Tag: piano teaching

Music Video Reveals The Power of The Piano Lesson!

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As a music teacher you know the power of lessons to completely change a student’s mood from blah to YAY! How many times has a student showed up to the lesson so stressed out that your original lesson plan didn’t stand a chance? 

 I am so excited to announce that my student Mary Rene Quarles just released her first music video and it addresses this very issue! Mary Rene is 13 years old and has been studying voice with me since she was 9 years old. This year she released her first single, Monday Is Coming, which she co-wrote with myself and Grammy Winning Songwriter Jayne Olderman. Since then Mary Rene has started piano with me because she wants to be able to accompany herself while singing. Her story is a perfect example of how music lessons can benefit a kid! It’s also an example of out of the box ways teachers can deepen their student’s learning.

Monday is Coming is a celebration of the weekend and in this music video it shows us how music can change our whole outlook! You should definitely set your Friday morning alarm to this song. Check out the video AND just to FUN things up a bit, answer this trivia question for a chance to win a FREE DOWNLOAD of Monday Is Coming.

How many times do we see Mary Rene at the Skating Rink in the Monday Is Coming music video?

Comment with your answer and I’ll enter you into a random drawing for the Free Download! 3 Winners will be chosen and announced on Friday October 13th!

10 Things Parents Can Do To Help Kids Learn Piano

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Have you tried any of these things to help your kids learn to play piano? Tell me how it went in a comment below!

You might also be interested in 6 Ways Piano Teachers and Parents Can Encourage Piano Teens

How To Use Facebook Live For Your Student Recital

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Morgan Shaginaw-8

Every private music teacher knows the nightmares involved in SCHEDULING performances! When it comes to showcasing your students you’re competing with school events, family events, religious events, weather and a dozen other things. This is especially true for me during the spring with sports events and graduations. So after watching a few of NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts I came up with a spin off version of that for my students called Fun Sized Concerts. Students and parents are LOVING it. So, I wanted to share the idea with you in case you’re looking for new ways to put smiles on the faces of your students and parents. I’ll show you step by step how to do it!

The venue for your Fun Sized Concert will be your Facebook page as you will be doing the concert via Facebook Live. There are tons of tutorials on how to do a facebook live – just search on youtube or google, or use facebook help.

Morgan Shaginaw-3

For our Fun Sized Concerts I scheduled each student during their regular lesson time. This takes the stress out of scheduling! They are available and their parents are too. Have students arrive at their regular time and take about 10-15 minutes to practice prior to going live. Students were also able to invite friends and family to come to the studio to see the concert in person.

Create a Facebook Event Page for your fun sized concert to announce and invite others.

I had a student create the logo for the Fun Sized Concert – you are welcome to use mine or create your own. To use mine, just drag it to your desktop.

Be sure to share your event several times on your facebook page to let people know about it. Also be sure to let people know they have to go to your facebook page to see the Fun Sized Concert at the scheduled time. They will NOT be able to see it from the event page!

To make the Fun Sized Concert even more special for students and families add some balloons or other decorations/signage to your studio for the day. Be sure that these are visible in the recording when you’re on Facebook Live.

You will need to ask someone else to hold your device to record or use a tripod.

Take a few pictures during the event as well.

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Finally either during or after the Fun Sized Concert you can present a gift bag full of Fun Sized Treats/Snacks to your student to congratulate them.

Once finished with the concert be sure to post the replay to your facebook page.

After the Fun Sized Concert be sure to respond to comments on your facebook page. You can also go back into your event page and add the pictures that you took during the concert or post them in a comment below the Facebook Live video.

If you decide to do Fun Sized Concerts with your students I’d love to see them! Tag DanaRiceMusic in your post and I will watch!

 

 

 

6 Ways Piano Teachers and Parents Can Encourage Piano Teens

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Teens (and Tweens for that matter) these days are so into their digital devices that it can be difficult for a parent to have even a brief conversation with them about ANYTHING, let alone piano! So, why not communicate with them through their devices?

Drag these images to your desktop or save to your phone and text one of them to your teen! This will do at least 2 things – 1)make you look cool and 2)make your teen smile – or at least text you back a smiley face emojii! BONUS – it might just get your teen to practice more!

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How have you been successful with getting your teen to keep playing piano? Tell me in a comment!

Food For The Music Teacher’s Soul: Performing Live

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As music teachers we spend hours preparing lessons, music learning games, and performances for our students. After doing an adequate amount of scouring music teaching blogs and piano teaching blogs, and attending student concerts and recitals there is little time left to devote to our own musical development. The interesting thing is that the missing ingredient in most music teachers’ studio marketing plans is consistent performance by the teacher!  I will speak specifically as a piano teacher, but what I am saying is true no matter what instrument the teacher teaches. The same thing we tell our students applies to us – in order to get better at playing your instrument, you have to PLAY YOUR INSTRUMENT!

I know from my own personal experience how difficult it can be to carve out time to flex your performance muscles when you are a music teacher. I also know that carving this time out is absolutely essential. It is also life-giving! The video about is proof of that.

Last weekend I was blessed with the opportunity and challenge to play in the faculty concert for the music camp where I taught. Getting to this point took a couple of years of trying to find time to collaborate with the other teachers because our schedules are so varied. Thankfully one of the faculty members, Russell Ferrara (fabulous guitarist who is fluid in numerous genres) never gave up and simply insisted that we make it happen. Oddly enough it took his persistence to get me and fellow teacher Derwyn Browne playing together for the first time although we work together often and live near each other. Russell lives a thousand miles away!

I can definitely say that it was well worth the wait and that we should have done this sooner. If you haven’t played in a while, please let me suggest that you get out there and go for it! Why should our students be the only ones who get to play? Why should they be the only ones who experience the rush that comes from an audience erupting with applause? Why should they be the only ones who get that undeniable sense of satisfaction from having done their best onstage?

If you haven’t done so already, watch the video. I hope it will inspire you to go out and play!

3 Non-Piano Teaching Music Blogs To Add To Your BlogRoll Now!

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I get inspiration for my piano lessons from a variety of resources on the internet. Of course I read a TON of piano teaching blogs, but I also like to peruse blogs of elementary music classroom teachers. They have a wealth of ideas that are excellent for teaching music theory concepts and for performance. Here are some of my newest favorites:
Mrs. Q's Music Blog

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What I LOVE about this blog:

Mrs. Q. shares a lot of great ideas that she uses in her school music classroom. Many of these ideas can also be used in private and group piano lessons. She also has cool color by note pages that can be printed for FREE here.

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Technology Rocks Serioussly

 

 

 

 

What I LOVE about this blog:

This blog is not about music at all, but it is FULL of inspiration for teachers and music bloggers. Check it out to get some astonishing FREE printable posters for decor and inspiration! Did I say FREE? Yep!

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Make Moments Matter

What I Love About This Blog:

Finally a male elementary music teacher with a blog! Aside from sharing his great ideas for the classroom (which can sometimes be used for piano lessons as well) David has a MASSIVE resource list sorted by various topics of interest to music teachers. Let me warn you, you will need LOTS of time to go through the whole list!

The Piano Bench Mag Review and Giveaway

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The Piano Bench Magazine

Love reading piano blogs or thinking about starting your own? Well the April issue of Piano Bench Mag is just for YOU! Simply entitled “The Bloggers Issue”, it introduces the artful piano teacher to 22 fun-filled piano teaching blogs available.  While some may be familiar, reading Karen Gibson’s take on the themes of these blogs will inspire you to look at them once again and discover hidden piano teaching treasures you hadn’t noticed before.

But wait, there’s more!

This issue will allow you to become even more “webwise” with an in-depth article on building a studio website and a thorough review of one of the latest music theory app games. There are so many resources in this one little magazine to help you continue to be the coolest piano teacher in town!

The Piano Bench Mag is available digitally on iTunes and Google Play as follows:

A single issue for $2.99 (non-subscription)
1-month subscription for $1.99 (automatically renewed until canceled)
6-month subscription for $7.99
12-month subscription for $11.99

You can get The Piano Bench Mag on Apple’s Newsstand here:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-piano-bench-mag/id712098279?ls=1&mt=8

You can also get it on Google Play here:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bdhjefeedd.gfcbdhjefeedd

Good news for Kids & Keys readers! Karen Gibson, the editor of The Piano Bench Mag has agreed to give away 2 complimentary 3 month subscriptions to 2 lucky readers! For a chance to win a FREE subscription, leave a comment below and / or on the Kids & Keys Facebook page. The first 10 comments on the blog and the first 10 comments on the Facebook page will be entered into a drawing for the FREE subscriptions. Comment now! The winners will be announced on Wednesday, April 23, 2014.

The Talking Piano Bench That Teaches Sight-Reading

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Piano Bench Student

Piano Bench Student

Sadly, the piano bench is an often overlooked treasure chest in the piano room. On the day my first piano was delivered when I was just a little girl, I can remember being as enamored with the piano bench as I was with the piano itself. The piano had 88 keys for me to tickle, but the bench held books full of songs that could be played on those 88 keys. Looking into that piano bench was like being in a gold mine full of sheet music! The piano bench was where I could find even more songs besides the ones that my teacher had given me to learn. I could actually look in there and discover new sounds that my fingers could produce. I have found though that my kids don’t think to look in the piano bench for music books. (This fact baffles me). I have also found in my years of working with piano students that a lot of them don’t seek out new music on their own.  (Again, this baffles me).

Thinking about my piano bench and all the musical treasure it holds gave me an idea! As piano teachers and musicians, we know the importance of being able to sight-read. We also know that the best way for a student to improve at sight-reading is to SIGHT READ. So, why not use the piano bench’s treasure chest quality to get kids excited about sight-reading?

To transform the piano bench into The Talking Piano Bench That Teaches Sight Reading, I used 3 sticky notes, the panic button, a prize, and a carefully selected piece of music for sight-reading practice according to the student’s skill level. Then the student was told to lift the bench and follow the instructions on the sticky notes.

Open Piano Bench

 

Piano Bench Panic Button

Click to see post about Panic Button

Piano Bench Sight Reader

Piano Bench Prize

The instant gratification associated with this activity made it very successful with the students. Now, they look forward to the chance to see what’s in the bench. They enjoy that and I enjoy seeing their sight-reading skills grow!

 

My Favorite Piano Teaching Ideas From Pinterest

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Welcome to the Piano Geek Week edition of The FAME School Blog! If you haven’t heard about or signed up for Andrea and Trevor Dow’s Piano Geek Week, be sure to check it out! But, first look below for some fantastic piano teaching finds from Pinterest.

Did you know that The FAME School is on Pinterest? It only takes a few seconds on pinterest to get your creative juices flowing. Here are some of my favorite piano teaching ideas from the visual social networking site. Click the picture links to view the pins.

Music Notation Made Easy

wikipedia notation

Noodle Notes for Composing

noodle notes

Teach Piano From The Parking Lot

driveway piano

Where’s The Bear – Convert to Note Recognition Game

where's the bear

There are many more very cool teaching ideas on my pinterest site. Everything is conveniently organized and categorized so that you can quickly find something that interests you. There are boards for piano teaching,  preschool music, songwriting for kids, music class and more!

A word of caution: Pinterest can be VERY addicting!!!

Now, for more inspiration visit the Piano Geek Week Site!