“Never compose anything unless the not composing of it becomes a positive nuisance to you.”
— Gustav Holst
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.
I’ve created a new flyer template for advertising piano lessons, and have just added it to the Printables > Studio Business page! (Scroll down to the P’s for “Piano Lessons Flyer Template #2.)
This flyer template has the rip-off tabs just like the previous one, but this one is in color and includes a picture of the piano keys. You can view the previous template here.
I hope you can make use of this flyer template!
Piano Lessons Flyer Template #2 (714.0 KiB, 21,605 hits)
On Friday, I gave a presentation for the local MTNA chapter back in my hometown, the Piano Teachers’ Forum of Grand Rapids. This association was the first one I joined as an undergraduate music major and piano teacher. I learned so much from the presentations I attended during those years! It was so fun to go back this weekend and see some of my colleagues.
The name of my presentation was “Business Sense for the Piano Teacher of the 21st Century.” Many of the topics I talked about are topics I’ve blogged about too. Here are a few related blog posts for your enjoyment:
iTalk app | Cost: Free (with ads) or Premium version: $1.99 (no ads), for iPhone and iPad.
This app is the perfect solution when recording audio of your or your students’ playing. In many cases, I record video of my students playing during piano lessons; but sometimes I want only audio, so that I can get better quality or so I can more easily email it.
The iPhone/iPad comes pre-installed with a Voice Memos app, so you might be wondering about the advantages of iTalk. There are two:
The quality of the sound recording is far better using iTalk versus the Voice Memos app. When you open the iTalk app, it allows you to name the recording and then select between Good, Better, or Best recording quality (11.025, 22.05, or 44.10 kHz sample rates). On the iPhone 4 (and probably 5), there is an auto-noise cancellation feature (so you won’t get as much room noise). Pushing the big red button starts the recording. After recording, you can browse your list of recordings, play them back, or email a file. Continue reading “iTalk app Review”
“I can’t listen to Wagner that much. I start getting the urge to conquer Poland.”
— Woody Allen
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.
Note: I’ve been notified that the fabulous Clavier Companion magazine is looking for photos of interesting teaching spaces for a feature in their Jan/Feb 2013 issue! Of specific interest are photos showing efficient and creative uses of small teaching spaces. Submit your photos by Oct 22nd to [email protected]. Selected photos will be printed with a brief caption in the Jan/Feb issue. Please consider some sharing photos of your teaching space!
Last week, I blogged a little about my first “Piano Party” — the first of hopefully many more group classes I hold for my students! On Friday, I held our 2nd Piano Party for October.
I was so glad to observe my students greeting each other by name as they arrived. They recognized each other from the camps I held this past summer and from the previous piano party. Piano study can seem like such a solitary endeavor, but having group classes can help make it less so (which can be very motivating for some students). I am so pleased to see one of my goals for group classes already being met!
Anyway, let me tell you about how our group class went on Friday:
Thanks to Pinterest, I recently came across a blogger who designed some charming little finger puppets to go along with a few fingerplay songs she enjoys singing with her son! Her name is Kate, from the picklebums.com blog, and she generously offers each of the printables pictured below for free. I assembled a set of her beautiful finger puppets for my 4-year-old nephew as a birthday gift last month, and made myself a set, too, to use with my Piano Readiness class.
One of my all-time favorite fingerplays ever is Five Little Speckled Frogs (click for link to Kate’s puppet printable). I discovered this fingerplay during an Early Childhood Music course I took during graduate school.
And now, to announce the winners of the EasyScales Visual Guides giveaway:
*drumroll*
Congrats! Winners, please check your inbox for an email from me.
If you aren’t one of the winners, you can still order yourself a set of EasyScales! Just visit Jo Tee’s website here for more information.
Now that I have enough students to do so, I have begun holding monthly group lessons with my students. I tried it a few times last year, but ended up with a poor turnout both times. Fortunately, now I have enough students to make it worth the effort. I call them “Piano Parties.”
Right now, any of my students under age 15 are invited. My youngest private students are 4, so this makes for a very wide range of ages! Eventually, my goal would be to split them into groups by age/level, but for now, I am just happy to give them some kind of group lessons. I am keeping them very fun and informal.
Our first one was a back-to-piano pizza party last month, and I completely forgot to blog about it. Oops! 🙂 I’ll tell you about it now. Continue reading “My New Monthly Group Lessons: “Piano Parties””
“All music is folk music. I ain’t never heard a horse sing.”
— Louis Armstrong
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.
It has been a little over a year since my husband and I moved to Ohio from Michigan. I have been thinking a lot lately about what it was like to relocate and start a studio from scratch in an unfamiliar area. I’m sure some of you have been through this too, or will be going through it soon — perhaps my reflections can be of encouragement to some of you! Here is what I learned from the experience:
Three new Great Composers Lapbook & Biography sets have been added to the ColorInMyPiano Shop!
They are:
Continue reading “3 New Composer Lapbook sets Now Available”
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