I’m excited to write this app review, because it is one of the most well-designed and useful apps I’ve come across lately!
Musiclock is a $2.99 app for iPad and iPhone that provides a variety of backing tracks intended to be used while practicing scales or improvising.
The first step is to select a scale. The scale choices are: major, major pentatonic, minor pentatonic, natural minor, melodic minor, harmonic minor, blues, and dominant bebop.
When I am teaching piano, one of the teaching tools I use frequently is the Wright Way Note Finder (find it on Amazon). I love this tool because it is useful for building a stronger sense of staff-to-keyboard correlation in students in just a few minutes’ time during lessons.
Watch the video below to learn more about how I use the Wright Way Note Finder during lessons. In this video, I also describe what I consider to be the four steps that our minds go through when decoding music on the staff during sight-reading:
I like to use the Wright Way Note Finder to help the student improve steps 1-3.
Where to find the Wright Way Note Finder and similar tools:
Thanks for watching!
All past broadcasts are here: ColorInMyPiano.com/live/. To watch future broadcasts live, download the free Periscope app (for iOS or Android), search for @joymorinpiano, and hop online on Mondays at noon Eastern time. Hope to see you next time!
Do you have suggestions about what we could discuss in future Periscopes? Please submit your ideas by clicking here. I appreciate your input!
Greetings! During today’s live broadcast via Periscope, I shared a little bit about a studio holiday project that I have been doing for the past two years: building a paper chain to decorate the studio, adding a new chain for every holiday piece that students learn. Preparing for this tradition again this year has made me excited about giving out Christmas music to students this week!
Here is a picture of the chain from last year:
Watch today’s quick video here, describing the Christmas Chain project:
You can download the free PDF sheet of paper describing the Christmas Chain project here:
Musical Christmas Chain Project (155.5 KiB, 4,822 hits)
Thanks for watching! Do you have your own holiday traditions for your studio? Please share! I would love to hear about them.
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All past broadcasts are here: ColorInMyPiano.com/live/. To watch future broadcasts live, download the free Periscope app (for iOS or Android), search for @joymorinpiano, and hop online on Mondays at noon Eastern time. Hope to see you next time!
Do you have suggestions about what we could discuss in future Periscopes? Please submit your ideas by clicking here. I appreciate your input!
Greetings!
During today’s live broadcast via Periscope, we discussed possible time management solutions for in-lesson time with students. If you are like me, I’m sure there are many, many times when you wish there was more time during each weekly lesson! It often feels like it is a challenge to fit everything into a 30-, 45, or 60-minute lesson. Please enjoy watching the video conversation below.
Mentioned in this video:
All past broadcasts are here: ColorInMyPiano.com/live/. To watch future broadcasts live, download the free Periscope app (for iOS or Android), search for @joymorinpiano, and hop online on Mondays at noon Eastern time. Hope to see you next time!
Do you have suggestions about what we could discuss in future Periscopes? Please submit your ideas by clicking here. I appreciate your input!
Greetings! During today’s live broadcast via Periscope, we discussed the role of the direction of our gaze during piano playing, and what strategies we can use with our students to help them use their eyes to become better sight-readers, memorizers, and more. Please enjoy watching the video conversation below.
By the way, there was a bit of a tech fluke today: Periscope was showing that there were zero live viewers and did not show any of your comments — so I didn’t ask some of the interactive questions I was hoping to ask during the talk! I apologize to those watching live from Periscope today for not being very interactive and for not responding to your comments. Hopefully, this won’t be an issue again. 🙂
All past broadcasts are here: ColorInMyPiano.com/live/. To watch future broadcasts live, download the free Periscope app (for iOS or Android), search for @joymorinpiano, and hop online on Mondays at noon Eastern time. Hope to see you next time!
Do you have suggestions about what we could discuss in future Periscopes? Please submit your ideas by clicking here. I appreciate your input!
Greetings! During today’s live broadcast via Periscope, we discussed a question sent in by Sarah Arnold: How do we decide when to move on to a new piece with a student?
Here is the video conversation:
All past broadcasts are here: ColorInMyPiano.com/live/. To watch future broadcasts live, download the free Periscope app (for iOS or Android) and hop online on Mondays at noon Eastern time. Hope to see you next time!
Do you have ideas about what Joy should address in future Periscopes? Please submit your ideas by clicking here.
Yesterday, I created my first live broadcast video for the blog. A big thank you to those who watched the broadcast live within Periscope (for iOS or Android) — I appreciate your support! There are a few technology kinks I need to get used to; nevertheless, I had a blast! 🙂
Below, you can watch the video recording of our conversation. We talked about organizing your music library.
I’m curious: is your music library organized in sections similar to mine, or differently? I’d love to see photos of YOUR music library posted on the ColorInMyPiano Facebook page!
Do you have ideas about what we can talk about in future videos? Please submit your ideas here!
Greetings, friends!
I’m excited to announce today a brand new experiment — read on.
Periscope is a platform (for iOS or Android) that allows users to broadcast a live video feed. Many bloggers and personalities are taking advantage of this relatively new platform to reach out and interact with their followers in a unique way.
Blogger and piano teacher Jennifer Foxx has already used Periscope a couple of times to talk about new products and giveaways.
Elizabeth Gutierrez is using Periscope for her Piano Play-Along series on her blog, PianoTeacherCamp.com. In her Piano Play-Alongs, teachers can learn and study repertoire together and talk about how to teach it.
So, I thought I’d jump on the bandwagon and try out Periscope as a way to create short, interactive talks about piano pedagogy. If it works out, I would love for this to become a weekly thing. If you have questions or ideas for what we could address in Periscope discussions, please submit those ideas here!
Interested? Here’s how to participate:
Hope to see you Monday at noon (Eastern time)!
I was honored to recently make a guest appearance on Tim Topham‘s podcast for piano teachers, to speak on the topic of Harnessing The Power of the Internet. You can take a listen here or watch the YouTube video version below.
Tim asked me to talk about a topic I had presented earlier this year at the 2015 MTNA conference in Las Vegas during the Young Professionals Track, called: Harnessing the Power of the Internet. We discussed ideas and strategies for using the internet well, forming an online presence, and using social media.
By the way, I also decided to share a readable version of my MTNA presentation. If you would like to take a look, you can download the PDF below or on the Printables > Other Resources page.
PDF Presentation: Harnessing the Power of the Internet (2.2 MiB, 3,107 hits)
Be sure to check out the rest of Tim’s blog here. There are many great resources to be found there!
Last year, I blogged about the drawer system I use for organizing my music games. It so important to be able to easily find the needed teaching materials during lessons!
Since moving last summer, I ended up updating my drawer categories somewhat. This drawer unit is from IKEA, by the way.
I’m always tweaking my organization system, but as of now, the six drawer categories are:
In another room, I keep a few drawers of games that only work for groups of students. I pull those games out when I hold my Piano Parties (monthly group classes).
Whatever your system, the most important thing is to be able to find what you need, when you need it! 🙂
UPDATE: Please visit this post for the latest 2022 RCM Piano Syllabus version.
I recently finished creating a new set of technique charts for the RCM’s new 2015 Piano Syllabus.
Here is the backstory.
Over the past few years, I have entered a handful of piano students to take assessments through the Royal Conservatory of Music, an excellent program originating in Canada and becoming more popular in the United States. I appreciate the thoroughness of the assessments, which require students to perform a set of pieces ranging in musical styles and to demonstrate musicianship skills (sight-reading, ear training, rhythm exercises, etc.). The levels outlined in the syllabus (find the free PDF here) are soundly structured and have been refined over time by dedicated pedagogues in our field. RCM is also known for the quality and consistency of the adjudicating across the continent. RCM is not a competition; it is a standard that allows students and parents to better understand and track progress during music study.
Every seven years, the RCM piano syllabus is revised to incorporate new repertoire, eliminate repertoire that is no longer readily available, and refine the musicianship and technical requirements. 2015 marks a revision year, which means RCM teachers are seeking to learn about the updates and changes compared to the previous 2008 syllabus.
RCM’s non-profit publishing company, Frederick Harris, publishes a variety of wonderful books to aid students in preparing for assessments (most notably, the piano literature books known as the Celebration Series).
Books are also available containing the notated technical requirements for each level; however, I personally prefer to teach scales/arpeggios/chords by rote rather than through having students read the notation. But it can be cumbersome to write out the RCM technical requirements on students’ assignment sheets each week–especially if you expect students to review all previous material.
So, a few years ago I released a free printable containing charts of the technical requirements for each level according to the 2008 piano syllabus. These charts have proved to be incredibly helpful to ensure that my students are learning and reviewing all of the required technical work. I’m happy to announce today that new charts are available below for the new 2015 piano syllabus. Even if you have no intention of sending students to RCM assessments, you might find these charts useful.
I keep this PDF uploaded on my iPad (use iBooks, GoodNotes, or any similar app of your choice) so I can print the appropriate charts wirelessly during lessons. Students take their chart to and from their lessons. As each item is mastered, we fill in each box with a checkmark or a sticker. The chart makes it easy to visually track progress.
Special thanks goes to fellow piano teachers Donna Gross Javel and Nancy DeHaven Hall for helping to proofread the charts against the 2015 syllabus.
Download:
2015 RCM Technical Requirements Charts for Piano (557.9 KiB, 29,161 hits)
Enjoy!
As mentioned yesterday, two new lapbooks have been added to my digital shop: Antonio Vivaldi and Sergei Prokofiev.
If you aren’t already familiar with my lapbook curriculum, you might be interested in checking it out if you offer monthly group classes or summer music camps. Every year, I offer a music history camp using these lapbooks for my piano students and we study a composer from each historical time period. I’ve also used this curriculum in the past to offer weekly music appreciation classes for homeschoolers. To date, I have twenty different composer lapbooks available to choose from.
Purchasing the PDF for a composer includes the license to print and copy from the PDF for your entire teaching career for personal and educational use with your students. As the teacher reads the biography booklet and discusses terms/music related to the composer, students are responsible for cutting out and assembling the items for their own lapbook to take home.
Here is some info about the two new lapbooks.
In the lesson about Vivaldi, students will enjoy learning about “The Red Priest” and his passion for composing and teaching music to the orphans and students at the Ospedale della Pietá in Venice. Special focus is given to Vivaldi’s most well-known work, The Four Seasons.
Sergei Prokofiev was a great Russian composer of the Modern Era. Students will learn about how the political upheaval in Russia impacted Prokofiev both personally and as a composer. Special attention will be given to perhaps his most well-known work, Peter and the Wolf.
Visit the digital shop by clicking here.
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