We do have an official winner of the Music Ace Maestro giveaway. Drumroll, please, for Stephanie of the Music @ SWV blog! However, Harmonic Vision has extended a fabulous offer that is available to any Music Matters Blog reader! For a limited time you can receive a $30 discount off of Music Ace Maestro (making it only $97.95), plus receive a free copy of Music Ace Deluxe – PSE (36 lessons vs. 48 lessons, jewel case, no paper, no box) good for student use – a $39.95 value! All you have to do is enter this coupon code when you checkout at the Harmonic Vision store: MAMMMB55

Stay tuned, because we’ve got several other giveaways coming up soon!

As you can see, I used a colorful design for the back of the cards (the same one I use for my students’ manuscript books) and intentionally made them all the same so that I can use the cards for memory-type games. Then I used a blank staff design for one set of cards and a blank keyboard design for another set. I have several specific game ideas in mind that I’m hoping to post about in the coming months after I try them out and see if they work! In the meantime, though, I thought I would post the files here in case anyone else wants to get their own printed so that you can customize them for use with your students.

Follow these simple instructions to have your own flashcards printed in no time at all!

1. Right click on the above three flashcard images (one at a time) and select “Save As” or “Save Target As” in order to save the image files to your computer.
2. If you don’t already have an account at VistaPrint.com, click on over there and select the “Get Started” button for the postcard option.
3. Click on the upload your own design button. Navigate to where you downloaded the above images and upload them as prompted (they are sized exactly for the postcard printing).
4. Upload the colorful music image for the front and the staff or keyboard image for the back. (This is so that the glossy finish is actually on the back of the flashcard and you can use a marker to customize the other side without having to worry about smearing.)
5. Finish the order process until you get to the checkout page. When given the option, set up an account so that your images will be stored for future use.
6. Do a quick Google search for something along the lines of “free postcards vistaprint coupon code.” This should turn up several options that will allow you to either click on a link or enter a coupon code to get 100 postcards for free. (Even if you use the option where you have to click on another link, your postcard designs should still be in your cart, so just navigate to the checkout page and they should now show up as being free.)
7. Complete the checkout process, pay for the shipping (there will probably be a small fee for uploading the images as well, but this is a one-time fee for these images), and start dreaming up all the creative ways you can use your custom cards!
8. Repeat the same process for the other set of cards as well. I ordered my sets separately because even though you have to pay for shipping twice, you can use the coupon code again this way to get the cards themselves for free. If you put them on the same order then the free 100 postcards will only apply to one set of cards.

Let me know if you end up getting some of these printed for your students and/or if you have some creative ideas for using them!

Yes, it’s essential to have structure and lesson plans and some sort of a framework to work within as a teacher. But it’s equally essential to know when it’s okay to throw all that out the window and just teach to the needs of the individual student. Most of us will never have a Derek Paravicini in our studios, but each of us have students with unreached potential walking through our door week after week. We just need eyes to see beyond the current challenges and frustrations and cast a vision for the future…because you never know where it will lead!

One of the things that I am facing with my piano students is that they lack an accurate concept of how classical music should sound.  I am strongly considering compiling a listening curriculum.  Have you done this or would you have any recommendations along these lines?

I have never compiled a listening curriculum, but here are two resources that I really like:

Accent on Composers – this is one of my favorite teaching resources! I used this for our Super Fun Listening Activity a while back and reference it all the time when I’m planning group activities or putting together piano camp lesson plans.

Classics for Kids – an on-line radio show that has corresponding worksheets that can be downloaded and used in your studio. Very fun!

I was thinking there was another teacher who put together a classical music listening guide of some sort, but now I can’t find it, so if anyone knows of any such thing or has recommendations of other good resources, please share!

The format I’m planning for this pre-piano camp is a 1-hour class once a week on a weekday morning. The hour will be divided into 10-minute increments with a whole variety of different activities to keep the children engaged and excited about what they are learning. I have quite a few families interested in the class, so I think we’ll have to limit the size, but I’m really excited to see how it goes!

Have any of you all put together your own class like this before? Any resources or suggestions that you think would be helpful in planning and preparing for it? I’ll take all the input I can get!

For example, did you know there is an iPhone App called Scales & Modes? It’s beautifully designed and contains a ton more scales and modes than your average musician would ever need to know. My student was able to download this for only $1.99 and use it with her iTouch!

This Your Accompanist website has downloadable mp3 recordings of the Major and minor scales, plus a few others.

Here’s a printable set of scale fingerings (on the staff), grouped according to fingering patterns. A handy reference.

The Piano Tricks website contains several short, concise tutorials on different musical concepts that could be helpful for students to reference for reinforcement. Sometimes it just helps to hear the same thing several times from several different sources!

Anyone else have any great resources for understanding and learning scales? I’d love to know about them! You can never have too many, right?!

Jen has some wonderfully creative and helpful (and free!) game and activity ideas and worksheets that you can download and use in your studio. I really love this Major/minor scale identification manipulative activity set with little feet representing the half and whole steps. What fun! I also love these Symbol Search worksheets. What a great way to help students identify all the symbols they should know in a piece of music. I’m sure you’ll have as much fun exploring this site as I did!