Based on my children’s TV watching habits, I sometimes think that the best parts of a TV show are the commercials. I generally use the commercials as a time to go grab a snack or do some other “thing” before the show comes back on. But, not my kids! They’d rather die than miss the commercials. (OK a little bit of exaggeration). The point I’m making though is they live for the commercials. I guess that’s why companies spend so much money on them. So what does this have to do with piano lessons? Well, just like a good TV show, a good Piano Lesson needs some breaks in between scenes (activities). YouTube is so great for finding music education videos that can be used as commercials during lessons. Of course whatever video you choose has to be entertaining! Here is an example of a video that I repurposed as a commercial just yesterday…
Category: music lessons
Sports and Music
Yes, it’s that time of the year when sports often take over our students’ lives and piano lessons can sometimes fall by the wayside. So I thought I’d share a quote from author Lesley Bloom’s book, The Rising Star of Rusty Nail.
“Music is an art
but anyone who tells you that it’s not in part
sport would be lying to you.”
What’s A Ritardando?
Football and Piano
This is a just a quick post to share something one of my 3 year old piano students said this week while we were learning about Quarter Notes. We were playing the Valentine Card Hunt game designed by Susan Paradis where she had to find notes scattered around the room and tell me the name of them. She brilliantly breezed through all of them – whole note, half note, etc. and when she got to the Quarter Note she said, “That one’s a Quarterback!”
Recording Season Is Here!
Every year my students look forward to the BIG CD RECORDING PROJECT. Every week from August to January they ask, “When are we going to do our CDs?” Well the time is finally here. Last year they designed their own CD Covers as well. I have found that this project is the single biggest practice motivator for my students. They want their CDs to sound great so they take extra care to practice well. And… the number one rule in the recording studio is that we do at least 4 takes of each track and then listen to each to choose the best. This helps them develop and refine their listening skills and ability to discern good quality playing.
Throughout the process you can see each child becoming more of a musician in thought and action. This is especially evident in the way they answer the questions in the interviews I do with them as part of the project.
To celebrate all our hard work we have a big CD Release Party once the CDs are complete.
I can’t wait to hear the titles that they give their CD Projects this year. Last year we had titles like ” Wonderful Songs”, “Piano Praise”, “Piano Playing Princess”, and “Music Splash Down”. Kids are so CREATIVE!!!
Do you do CD Projects with your students? I’d love to hear how you do it!
Play Doh To The Rescue!
The uses for play doh in the music studio are endless! To help one of my beginners understand how to play harmonic and melodic intervals we recreated the note from the printed page with play doh. This way she could see and feel that the harmonic notes stay together and must be played together. Using the same colors for the melodic notes helped her to see that it is the same notes just played differently. 
How The Grinch Stole The Piano Lesson!
At least once a year I try to take my students to a music performance that we can experience together. We’ve gone to the movies, scene STOMP, concerts, and this year we are going to see How The Grinch Stole Christmas presented by Broadway Across America. Since the show is this weekend, I decorated the studio with some Grinch items. All week I waited for the students who were going to the show to mention the decorations but of course no one did!
Here comes the interesting twist – I am one of the few teachers in my area who will give lessons to 4 year olds so I tend to always have some kids this age each year in addition to my older students. Wouldn’t you know that it was one of my 4 year olds who showed up to the lesson and immediately mentioned the Grinch decor. In fact she was completely zoned into the Grinch. This student is usually extremely focussed especially for a 4 year old but truthfully she has a much longer attention span than many of my older students. So, it was very surprising that she just could not focus on anything but the Grinch!
Here I was all ready to continue where we left off in her previous lesson on keyboard note names and the Grinch was threatening to hijack the whole lesson! My student kept asking if we could read the story of How The Grinch Stole Christmas. Well not to be undone, I made a deal with her that if she played her concert song for me (we are two weeks from the performance!) and do the note name activity that I’d planned then I would read her the story. Thankfully she agreed to this.
You can be sure that at each step she reminded me that we still needed to read the story. So, finally we got everything done (in about 10 minutes) and it was time to read the story. That’s when I pulled a special out of my “teacher bag of tricks”. I told her that the Grinch wanted her to play a “G” every time she heard his name in the story. She gladly did this, although I could tell that at certain parts of the story she was a little irritated at having to find yet another different “G” to play, but she did not complain because she got such a kick out of my animated reading of the story.
The word “Grinch” came up so many times in the story that I am sure my student will ALWAYS be able to find her “G” note on the piano, and as an added bonus she will have a fun memory to go along with it!
Has any studio prop ever threatened to hijack your piano lesson? I’d love to hear about it!
A Christmas Gift For Music Teachers
Ahh the Christmas rush has begun! With so much planning and practicing and blah blah blah I haven’t had any time to blog since before Thanksgiving. So, while I am briefly coming up for air I thought I’d make amends by giving you a special gift.
Now, I can’t take credit for this gift (I came across it online) but believe me it is a good one and it is for YOU if you teach music to anybody of any age! I was browsing through my bookmarks and came across a site that I had bookmarked for future reference and forgotten about. It is a Music Educators Resource list that has EVERYTHING you could possibly want for teaching ideas. From classroom discipline ideas, theme ideas, and games to specifics on working with Middle School boys and private lessons you are sure to find lots of info you can use.
To open your gift, just click the link below. Once on the site you can select the entire page and paste into a word processing document on your computer so you will always have it handy!
http://www.freshpond.net/uploads/users/5/User_5961/MyFiles/index.html#Top
How To Eat A Piano Piece
This is not how you eat a sandwich!
Piano students sometimes take on too much when learning a new piece. They attempt to learn a whole section at a time or even worse the whole song! When this happens in my studio I whip out this picture that my daughter so graciously agreed to take as a visual to remind students that we eat a sandwich one bite at a time. Then we chew. Then we swallow.
Translated for piano – we learn one bite at a time – maybe a measure or right hand only or whatever. Then we chew. Play what we learned several times before moving on to the next bite. By now the picture is enough to remind my students to take it SLOWLY!
Stay Calm!
Recitals, performances, and anxiety – Oh My! Yes, it’s that time of year when limited time and looming performances can send piano students (and teachers) over the edge. So, I thought I’d share with you my new find that can lighten up the situation and make it more fun! Recently I got a new addition to go with the EASY button that sits on my teaching piano. It’s called the Panic Button. It features the familiar Hoops and YoYo characters from Hallmark and in true Hoops and YoYo style is HILARIOUS.
Whenever I see a kid approaching that point – you know the one where their eyes freeze up and frustration takes over – I say, “Quick Hit The Panic Button!” We both end up rolling with laughter as soon as they hit that button. I think this item is only available in stores but it is so worth a trip to the store!
Kids & Keys 