SHHHH...Your Piano Teacher Thinks This is Practice: review and giveaway!

Today I am excited to tell you about a new practice resource made available by Andrea and Trevor over at Teach Piano Today (which, by the way, is an amazing resource full of fun and creative ideas for piano teachers...I am excited to peruse their website more and I'm inspired by their creativity!).

SHHHH... Your Piano Teacher Thinks This is Practice is a book with 88 fun, creative and sometimes random practice exercises and games that will "exhilarate, motivate, and inspire piano students to practice each and every single day… with no hassle, no struggle, no prodding, and no bribing!" (quoted from their website - sounds like a good deal to me!)

The format of the book is super fun, with cute illustrations on each page. It's kind of like a top-secret notebook full of fun things to do; it is written in a fun and humorous way, and even includes a couple of notes to the neighbors, apologizing for the loud piano music and saying "the book made me do it!" This book seems like something I would have loved as a kid!

As I read through these exercises I found myself smiling and laughing at some of the clever and inventive ways the authors have come up with to encourage children to practice their pieces. Don't just clap a rhythm...hop it on one leg! Call up a relative and give them a performance over the phone! Each exercise has students drilling measures, playing pieces in creative ways, identifying and practicing difficult measures, working on articulation, turning pieces into fairy tales, balancing on one foot while drilling rhythm, doing number games to determine number of repetitions for a section of a piece, coloring, cutting things out, etc. There will never be a dull practice day with this fun book.

(Here are some sample pages made available by the authors on their website.)












Not only are these exercises creative and fun, but most of them also encourage good and sound practicing techniques. I think that through doing these exercises students will not only have more fun with their practicing, but they will become better and more thoughtful practicers. This book is meant as a supplement to the student's regular practicing. It is a perfect way to add a little excitement to the practice session.

I really think this is a fantastic resource and cannot wait to use it with some of my students. As there are 88 daily exercises in the book, I can't help but think what a wonderful summer practicing program this would make! I LOVE that when you purchase the book, you are granted the right to make unlimited copies for your private piano studio. What a great deal!

Andrea and Trevor have been kind enough to offer to give away a copy of their book to TWO lucky Teaching Studio readers! To enter, please leave me a comment! Giveaway ends on Friday, May 1 at 11:59 pm Central time. Winner will be announced Saturday morning.

Alice Hansen Family Fund

And...I'm back! Thanks for your patience as I go through spurts of posting a few times a week, to not so often.  As a mom of young children, I find that at times I need to just drop out all of my lower-priority activities and focus on my sweet kids. They are only young once, you know?

Speaking of motherhood, I have been really affected this week by the heartbreaking story of a piano friend of mine from college. His beautiful wife, whom I never met but hear she was an amazing pianist (she had a PhD in piano) passed away last week from complications of childbirth after delivering their little baby girl. He is now a widower with three young children. Please take a minute and read their story here. If you feel so inclined, there is also a link on that website where you can donate to the family. And I'm sure prayers are always appreciated as well. How precious life is. Go hug the ones you love!

Upside-Down Compositions

Sometimes my best (and most successful) teaching ideas are the spur-of-the-moment ones that I just sort of think up at the last second. Today I had a student arrive without her books (and she had not practiced much this week), so I grabbed my staff flannel board and some black felt notes.

I first had her review the notes in a C Major five-finger scale (a great note-reading review as well as a review of her scales!) by building the scale on the flannel board. I then had her build a C Major chord as well (my students surprisingly mix up chords and arpeggios all the time - I tell them to sing "ar - pe - ggio!" while playing the three notes of the arpeggio, and to sing "chord" when playing a chord - it seems to help a bit!).

I then allowed her to make up her own short song with any notes in the bass clef. She LOVED this (I have found that most young children LOVE making up their own music....let's take that and run with it, shall we??) and came up with this song:

I then had her play it on the piano (an EXCELLENT note-reading exercise - and she did very well considering she is in level 2 of Faber's My First Piano Adventures...barely into note reading!).  I told her afterwards that we were going to do something super cool with her song. I added an upside-down treble clef at the end of her song...

...and then flipped the whole thing over!

She was excited to see that this had created an entirely new song in the treble clef! We had fun playing it and seeing what it sounded like (naming all the notes as we went...great review!).

I decided to send her home with some blank staff paper and I assigned her to write a short song (using the notes of a predetermined five-finger scale, to keep it simple and easy to play in one hand position), and then to flip it over and play the upside-down version!

Here is one we did in the C Major five-finger position:

You flip it over and you're in a nice F position - easy for small hands.

Voila - a fun and simple note-reading/five-finger scale/composition exercise! Goodnight all!

Little Musicians

Yesterday was the last day of our current session of our Early Explorers music class and it was such a blast that I just had to share!

Our theme was "All About Me." We taught the children about all of the different parts of our bodies we use to make music and learned how we are each musicians!

We had this cute little musician on our flannel board that we put together one piece at a time, doing a fun song or activity to go with each of its features. Children got to take turns coming up to choose which body part we would learn about next.

For example, when the smile was chosen we talked about how music can sound happy or sad, and how it can make us feel happy or sad! We introduced our friend Major/Minor Frog (a last-minute idea that the kids loved). We listened to a piece by Mozart with alternating major/minor sections and the children enjoyed hopping around happily and catching flies during the major sections, and then being sad, grumpy frogs (who couldn't find any flies to eat) during the minor sections. We saw some awesome frowny faces during the minor sections. They loved it!

By the end of the hour we had our little musician all put together! The children then got to color their own picture of themselves - they each got a blank outline to fill in/color (just like our little musician) and it said "I Am a Musician!"

What a fun class it was! The kids really enjoyed it. Preschool music classes are such a joy!

Giant Floor Staff!

Happy Friday everyone! I hope you're all having a lovely day and have a fun weekend planned. As for me, I am sitting here in my pajamas enjoying the beginning of my weekend and a day off from teaching piano.

Those of you who have purchased my graphic to make a Giant Floor Keyboard will be excited to hear that I now have a Giant Floor Staff graphic available! My vinyl floor staff turned out great and I am so excited to use it in my music classes and camps! I have already gotten some good use out of it in my private lessons. It is so great to have a super fun and different way to help my students learn the notes on the staff, which allows them to get off of the bench and move around.

I debated about putting a clef on there or not...and ended up not. I wanted to be able to use it for bass clef or treble clef notes. I think I may try to make some big clefs that I can put on there when needed, but for now it has worked fine without.

It is nice and big (about 90 inches long 28 inches tall, not including the white border) and is perfect for children to walk, stand, jump, and run on (I know this because my four-year-old son got some great use out of it this morning....also, it is nice and sturdy!!)

Just like my Giant Floor Keyboard, I had it made on www.bannersonthecheap.com. They have excellent prices, high-quality products and super fast delivery time. Totally an awesome deal, and the ease and quality is worth the money, in my opinion!

I created my own custom-designed 3' x 8' banner by first clicking here and then uploading my staff image. Stretch the image to fill the banner area (leaving a small white margin around the outside, if desired) and select the box to center it horizontally. Click "Save and Continue" and you are all set to order your Giant Floor Staff. Easy peasy.

You can use fun letter name beanbags...

...colorful craft foam notes (hmmm, makes me want to play Twister)...

...or simply allow children to walk right on there and be the notes themselves!

Students of all ages and levels (even preschoolers) will get so much use out of this giant staff!

The graphic is available for purchase here as well as on the "Printables & Downloads" page.

Giant Floor Staff Graphic
$2.00