Tag: technology

Announcements

Early bird ends Feb 15 — Organize Your Life With Notion (save $60) (Feb 27, Mar 6, Mar 13)

Joy Morin

Hi friends,

Quick reminder about Amy and my upcoming live online workshop, Organize Your Life With Notion. If you have been meaning to join us, the early bird discount ends after February 15.

If your lesson notes, links, recital plans, and to-dos are spread across email, paper, Google Drive, and random sticky notes, Notion can pull it into one place.

Organize Your Life With Notion (live online workshop)
Fridays: February 27, March 6, and March 13
Time: 12:30 – 2:30 pm Eastern

Use code NOTION60 by February 15 to take $60 off your registration.

A simple, practical way to start using Notion

This workshop is for piano teachers and music professionals who want a simple, flexible system for keeping studio and life details in one place. We will guide you step-by-step, live, and you will have time to build alongside us.

By the end, you will be able to set up a workspace you can use for things like:

  • a clean “home base” dashboard (so you know where to go when you open Notion)
  • student and studio information in one spot
  • recital and event planning pages that are easy to reuse each year
  • a place to capture ideas, to-dos, and resources so nothing gets lost

Free handmade templates for music professionals

You will also get access to a library of free Notion page templates Amy and I handmade for music professionals, so you can copy what you need and customize quickly instead of starting from scratch.

Learn more and sign up here.

Hope to see you there,

Joy

Related: 40 Ways to Use Notion as a Music Professional

Studio Business

How I Onboard New Piano Students

Joy Morin

Welcoming a new student into your piano studio always feels special. A new inquiry lands in your inbox, you meet a bright-eyed beginner or an eager returning student, and suddenly you’re about to embark on a musical journey together. Exciting, right?

But between that initial spark of interest and the first official lesson, there’s an administrative process to navigate. And if you’re anything like me, you want every family to feel welcomed, informed, and excited about the journey ahead.

That’s where having an onboarding system makes all the difference. With clear steps to follow, things are less likely to fall through the cracks. You can focus less on remembering administrative details and more on what matters most — connecting with your new students and planning how you’ll help them grow as a musicians.

In this article, I’ll walk you through my simple six-step process for onboarding new piano students. Whether you’re looking to refine your current system or build one from scratch, I hope you’ll find some ideas you can adapt for your own studio.

PS: In this article, I will touch on how Notion — a free “everything app” I think everyone should know about — has become a one-stop organizational system for piano studio operations and most other aspects of my life, both personal and professional. It’s been a game-changer for managing all the moving parts of running a music studio! Intrigued? Learn more here about the next offering of Organize Your Life With Notion, a 3-part online workshop for music professionals offered by Amy Chaplin and myself.

Continue reading “How I Onboard New Piano Students” →
Announcements

Announcing: Upcoming Notion Workshop + FREE Webinar

Joy Morin

Hello piano teachers,

I’m pleased to share that Amy Chaplin and I are giving a FREE, 30-minute webinar on Tuesday, February 10 at 12:30pm Eastern Time. It’s called “What Notion Can Do For You.” During the session, we will share exactly that: what Notion — a popular “everything” app that I think everyone should know about — can do for you as a music professional! You’ll also learn more about our upcoming online workshop “Organize Your Life With Notion,” taking place February 27, March 6, and March 13. Attend the webinar live and stay until the end for a special giveaway.

Register for the FREE webinar here. A replay video will be sent out to registrants afterwards.

Check out my past articles about Notion below:

PS: Have you been waiting for this next offering of our online workshop and are ready to register? Registration is open, and early bird rates are going on now. Reserve your spot now here.

Reviews

Meet Yoto Mini, A Music & Audiobook Player

Joy Morin

Have you heard of Yoto? It’s an audiobook and music player designed for kids…but guess what: I have one of my own as a piano teacher. If I’ve piqued your curiosity, read on!

In this article, I’ll tell you why I first bought a Yoto Mini player, what I like about it, and how I use it in my piano teaching and home life with my two young kids (ages 5 and 3). Below, along with my review, you’ll find a quick video demonstration along with reflections on my experience with Yoto so far.

Continue reading “Meet Yoto Mini, A Music & Audiobook Player” →
Announcements

Register Now: “Organize Your Life With Notion” Online Workshop

Joy Morin

Greetings and Happy New Year, my friends!

I’m pleased to announce that registration is now open for a three-day, online workshop about using Notion (a productivity and note-taking app) offered by Amy Chaplin and myself. In this workshop, Amy and I will teach you all about how to use Notion to create a custom digital workspace to organize your life and get work done. If you’d been around here for a while, you might have seen my past articles about Notion and how essential it has become to my workflow and life. I think it’s an amazing tool, and am pretty sure you’ll think so, too!

The dates will be on three Fridays, January 10, 17, and 24, 2024 from 1-3pm Eastern each day. Replay videos are included, and there is an optional follow-up session a few weeks after the main workshop is done.

Check out all the details and reserve your spot now HERE. (PS: Register now to take advantage of the early bird rate!) Hope to see you in the workshop on the 10th! If you’d like to be notified when we offer the workshop again in the future, join the email list HERE.

More reading:

Reviews

Review: MagSafe Tripod Stand for iPhone

Joy Morin

Today, I’m sharing a review of a tool I have found extremely useful as a piano teacher and blogger over the past couple of months: a MagSafe tripod for my iPhone. I have found it SO useful, in fact, that I wish I had ordered one much sooner!

Read on to learn more and/or watch my short video review below.

Continue reading “Review: MagSafe Tripod Stand for iPhone” →
Announcements

Early Bird Rate Expires Soon: Organize Your Life with Notion, an Online Workshop with Amy Chaplin & Joy Morin

Joy Morin

Hello, friends!

Just a quick note to tell you that the early bird discount expires soon for the upcoming online workshop Amy Chaplin and I are offering. It’s called, Organize Your Life With Notion, and over the two days we teach you how to use Notion — our favorite online tool ever — to manage your music studio…and life in general!

If case you aren’t familiar with Notion… it’s basically a note-taking app you can use on your phone and computer to create pages for tracking information or planning projects (think student information, recitals, events, trips, notes…anything you can think of!).

Continue reading “Early Bird Rate Expires Soon: Organize Your Life with Notion, an Online Workshop with Amy Chaplin & Joy Morin” →
Technology

12 Podcasts for Piano Teachers in 2021

Joy Morin

Do you listen to podcasts? I enjoy listening to podcasts as well as audiobooks while driving, exercising, getting ready in the morning, or getting things done around the house. It’s like listening to the radio, except you have more control over exactly what you’re listening to!

There’s been a number of new podcasts for piano teachers popping up recently, which is exciting to see. In this blog post, I’ll share a list of some of the best podcasts, both new and not, for piano teachers.

Continue reading “12 Podcasts for Piano Teachers in 2021” →
Performances, Technology, Videos

Tutorial: Combining Videos to Create an “Piano Duet” Video

Joy Morin

Back in May, I shared about how I organized a virtual recital for my students. In that post, I briefly mentioned how I combined two videos to create “duet” videos for a couple of my students. Today, I’d like to share how I accomplished this “duet” video magic, so you can try it for yourself if you’d like!

First of all, here’s an example of what I’m talking about. In this video, you’ll see a beginner student playing the rote piece “I Love Coffee” (from the Shaaks and of Piano Safari method fame), accompanied by me playing the teacher duet.

Below, I will share the steps for how to create and combine a student video and a teacher video to create a “piano duet” video. This technique is similar to that used by many YouTube musicians — you’ve probably seen the type. Even if you already know how to do this, I hope perhaps you’ll gain at least a helpful tip or two from this post!

Step 1: Acquire Student Video

The basic process is that one person records their video first, so that the other person can use it as a guide (using earbuds) while recording the second video. The first person’s video determines the tempo throughout the piece, which the second person must follow and match.

Continue reading “Tutorial: Combining Videos to Create an “Piano Duet” Video” →
Conferences, Technology

MTNA 2017: App-Laudable Uses of Apps in Music Lessons

Joy Morin

It was an honor to have the opportunity to present a session at the 2017 MTNA conference this year! My topic was App-Laudable Uses of Apps in Music Lessons.

In my session, I addressed the responsible and effective incorporation of technology before launching into a demonstration of a variety of apps for music lessons.

If you would like to download the handout from my session, please click here. (Please note that the app information in the handout is current as of March 2017).

You can check out a list of app reviews I’ve written here on my blog here.

Games, Printables, Technology

Printable Chart for the Note Rush App

Joy Morin

Ever since downloading Note Rush for iPhone/iPad (read my review here), my students and I have been having a blast using the app to improve fluency in corresponding pitches notated on the staff to the keyboard.

(By the way, did you know that Note Rush is now available for Android platforms?)

Just for fun, I started keeping track of each student’s best time for each Note Rush level using a clipboard and a blank sheet of paper. Pretty soon, I realized I needed a better chart. So, I decided to contact the developer to ask if I could create one that visually matches the user interface of the app. He agreed, and happily sent me the graphics and information I needed. (Thanks, Thomas!) Here is the result:

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Continue reading “Printable Chart for the Note Rush App” →

Reviews, Technology

Review & Giveaway: Note Rush app

Joy Morin

13246163_248194038873284_8983692676277542062_oToday, I am so excited to introduce to you a brand new app for music teachers called Note Rush. As I have been experimenting with this app during beta testing, I soon discovered just what a useful tool this app is for my students. Note Rush has become my favorite app for piano teaching.

Note Rush is a note reading app that is simple, intuitive, and fun. Unlike other note identification apps that present a note and require the user to name the note by letter name, Note Rush “listens” using the iPad’s microphone to identify whether the user is playing the correct piano key. It’s so important for students to learn to associate staff positions with the corresponding piano key in the correct octave, and Note Rush encourages this!

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The app automatically calibrates to the piano, allowing the app to be useable even if the piano may be slightly out-of-tune.

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Allowing you to choose from a variety of levels — covering various ranges of notes in treble clef, bass clef, or the entire grand staff — the app is customizable to the user’s ability.

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Because the rounds are timed, students are invited to repeat the rounds to try to improve their times.

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The three themes appeal to a wide range of students while not creating a distraction through too many options.

Note Rush collage

Tell your students to buy this app instead of a box of flashcards. Note Rush is available in the Apple App Store for $3.99 USD. Find it for Android here. Be sure to visit the Note Rush website and like their facebook page.

Note: I bought this app. As always, my reviews contain my honest opinion.

The Note Rush developer has kindly offered two promo codes for a giveaway! For a chance to win a free download of Note Rush, leave a comment below before Tuesday, June 28 at midnight (Eastern time) sharing your favorite aspect of Note Rush. Two winners will be randomly chosen and contacted the following day.