“Music is the medicine of the breaking heart.”
— Leigh Hunt
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 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. 🙂
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:
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. 🙂
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. 🙂
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.
“Music is an outburst of the soul.”
— Frederick Delius
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.
My goodness, because of those two weeks I took off from blogging, I completely forgot to draw the winners of the “Matthew 6:33 Piano Teacher” eBook giveaway! Sorry about the delay. Here are the 5 winners:
Congrats to our winners! Winners — stay tuned for an email from the eBook’s author.
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.
“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.
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… :)”
I’m back! I ended up taking two weeks off instead of one, I know. 🙂 But it felt great. It feels great to be back too.
At the MTNA National Conference in NYC this year, one of the sessions I attended encouraged teachers to do yearly or quarterly assessments/evaluations of their students. Some teachers accompany these assessments with a parent-teacher-student conference. A few of the session’s attendees raised their hands to comment on their method of assessment and the benefits they’ve seen. I was quite intrigued with the idea, and decided I wanted to give it a try this year.
The only time when I’ve done something similar to this is when I was worked at a summer music camp in my hometown. I was the Theory & Composition Instructor, and the camp director asked each of us instructors to create some kind of assessment that we could send home with the students for the teachers and parents to be able to see what the student learned at camp. These assessments were very short and sweet, since we had only had contact with the student for four classes over four days.
I started looking around the internet for ideas, and eventually formed a template I’m pretty happy with. This assessment is not designed to do that same thing that standardized music testing is supposed to do. It’s much more general. It’s about communicating to the student and parent about the progress the student is making in various areas and the goals that I have in mind for them in upcoming months. It is a bit like a report card, but with no actual grades. Continue reading “Piano Student End-Of-The-Year Evaluations”
Just a quick post to let you know that I will be taking the week off from blogging. My brother is getting married this weekend, so my husband and I will be staying in Michigan with my family for a few days. And the early part of this week is going to be busy with the usual teaching in addition to the packing and preparations.
I hope you’ll miss me while I’m away! 🙂 See you all next week.
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