In just a couple of days we will be holding our annual September Surprise! kickoff for the year. This tradition began over 15 years ago with two primary purposes:
1. to encourage students to spend time at the piano during their summer break
2. to announce the new practice incentive theme for the year.
I have always taken off the whole month of August to spend time resting, traveling, and brainstorming new theme ideas based on students’ input from our Year-End Evaluations in the spring. This year, August has also been full of developing some new plans for our studio and acquiring new gadgets of various kinds to facilitate those plans! I thought it would be fun to do a little series highlighting the new things we’re incorporating this year, some of which I’m sure are much more exciting to me than to most readers…
For example, the object of this post: a new Gator Frameworks keyboard stand from Sweetwater. Incidentally, year ago I came across Sweetwater when I was researching audio recording gear and I was always very impressed with their customer service. This time around was no exception; their service is fantastic, and I highly recommend them!
As you can see, at one end of the studio, I have a glass desk with a full-size Casio Privia keyboard on it. I love the glass desk design with the computer platform for when I am doing midi notation input, but the tabletop is too tall for a student sitting on the bench to achieve the proper position. So I needed something that was shorter and could fit under the glass top for storage, but pull out easily for use during my Trio Class (another new development I’ll highlight in a future post!), and be sturdy enough to handle energetic students. If you look closely, you can see that the Gator Frameworks keyboard stand is tucked just under the glass top – simple to pull out and use, then seamlessly store out of the way when not in use. It also collapses into a small, flat shape, which will make it very easy to transport and set up in another location. I’m thrilled with it so far!
So, that’s the first new-in-the-studio-this-fall highlight. Stay tuned for more [even more exciting than a keyboard stand! haha!].
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