As long as I’m thinking about Piano Camp stuff, I thought I would run a special for anyone interested in purchasing the Lesson Plans for a fun week of Piano Camp! This is the one that I put together for last summer and my students and I had a great time! See lots of pictures here, here, here, here, and here. So, for the special…If you purchase the Lesson Plans by the end of January, I’ll send you a free 26-page student workbook that I compiled to go along with the outline for the week. Just go to the Resources Page and purchase the Piano Camp Lesson Plans. As soon as your order comes through, I’ll send the student workbook your way!

Also, for anyone who purchased the lesson plans last year during the promotion and received the student workbook, I’ve updated the cover for this year. If you want the updated cover, just send me an e-mail and I’ll send you the 2010 version.

I’ve received some questions about the latest practice incentive that I uploaded to the website, so I thought it would be helpful to give a few more details here for those interested in possibly using it in their studios. It’s called Mastering the Mystery of Music.

This is the one I used with my students last year. My goal in developing it was to challenge them to work toward mastery of different skills. The Assignment Book includes a set of Mastery Challenge worksheets that are separated into eight different categories: Staff Scout, Scale Sleuth, Rhythm Recon, Key Signature Specialist, Terminology Trainer, Chord Commander, and Arpeggio Agent.

Each category contains a list of 5-7 specific mastery challenges. The student chooses two mastery challenges each week and works toward having them mastered by the following week (along with whatever other repertoire assignments they are working on). If they are successful, then they are given the clue for that week. At the end of each session (there are six sessions throughout the year), they use the information from their clues to research and try to find out what the answer is.

The clues and answers all fall within a particular category, like: The Symphony Orchestra (where they are trying to figure out what the mystery instrument is), Great Pianists (where they are trying to figure out the identity of a particular pianist), God’s Mystery Revealed (where they are trying to identify what famous person said a series of quotes), Not-So-Famous Composers (where they are trying to identify the name of a composer), Folk Songs of the World (where they are trying to figure out the name of a specific folk song), and Ancient Instruments (where they are trying to figure out the name of an ancient instrument). After they’ve solved that mystery, they look back through their clues to figure out which one is the false clue.

Then, at a group class (aka Private Eye Workshop – or at the following lesson for those who can’t attend the workshop), I give them the code to crack the clue that’s hidden inside the false clue. The mystery word from the false clue is then entered into a blank on their Detective Worksheet so that by the end of the year they have discovered the sentence that reveals what The Mystery of Music is.

This particular Practice Incentive includes both print-ready and editable files for the Assignment Books so that you can either use it as-is or adapt it in any way for your own studio use. You can use the clues, mystery words, and Private Eye Workshop lesson plans that are included or you can re-create your own according to your studio goals and needs. Either way, I hope that your students have a blast being super sleuths and that it inspires them to work hard and “master the mystery of music”!

What makes you really excited? Studying music history? Sight-reading new repertoire? Dreaming up game ideas? Improvising arrangements of familiar tunes by ear?

Capitalize on your own area of interest to build the enthusiasm of your students. Invest your excitement into putting together creative assignments for your students. For example, plan a group class around composers and have every student present a brief report on a composer of their choosing. Or host a “Sight-Reading Super Stars Challenge” and let students put star stickers on a chart on the wall for every piece they sight-read throughout one month. Or pull out a deck of flashcards and come up with a fun, short game that you can play for the first five minutes of every lesson one week. Or hold a Name that Tune challenge where you print up a list of possibilities and give it to the student for reference; then play various tunes and have them see if they can identify which one it is from the list on the sheet.

One of the most effective approaches I ever started was developing a year-long practice incentive theme for my entire studio. Our whole year is built around the theme and I build in enough structure so that it functions like a lesson plan for the whole year, commingled with enough flexibility to customize the assignments for each student and for any specific needs throughout the year. I was able to spend a bit of time organizing my files over Christmas break and have put together a Resources for Sale page that highlights outlines each of the practice incentives that I currently have available, including the newest one that I finally added – Mastering the Mystery of Music! I’ve included not only the ready-to-print files, but also the original Word Doc files that are fully editable so that you can use the basic idea but customize and adapt it for your studio. Plus, this program also includes lesson plans for 6 correlating group classes throughout the year, complete with objectives, games, resource links, and weekly clues. (This is the kind of thing that gets me really excited, and brainstorming up a new idea every year definitely re-ignites my enthusiasm! )

Piano Camp Lesson Plans
This is the daily outline for our week-long piano camp, with lots of hyperlinks to correlating resources and websites. If you’re interested in planning a fun, memorable Piano Camp for your own studio, this will give you the information and tools you need. The outline is succinct and easy-to-follow. It can be implemented “as-is” or adapted to incorporate your own ideas.

To make this even easier to implement, I’ve decided to offer a special deal: if you purchase this outline by the end of July, I’ll also send you for free the 26-page student workbook that I’ve already compiled from the resource links outlined in the lesson plan! Just place your order, and as soon as I receive the notice, I’ll send the workbook file your way!

Piano Camp Lesson Plans

Shop the Music Matters Blog Store for other fun practice incentives and workbooks.

Is everyone else trying to figure out what to give their students for Christmas this year? Anyone come up with any great ideas yet? I usually like to give something creative that will last longer than the time it takes for a piece of candy to make the journey from their mouth to their stomach. Still trying to come up with the perfect idea for this year…

One of my students’ favorite gifts was this Music Manuscript book I made for them a couple of years ago. Many of them still use their books for theory assignments or composition projects. I’ve made the complete file for this book available in the Music Matters Blog store in case any other teachers are interested in giving these to their students as a special gift. Just click the button below to download the file, save it to your computer, and then use it as often as you like to print books for your students. You can even e-mail the whole file to a print shop and have them run however many copies you need and bind them. The book is set up with margin spacing to allow for double-sided printing. Enjoy!

Music Manuscript Book | $5

Apparently while I’ve been out of town, the download company I use reached the maximum level of downloads allowed under my account, so several people who tried to purchase items and download them were unsuccessful. Sorry about that! I’ve upgraded my account now so that it should work properly. Head on over to the Music Matters Blog store to find Practice Incentive Programs, a Recital Program Cover, or a beautiful Music Manuscript Book.

Feel free to contact me if you experience any difficulties. Thanks!

(By the way, I’ll be back in town later this week and hope to be back on my semi-regular posting schedule. Look for pictures from my Fall Kick-Off after Thursday. )

The practice incentive I developed for last year – Go For The Gold! – is now compiled and available for purchase.

In the spirit of the Olympics, I developed a practice incentive with an Olympic theme. One new thing I tried was assigning each student to a team and then basing the winners on the total team points rather than individual points. This worked surprisingly well! The students developed more of a sense of camaraderie than they have with any of the other practice incentives I’ve developed, so that was exciting to see. I also designed the system in such a way that every student, regardless or age or ability, had an equal chance to earn points and propel their team forward. Each team had a variety of ages and levels represented and each team color corresponded to one of the colors of the Olympic rings. Here’s a photo of my studio wall part way through one of the sessions:

The Go For The Gold practice incentive package contains:
* several more photos from my studio
* all the files you need to print the studio wall decorations and individual assignment books for each student that are specially designed for the Go For The Gold practice incentive
* a list of instructions to walk you through what to do to prepare for the start of the program
* an overview of how the program works from week to week
* additional notes
* a list of resources I recommend

Once you complete payment, you will receive an e-mail with a link to download the file package. Read the teacher_instructions.doc file first and you should be up and running in no time! Feel free to leave a comment or send me an e-mail if you have any questions.

It is with great excitement that I announce the official launch of the Music Matters Blog Shop! As many of you know, in addition to teaching music I love to do design work. So I thought I’d have some fun creating music-themed designs and selling a line of merchandise. So far I’ve only got one design on a couple of different merchandise items, but I’m really excited about it and can hardly wait to get the shirt I just ordered (the red one)! I’d be willing to do some custom design work for anyone who wants me to create a certain item for them using their studio name, logo, etc. Just contact me and we can work out the details.

Special Offer: At the checkout, I received the option of entering the e-mail address of 5 friends to receive a $5 off coupon for Cafe Press. I will enter the e-mail addresses of the first 5 people who e-mail me and tell me that they’re interested.

Click here to download a free template that you can use when designing your own recital program. This template was created using tables in Microsoft Word. I made everything generic for this template, but usually use two contrasting fonts for the title of the pieces and the students’ names. You can adjust the spacing allowed for each line by hovering your mouse over the vertical line until you see the double arrows and then dragging the table border to one side or the other. You can also add or delete rows by highlighting the row and then right clicking on the mouse and selecting the appropriate menu option.

This design is for a sheet of 8.5×11″ paper, folded lengthwise. If you are interested in purchasing a complete package with a beautifully designed cover, customized message, and editable files, please check out this previous post.

Feel free to ask if you have any other questions about how to edit or adapt this file to suit your needs!

This past Christmas I gave each of my students a personalized manuscript book. They loved the design and some of them starting filling them up with original compositions the very next week! Since, for the most part, I’ve opted not to use theory books I can also utilize these for written assignments I give my students – writing out their scales, chord progressions, etc.

Whether you want to give your students a special, but practical, gift or use a manuscript book for their regular written assignments, you can get lots of use out of this versatile and attractive manuscript book! (Just click the button below to download the file, save it to your computer and then use it as often as you like to print books for your students. You can e-mail the whole file to a print shop and have them run how ever many copies you need and bind them. The book is set up with margin spacing to allow for double-sided printing.) Enjoy!

Music Manuscript Book