Music Camps

Summer Camp Is Here!

Joy Morin

This week, I’m holding my first camp of the summer!  It’s the Musical Olympics camp, and we had our first day of activities this morning.  Unfortunately, it’s been raining all morning so we had to play the games in the garage instead of outdoors.  I’m crossing my fingers for better weather the rest of the week, because I’m not sure how many more of the games I have planned can be converted to indoor games.  :\  Despite the rain, though, everybody had lots of fun!

I may not be posting here on the blog much until next week — we’ll see how it goes.  Wish me luck!  🙂

Early Childhood Music, Music Theory, Worksheets

Treble & Bass Clef Dot-To-Dot Worksheets

Joy Morin

Here’s a new worksheet I just added to the Printables page:

To teach my beginner students how to draw and recognize the treble and bass clef, I created this pair of dot-to-dot worksheets for the treble and bass clefs.  The dots and numbers are nice and big for little eyes to see!

To download, visit the Printables > Worksheets page and scroll down to the T’s for “Treble & Bass Clef Dot-To-Dot Worksheets.”

Enjoy!

  Treble & Bass Clef Dot-To-Dot Worksheets (68.0 KiB, 38,938 hits)

Questions, Studio Business

Forum Q&A | End-Of-The-Year Tasks

Joy Morin

I’ve let a few weeks go by again without doing a Forum Q&A, so I think it’s high time for another!  🙂  Last time, we discussed attending conferences but only received a few comments.  Feel free to add your thoughts.

The school year is wrapping up — at least for those of us in the U.S.!  So, I’m curious:

What are you up to?  What end-of-the-year preparations preparations are you working on?  Summer scheduling, progress reports, re-registration for the fall, planning summer camps, etc?  Fill me in! 

Leave your comment below this post.  🙂

Motivation, Teaching Piano

Teaching Phrase: “I Think You Are Ready For…”

Joy Morin

Here is a phrase I find myself use more and more lately with my students:

“I think you are ready for…”  

Imagine me saying it with plenty of enthusiasm.  This phrase comes in handy in a number of circumstances, such as:

  • “Wow, you’ve got all your 5-finger patterns learned, so I think you are ready to start scales!”
  • “You are playing each hand’s part so well…now you are ready to put hands together!”
  • “Great, I think you are ready to bump up the tempo!”
  • “I think Johnny is ready for 45-minute lessons!”

Watch your student (and his/her parent) swell with pride at that last one.  Saying that line sure beats a conversation that sounds like you are trying to justify or talk the parent into switching from 30- to 45-minute lessons.

It’s all in how you present it.  Learning scales or bumping up the tempo might at first seem like a chore, but presenting the next new challenge as an acknowledgement of their accomplishments and hard work can help motivate students for the next thing.  They’ve worked their way to this point, after all, and they should be proud of it!

So, try it!  And let me know what other circumstances you think of for using this phrase.  🙂

Music Camps

Summer Music Camp T-Shirts!

Joy Morin

The T-shirts for my summer music camps arrived yesterday! I’m so pleased with how they turned out. Take a peek:

The company I ordered the shirts from is CustomInk, and am very pleased with the quality.  They even have an artist check out your design to make sure it will look okay when printed.

I have had a number of blog readers contact me asking for more details about my summer camps.  Although the June camp is just a couple of weeks away, I don’t feel I have much to share yet!  I will most likely be sharing lessons plans afterwards, and, of course, plenty of photos.  🙂

General

Student Humor

Joy Morin

Just a quick story to share today…

I was teaching my homeschool music class this morning, and we started learning about Franz Liszt today.  After talking about his life, I played this YouTube video of Evgeny Kissin playing a Liszt etude to listen to as they colored a picture of Liszt.  As usual, I had to explain that the performer they saw in the video was not Liszt because they did not have video cameras back then.

Then the oldest boy (8) asked, “What are those fancy letters at the beginning of the video?”  I quickly answered, “I think those are Chinese letters, because this recital probably took place in China.”  My student thought about that for a moment, and then said, “That makes sense, because most things are made in China.”  🙂

Afterwards, I realized that the letters are probably actually Japanese since under the YouTube video it states that the recital took place in Toyko.  Regardless, I thought this was a cute story to share.

Games, Group Classes, Music Camps, Printables, Teaching Piano

Spell-A-Keyboard Game

Joy Morin

This morning with my homeschool music class, I played this game with my students:

As I was lesson planning last night, I was trying to think of a new way to practice the names of the piano keys.  My homeschool music class is mostly a music history class, but we’ve been learning basic music/piano concepts too.  My students already know how to figure them the piano key names by counting from Middle C, but they need more practice to get them memorized.  So I came up with this game, which I called the “Spell-A-Keyboard Game.”

My students loved this game!  I gave them each a set of cards with words containing only A-G (I gave them only the three-letter words for today) and a silent keyboard or paper keyboard, and three glass gems (pennies or buttons work too).  Then I instructed them to “spell” the words from each flashcard by covering the right keys with glass gems.  If you are playing this game with students at the piano, you can require that students spell the letters in order from left to right, but on a silent keyboard there might not be room to do so (as in the example shown in the photo).

This game is a great way to practice the piano key names without it actually feeling like a drill!  My students really enjoyed seeing how quickly they could spell the words and were pretty proud of their work each time.

You can download the “Musical Alphabet Word Flashcards” on the Printables > Games page.  When I created the cards, I tried to pick mostly words that kids would know.  Enjoy!

Update: I just realized that Susan Paradis plays a game very similar to this, except the words are spelled on the staff!  Read more here.

Update: Read about the outdoor version of this game here, where I describe my Musical Olympics Camp.

Update: I also found a way to adapt this game to be used with two floor keyboards indoors, with two teams.  Click here for more info.

Words of Wisdom

Wednesday’s Words of Wisdom

Joy Morin

“A great teacher is one who realizes that he himself is also a student and whose goal is not to dictate the answers, but to stimulate his students creativity enough so that they can go out and find the answers themselves.”

— Herbie Hancock

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.

Announcements, Teacher Feature

Joy Gets Interviewed… :)

Joy Morin

A few weeks ago, I received an email from a 16-year-old homeschooler, asking if I’d answer some interview questions for a research project about piano teaching.  I was happy to oblige, and she was willing to let me post my answers here too.  It was kind of fun!

How old were you when you first began learning/playing piano? Around 6 or 7.

Why did you start playing the piano? My mother got me started with her old piano book when I began showing interest by messing around on the piano.  (The book was John Thompson’s “Teaching Little Fingers To Play,” for those of you interested!  It starts right at the beginning with staff notation. 🙂

What music schools or institutions did you learn music at? I took private lessons with 3 different private teachers during my childhood and high school years. I attended Grand Rapids Community College for my first two years of college, transferred to Hope College to finished my Bachelor of Music degree in Piano Performance, and then afterwards completed a Master of Music degree in Piano Pedagogy. The college-level pedagogy courses I took were the most valuable — and second were the private lessons. I think every piano teacher should take or audit piano pedagogy courses at their local college if they ever have the opportunity. I am a much better teacher because of those classes than I could ever be otherwise!

Who have your teachers been? Various piano teachers in my town, and then college professors at whatever college I was attending at the time. Continue reading “Joy Gets Interviewed… :)” →