Question of the Week: July 4, 2011- Creating a Music Lending Library

As a relatively new piano teacher, the idea of a music lending library is one that has become increasingly attractive to me in the past year. However, it is an option that I know next-to-nothing about.

As a student, I can remember the excitement of receiving a brand new book and relishing the fact that it was mine. I would write my name on the inside cover, and if there were any pictures in the book it wouldn't be long before I had colored them in. There's also something special about looking back at those old books and remembering my favorite pieces from each one. This is one reason I've always been a bit hesitant to embrace the idea of a lending library.

On the other hand, I know that many of my students would welcome the opportunity to borrow a book rather than spend the money on it. I already try to cut down on repertoire costs for my students as much as possible, and this would be another great way to do it.

As you can see, I'm still kind of on the fence about this issue, and before I make a decision one way or the other, I wanted to get some feedback from other teachers who may have used this idea successfully (or maybe not so successfully!) in their studios. So here are my questions:

1. Why did you start your lending library? Was there a large initial investment on your part?
2. What kind of material makes up the bulk of your library? Do you have any specific books/series that you'd highly recommend as a core of the library?
3. How do you decide when a student may choose a book? Is it a reward, a fun occasional activity, or does their selection make up part of their main repertoire?
4. How do you keep track of all the music? When a student has a book, what are your policies about the condition of the book, and how much do your write in the music?
5. Have you found this a successful investment of your resources?

I'd love to hear your answers to any/all of these questions!

Summer Sightreading Goals: Take 2

How did my second weeks' attempt at sightreading go? Well...not so great. After my enthusiastic start to a summer of classical music sightreading I found that last week's schedule just wasn't conducive to sitting down and playing through some of my dusty anthologies of classics that haven't been visited in far too long. :(

But I wasn't a complete failure regarding music practice. I spent the bulk of my practice time sight-reading, selecting, and working up collaborative music for upcoming Sunday services- some lovely arrangements of both french horn and flute duets. I also found time to sightread through another recent church music purchase (review of that book coming soon) over the course of a day or two.

So, all things considered, I did find time to get some good sightreading in last week, just not exactly the genre I was hoping for. As they say, there's always tomorrow...although it's already Tuesday so I'd better get busy! I have several selections on my list from those who commented on my last sight-reading post, and I hope to get to those selections first before branching out on my own.

More Rhythm Worksheets for Beginners

Here are a few more rhythm worksheets I designed with my beginner students, and the summer practice incentive theme, in mind.

The first worksheet is a rhythm matching worksheet. Students have to add up the total number of beats on each sundae and match the correct cherry to that sundae.

The second worksheet drills time signatures. Students match the scoops of ice cream with the correct time signature.

Both worksheets are available on my printables page.

For my next project I'm hoping to come up with some good flashcard sets and games for my students that are in keeping with the summer ice cream theme. Please feel free to send along any ideas you might have!

The Joy of Collaborative Music

I am so excited! This evening I'm rehearsing with my sister as we'll be playing together for the upcoming Sunday service.

My little sister's forte is french horn, although she played piano for many years as well. We've collaborated innumerable times over the years as a piano duo and as a piano/horn duo. Either way we always have tons of fun and grow as musicians through every experience.

This is absolutely, without a doubt, my favorite aspect of being a musician. The opportunity to create with other musicians, learn from each other, and have fun at the same time is so much more worthwhile to me (and less scary ;) ) than solo performing. That's not to say I don't enjoy a solo performance once in a while, but my true love is collaborative music.

Looking back on my past, it's easy to see just where this love stems from. Accompanying my sister and brother was a part of my musical experience growing up- whenever they had a recital or a performance of any kind I was always called on to accompany them. Since my sister and I took from the same piano instructor, we were often paired together for duets.

To celebrate my love of collaborative music, I even featured three collaborative works in my senior recital. I started the program with a Mozart 2-piano Sonata, played a movement from a horn Sonata with my sister midway through the program, and finished the program with a movement from my favorite piano Concerto. It was truly an evening that celebrated all kinds of music!

Collaborative music is an important part of any musician's experience, no matter what their age or skill level. I love accompanying my students in their lessons and for recitals, but I get even more excited when they can participate in collaborative efforts with their peers and siblings, just as I did as a child.

Now that we're adults, it's so rewarding that my sister and I can still make music together and celebrate this shared love of ours that has been so much a part of our lives.

Somebody Call the Tooth Fairy!

One of the reasons I love teaching is the never ending adventures that occur in weekly lessons. Like yesterday, for example. In the middle of a lesson while I was in the midst of a lengthy explanation, I happened to notice the student wasn't really paying attention. On the contrary, she had the oddest look on her face, and as I stopped talking and examined her more closely, I saw that she was holding a tooth in her hand!

Yes, while I had been talking away, she'd been slowly working on a very loose tooth with her tongue and it had popped out! We had a temporary lesson break while this situation was taken care of ;)

Whoever said teaching piano lessons was boring!?

So now I'm curious. What's one of the strangest things that's ever happened to you while in the middle of giving a piano lesson?

Personal Summer Sightreading Goals

Summer means many things to me as a teacher. It means a more relaxed teaching approach, keeping my students engaged while giving them a bit of a break from the higher expectations I have for them over the school year. It means a revised schedule with more morning lessons and free evenings (LOVE this!). It means trying to stay on top of just who's on vacation from one week to the next ;). And, last but not least, summer always finds me inspired to try and accomplish some personal goals.

I'll admit that I waited until Saturday morning to post about the new project I started mid-week simply because I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to pull it off. But, with a little extra effort on Friday, I did!

With one week of summer lessons behind me and the new schedule starting to feel more familiar, I decided to set a summer sightreading challenge for myself. The first week of lessons found me, as usual, pulling out repertoire and considering music for students, and in the midst of the planning I realized just how much music I had that I'd never played through! I try my hardest when purchasing books for my students to use the book well so that they get their money's worth out of their purchase, but it was suddenly clear that the same couldn't be said of my personal repertoire collection. I was ashamed to see how many books I had purchased (many by the request of my teachers) just to play one song from the entire book. It was time to make a change!

I started by pulling out a collection from one of my favorite (if not THE favorite) composers, Chopin. I purchased this book in college solely for the Scherzo in B Minor. Other than that the book had not been touched. Add to that the fact that while I have played Chopin Mazurkas, Etudes, Preludes, Scherzos, and Nocturnes I've never actually played any of the Waltzes (how'd that happen?!) and it wasn't hard to see that this was as good a place as any to start.

The book contains 15 of the Waltzes, and my goal was to sightread through 2 or 3 of them each day, finishing all 15 by Friday. I had so much fun playing through this set of pieces, and felt a great sense of accomplishment on Friday afternoon as I completed number 15. Now I have a more personal, comprehensive grasp of Chopin Waltzes and a clearer idea of which I'd recommend to my students. There's nothing like actually playing potential repertoire to assess more accurately the technical aspects inherent to each piece and which student would best benefit from a study of that piece. In addition to that, the index is marked with my favorite selections and I plan to work on these a bit more intensively in the coming weeks to add to my base of repertoire.

What a fun start to my summer! I've already given my shelves a critical look to try and determine what book will be chosen for the coming week...hmmm, that book of Bach Inventions, maybe the Mozart Sonatas, Debussy...??? so many choices!

Have you set any personal musical goals for the summer? Do you have any repertoire suggestions for me? What are your favorite Chopin Waltzes? I'd love to hear about your personal goals or suggestions for music I might enjoy looking at!

When Students Take The Initiative: Summer Lesson Week 2 Update

I haven't done any further posting on my summer practice incentive before now because I've been waiting to see how my students would react this week when they returned to lessons. The first week of lessons for the summer was the introductory week, and this week I got to see how the contest affected their practice. The week's not over yet, but I couldn't wait to share about how things have been going!

Before I go any further into week 2, let me recap week 1. As each student came for their lesson, I showed them the handout about our summer contest. On hand I had pictures of ice cream cones for them to choose and put up on the poster. I found and printed pictures of sugar, cake, and waffle cones online and they chose their favorite kind. In addition to that, I had printed out ice cream scoops in varieties of flavors and showed them some of the options for ice cream scoops they could earn just to get them even more excited.

After the students chose their cone, they got to choose an ice cream sundae. I had about 5 different 'sundaes' for them to choose from. It was fun to see their intense deliberation over which one they wanted! After they'd chosen their sundae and posted that on another sheet I asked them to remind me of just what they needed to do over the week to earn rewards and then wrote it in their notebooks.

So how did my students react? Most were really excited with the summer incentive. I had several students whose eyes lit up as I explained how they could earn scoops of ice cream, and even one or two who asked me, "What if I make it all the way to the top of the page?" (No over-achievers around here... ;) ). Overall, I was very pleased with the positive reaction, but I was curious to see how much of it would stick until the following week.

As the week began, I had the typical reactions.

Some students had taken the contest to heart...

1. Two of my students practiced every single day, and one of them told me, "I knew I wouldn't get much time to practice, but I wanted to make sure I practiced EVERY DAY so I could get sprinkles!"
2. A student who has never before shown the initiative to practice above and beyond what his mom makes him do actually practiced an extra day this week!
3. One of my teenage students came out with, "This ice cream contest was a really good idea!"
4. Several students decided to take the extra initiative to try and memorize pieces, just so that they could get a cherry.

While others were a bit less enthusiastic...

1. The mother of my twin students showed up at the door with profuse apologies because neither of her girls had practiced all week!
2. Another teenage student practiced, but didn't make any attempt to record his practice for rewards.

As you can see, the positives seem to outweigh the negatives at this point (maybe I'm just an optimist though ;) ). But seriously, I can see some definite enthusiasm among my students about this latest practice contest and several of them have already shown that their enthusiasm is more than just a passing fad. Here's hoping that this trend continues and my students show some dedication to practice over the summer months, a time when practice can be spotty at best!