Category: seasonal / holiday

seasonal / holiday

Upcoming February Fun

Joy Morin

Guess what!  February 28 marks the 5 year anniversary of this blog.  How awesome is that?!

In celebration of the upcoming blogiversary, I wanted to announce that I will be holding a sale for the month of February: 20% off the items in the shop (ends February 28, 2014)!  Stay tuned for the details.  Perhaps you will want to start planning ahead for your summer camps so you can purchase some material while it is on sale.  🙂

February also brings Valentine’s Day.  I thought I’d remind you that I have a couple of free piano-related Valentine printables available.

This is the valentine I designed last year.  It is quick and easy to cut these out for your piano students.  Click here to learn more.

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The valentine pictured below requires a little more assembly, but they are very cute.  🙂  Click here to learn more.

Printables, seasonal / holiday

Piano Valentine Printable #2

Joy Morin

Remember the piano valentines I made last year?

I was wasn’t planning to design a new music-themed valentine this year — but when inspiration struck, I just had to design it!

DSC_20130208_105049

Is it a heart, or is it a piano?!  Well, it’s both!  🙂

This design is simpler and easier to assemble than last year’s design.  Just cut out the heart shapes!  If desired, you can attach a piece of candy to each valentine using a circle of tape.  I made a bunch of these to give to my piano students next week.

The free pdf printable can be downloaded by visiting the Printables > Other Resources page, and scrolling down to the P’s for “Piano Valentine Printable 2.”  Enjoy!

  Piano Valentine Printable 2 (146.6 KiB, 15,162 hits)

Games, Group Classes, Printables, seasonal / holiday

January 2013 Piano Party!

Joy Morin

Last Saturday, I held another Piano Party for my students.  I had record attendance: 14 students!  Here’s a run-down of what we did:

We introduced ourselves, and shared our favorite Christmas present this year.

Christmas Recital and Name-That Tune game.  Yes, I know Christmas is over!  Because of how busy December often can be, I decided to try scheduling our students-only Christmas recital in early January instead.  Besides, students always play their Christmas pieces through the break anyway, so they might as well do the recital after that!

I took advantage of the fact that my students would be playing familiar tunes, and held a name-that-tune game.  I gave each student the worksheet below, and they had to write down the titles as they heard them.  If they got it correct, they got to color in the star on the right, in order to keep track of how many they guessed correctly.  This was a huge hit!  Even the students who didn’t know very Christmas tunes were able to learn some new ones by the end.

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You can download the Name-That-Tune worksheet by visiting the Printables > Games page and scrolling down to “Name-That-Tune – Christmas Edition.” Continue reading “January 2013 Piano Party!” →

seasonal / holiday

James Koerts’ Free Arrangement of “Joy To The World”

Joy Morin

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

Printables, seasonal / holiday

Free Christmas Photo Card Template

Joy Morin

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:

  1. Open the file in Photoshop.
  2. Select the text layer, and change the words to your family members’ names.
  3. Select the layer called “Put your photo here!”  Open a photo of your family, and then drag and drop it to replace the current image.
  4. Go to File > Save As.  Change the file format to jpeg, title the file whatever you wish, and save it to your desktop.
  5. Print the photo using your favorite online service, or put the file on a flashdrive to take to your local store.

I hope your holiday plans are going well!

seasonal / holiday

Forum Q&A: Christmas Gifts for Piano Students

Joy Morin

I hope all you USA-ers enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend!  I know I did.  🙂

It has been awhile since we did a Forum Q&A post (how did that happen?!).  Last time, we discussed how to help students who are frustrated by the mistakes they make, large or small.  You can read all the responses by clicking here.

Today, I’d like to hear about Christmas gifts for piano students!

Do you give your students a gift at Christmas?  If so, what are you giving this year?  What have you given in previous years?

Please share in the comment section below this post!

seasonal / holiday

Time for Christmas Music

Joy Morin

I am preparing to pass out Christmas music to my students to this week!  It still seems early to me, but my students have a performance opportunity in early December — so I thought we better get rolling on that Christmas music!

I’ve updated my post from two years ago “List of Free Christmas Arrangements on the Web” to include a few new links and some resources for lead sheets.  The holiday season seems like the perfect time to focus on chord playing, because of the wealth of familiar Christmas tunes students know!

Let me know if you know of more links to add to that post!

seasonal / holiday, Studio Business

Classical Music To Attract (or Scare) Your Trick-Or-Treaters

Joy Morin

This year for Halloween, I plan to pass out candy with my studio name on it again and wear my piano costume dress again.  I was thinking about having some scary classical music playing on my porch too, so I compiled a list of music!  Let me know if you have any suggestions to add to the list.  🙂

  • Alkan – Prelude Op. 31 No. 8 (a madwoman at the seashore)
  • Bach (previously attributed to Bach) – Toccata and Fugue in d minor, BWV 565
  • Bartok – 3rd movement of Suite Op. 14
    Bartok     – 1st, 4th and 5th movements of Out of Doors Suite
  • Bartok – Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta (mvmt. 3, adagio)
  • Berlioz – “Dream Of A Witches’ Sabbath.”
  • Berlioz – Symphony Fantastique
  • Wendy Carlos – Incantation from Beauty in the Beast
  • Chopin – Marche Funebre
  • Chopin – Prelude Op. 28 No. 14 in E-flat minor
  • Corigliano – 4th movement of Piano Concerto
  • Corigliano – 4th movement of Etude Fantasy (“Ornaments”)
  • Cowell – The Banshee
  • Daugherty – Viola Zombie
  • de Falla – Dance of Terror (check out the Bragiotti arrangement for 2 pianos, too)
  • Dukas – The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (also check out the 2-piano arrangement by Rabinovitch)
  • George Crumb – Vox balaenae Continue reading “Classical Music To Attract (or Scare) Your Trick-Or-Treaters” →