Tag: piano teaching

Early Childhood Music, improving as a teacher, Professional Development, Teaching Piano

9 Tips for Teaching Piano To Young Ages

Joy Morin

As piano teachers, we wear many hats.  School teachers often teach only one age group, or a few age groups.  Piano teachers are usually expected to be able to teach from age 5 to 95!  But as we all know, teaching a 5-year-old is much different from teaching a 15-year-old, or a 55-year-old.  🙂

In recently thinking about this challenge of being able to effectively teach various age levels and maturities, I decided to make a list of some of the things I’ve learned over the past few years about teaching young ages — I’m thinking, ages 6 and under.  I learned some of these things from an Early Childhood Music course I took during grad school and various piano pedagogy courses — but I learned many of these things purely from experience.  Here goes:

  1. Don’t ask questions that you don’t really want answers to.  Examples: “Did you like that?” or “Do you want to try it on your own now?”  Sometimes if given the option to opt out of something, children will say “no” simply because you’ve given them a choice.  🙂  It’s better to make statements.
  2. Give them time to think.  When you ask a question, wait for them to process and compose a response.  Sometimes we ask questions and then blow right on without getting an answer.  Young children need this think time.  If you don’t really want to wait for an answer, then don’t ask the question in the first place.  Continue reading “9 Tips for Teaching Piano To Young Ages” →
Composition, Music Theory, Printables

Staff Paper – Large Staff for Simple Compositions

Joy Morin

With my Piano Readiness Class, we’ve been learning about staff notation.  Last week, each student composed a mini-composition on the piano and then we together notated the piece.  We used colorful markers to label the notes (A, B, C, etc) and also wrote in finger numbers, so they can continue playing their compositions at home.  They loved the idea of being composers!

This is the sheet paper we used to notate our compositions.  Young students tend to draw rather large notes 🙂 , so I left plenty of room between the lines of the staff.

To download, visit the Printables > Other Resources page and scroll down to “Staff Paper — Large Staff for Simple Compositions.”

Announcements, Games, Group Classes, Music Theory, Resources, Teaching Piano, Technique

Recent Purchases: Scale Blocks & A Technique Monkey

Joy Morin

I don’t know about you, but I’m always on the lookout for creative and inexpensive items for my teaching.  The dollar store is one of my favorite places to go!

In the craft aisle at Dollar Tree right now, there are packages of foam cubes, as shown in the picture.  I’ve always wanted to make scale blocks like Natalie Wickham’s, but have never got around to buying the wood blocks and paint.  These foam cubes seem like a pretty good alternative, although they may not last as long I suppose.  On the upside, it doesn’t take long to write the alphabet letters on these little cubes with a marker!  I am going to go back to buy a couple more packages, so I can make a nice set of scale blocks using the orange colored cubes.   Continue reading “Recent Purchases: Scale Blocks & A Technique Monkey” →

Announcements, Studio Business

Halloween Candy = Opportunity for Free Marketing

Joy Morin

Thanks to the wonderfully helpful ideas that YOU all submitted in reply to the Forum Q&A last month about advertising, this year for Halloween I am passing out candy that has a note with my studio name and information on it!

I created these tags in Microsoft Word and printed them onto cardstock paper.  I cut out each tag and used a circle of scotch tape to attach the candy to the backside of each tag.  The tags have my studio name, what I do, and my contact information.  Continue reading “Halloween Candy = Opportunity for Free Marketing” →

Conferences, Group Classes, improving as a teacher

2011 OhioMTA Conference (4): Piano Pedagogy 101, by Marvin Blickenstaff

Joy Morin

Here’s another session given by the well-loved pedagogue Marvin Blickenstaff from the 2011 OhioMTA Conference:

Piano Pedagogy 101: Reviewing the Basics

Mr. Blickenstaff introduced this session by commenting that at conferences and workshops, we often hear ideas for teaching intermediate and advanced students, but we don’t very often hear ideas for teaching beginners during that first year of piano lessons.  The purpose of this session to give a refresher of sorts and to provide new ideas for teaching beginners, particularly in groups.

Mr. Blickenstaff basically led us through a series of short activities that he uses during group classes with beginners.  He begins the first few classes with some icebreaker activities that all students can succeed doing.  These initial successes set the tone for the entire year!

Here are a few examples of some of the beginner-level icebreaker activities Mr. Blickenstaff likes to use with his students:

Continue reading “2011 OhioMTA Conference (4): Piano Pedagogy 101, by Marvin Blickenstaff” →

Conferences, improving as a teacher, Professional Development, Teaching Piano

OhioMTA Conference 2011 (2): Toxic or Terrific Teaching by Nicole Biggs

Joy Morin

The next session at the OhioMTA Conference was given by Dr. Nicole Biggs, the new piano professor at Bowling Green State University in my town:

Toxic or Terrific Teaching: Exploring the Strategies that Bring out the Best in our Students

Dr. Biggs began by pointing out that our goal as teachers is to inspire and motivate our students in such a way that they can go on independently without us.  Our goal in effect is to teach ourselves out of a job.

A potential problem for some of us as teachers is that we may unintentionally emulate the teaching models we experienced, whether good or bad.  It’s a challenge, but if we perhaps experienced “toxic teaching” during our own studies, we need to find ways to ensure these teaching strategies don’t filter into our own teaching.  We need to transform any toxic teaching strategies into terrific teaching strategies.   Continue reading “OhioMTA Conference 2011 (2): Toxic or Terrific Teaching by Nicole Biggs” →

Teaching Piano

Easy Black Key Improvisation

Joy Morin

Today, I’m at the Ohio Music Teachers Association conference (affiliated with MTNA) all day!  Yes, in case you are wondering, I will be posting notes from the sessions I attend later this week.  🙂

But for now, I wanted to share a quick video of a black key improvisation from a recent piano lesson with one of my new students.  This is only the third time we’ve tried an improvisation together, and each time I’ve noticed that Andelus instinctively creates a motif or theme that she uses throughout the improvisation, which is great because it creates a natural sense of unity for the composition!  (Great job, Andelus!)

For this improvisation, the only discussion beforehand was “You may play any of the black keys,” and “Let’s make a happy, upbeat improvisation!”  Enjoy!!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmO8C9QZL30

Continue reading “Easy Black Key Improvisation” →

improving as a teacher, Studio Business, Teaching Piano

Forum Q&A | The Role of the Parent

Joy Morin

I apologize for being a bit MIA around the blog lately.  I have a couple of projects that I am working on right now for my local MTNA association.  One of them is designing a website.  It’s about half-way done and if you’re interested in taking a sneak peek, you can click here to see it.  🙂

Anyway, our last Forum Q&A was a discussion about accepting and then teaching adult students at the students’ homes.  We also hit on a few other situations, like females teaching male adult students at the teacher’s home.  There was a good overall consensus about handling such situations.  It’s so great to get advice and support from others, so thank you all for your contributions to the discussion!  (As always, it’s never too late to comment if you haven’t already!)

Here’s the question for today:

What is the ideal role for the parents when it comes to piano lessons?  If a parent asks about what they can be doing to help and support their child, what is your answer?  Do you require or encourage parents to sit in on lessons?  Do you require parents to help young beginners practice?  Do you hold yearly or semesterly meetings with parents to discuss progress?  

Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Photo Credit: woodleywonderworks | CC 2.0

Conferences

Ohio Music Teachers Association 2011 Conference

Joy Morin

Any fellow Ohioans out there?  The Ohio Music Teachers Association (affiliated with MTNA) 2011 State Conference will be taking place October 9-11.  It’s occurring in my hometown, which will be very convenient for me.  I’m very excited about meeting some of the other teachers in my area and hearing some great speakers and music.  Among the presenters and performers this year are Marvin Blickenstaff and the Anderson & Roe piano duo.  It’s going to be a great conference!

Speaking of Marvin Blickenstaff, Marvin is going to be hosting the NCKP’s facebook page today, answering questions from teachers.  It should be interesting to follow throughout the day!  Click here to visit their facebook page and see what’s going on.

Early Childhood Music, Games, Group Classes, Music Camps, Printables, Rhythm, Teaching Piano

Just Added: Rainy Rhythm Game

Joy Morin

I’ve mentioned before that during grad school, I took an Early Childhood Music course.  One of the things we discussed was using the “sound before sight” philosophy – where the student is exposed to and experiences the concepts before being taught the name or the written notation.  I’ve been doing my best to use this philosophy of teaching music with my Piano Readiness students.

I was reminded of a raindrops & rainbows rhythm game one of my classmates created for an assignment during that course when I saw Anne Crosby’s recent post, which mentioned an activity involving finger-painting raindrops/rainbows.  It immediately occurred to me that the girls in my Piano Readiness Class would LOVE a game involving rainbows, so I put together this printable.  It’s nothing groundbreaking; I’m sure teachers before me have done similar things.  But hopefully this printable might be as useful and convenient for some of you as it was for me!

Continue reading “Just Added: Rainy Rhythm Game” →

Studio Business, Technology

Studio Marketing: Social Networking & More

Joy Morin

I’ve been intending to write this post in the “Studio Marketing” series (perhaps the last one) for awhile now, but I was stalling in hopes of being able to include more information about the new Google+ social networking site……I’ll get to that in a moment.  Read on. 🙂

What can Social Networking do for YOU? 

I’ve discussed before about how important it is today to have a website for your business.  It’s important to have an online presence, period.  Utilizing social networking helps built rapport between you and your current & potential customers.  Marketing is promoting your business.  It’s about reaching people where they are.  And it’s about creating an image for your business that people want to identify themselves with.

The good news is that social networking is free.  Yes, you will have to invest a little time to set things up and update things now and then, but I think you will find it a very rewarding activity if you aren’t doing it already!  Continue reading “Studio Marketing: Social Networking & More” →