
I’m so pleased to announce the arrival of Aria Kennedy, born 02/02/2020. We’re doing well, and are so grateful for the new addition to our family. Aria has been good to us so far.
Allow me to share some photos. 🙂
Continue reading “Baby is here!”