Category: Summer

Saying "goodbye" -- tips for making your last lesson count!

5/23/2020

The end of the school year is often a time for goodbyes. Perhaps you have a student who is taking an extended summer break? Or, maybe you have a student who is heading off to college? Sometimes students stop lessons for other reasons: transitioning to middle or high school, moving away, or just simply moving on to other interests.

Unfortunately, there comes a time in every teacher-student relationship when we must say "goodbye." If you are saying goodbye to one or more of your students this summer, read on for tips on how to make your last lesson count!

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A Famous Classical Freebie!

5/20/2020

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Today I am sharing a fun classical freebie that your students are sure to recognize!

The famous "Blue Danube Waltz" by Johann Strauss, Jr. is probably one of the best known waltzes ever written. This easy arrangement is a great introduction to the waltz bass and helps students to review the primary chords in the key of C major. This happy piece just makes me think of summer! Click HERE or on the picture for your free copy!

(P.S. Looking for more arrangements of classical favorites? Check out my collections on Sheet Music Plus HERE and HERE!)

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A Summer "Repertoire Challenge" Freebie!

5/13/2020

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With our virtual spring recital done, and the (online) school year wrapping up, I am looking ahead and planning a few fun challenges to keep my students busy this summer.

One challenge I will be giving my students this summer is to update their repertoire lists with all of the pieces that they currently have performance-ready. To help with this, I created this fun "o-fish-el" (ha ha!) summer repertoire challenge page for my younger students. I hope to see lots of brightly colored fish (and titles of favorite pieces) on each student's page by the time fall gets here!

Want to try the summer repertoire challenge with your students? Click HERE or on the picture above to download a free copy to share with your students!

What fun summer challenges do you have planned in your studio? I would love to hear from you in the comments!

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2019 Summer Review Challenge Calendars!

5/22/2019

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My summer review challenge calendars were a big hit last year...so this year I decided to do three new calendars: one for June, July, and August of 2019!

These calendars are a fun way to help students review and keep up their skills over summer break. Students are given a challenge for each day of the month, including:

Listening to a famous piece of music (all of the listed pieces can be found easily on YouTube)
Sight-reading a new piece
Reviewing a favorite repertoire piece
Playing a piece for a friend
Reviewing scales, chords, and music vocabulary
Improvising
Playing a familiar tune by ear
Clapping and writing out rhythms
Reading about famous composers

I tried to keep these challenges short (most can be done in 5 minutes or less) and broad enough that they are accessible to students of all ages and levels.

Get your free summer review challenge calendars HERE or by clicking on the picture above. Enjoy!

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The Long Road to Summer Break

5/31/2018

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The spring recital is over. The school year is winding down. And, if you are like me, you have lots of antsy piano students who squirm on the bench during their lessons and stare longingly out the window. What is a piano teacher to do?

This is the perfect time of year to take a bit of pressure off our students (and ourselves) and focus on making each lesson fun! Maybe you are in the process of wrapping up your lessons before summer break? Or maybe you want to keep your students motivated to continue lessons over the summer months? Either way, today I will be sharing a few activities I will be doing with my students to make the most of the summer months!

1. Focus on fun repertoire.

With festivals and recitals over, now is the perfect time to get students involved with choosing fun summer repertoire. For my students that are taking a break from summer lessons, I create a list of a few books that are a level lower than their current repertoire (so they can be practiced independently over the summer) and I let them choose what they would like to work on. For students that will be taking summer lessons, we choose music we can work on together.

Favorite selections in my studio right now include Disney music, music from the “Legend of Zelda," and some of my own compositions! (Check out my publications page HERE--my rock and video game-inspired pieces are especially popular with my students in the summer, if I do say so myself!)

2. Explore composition.

I love working on composition projects with my students in the summer. I can devote lots of lesson time to helping them compose and notate their music without feeling guilty that I am not working on as much repertoire as usual. As a bonus, students’ theory skills improve tremendously as they write on the staff and review concepts such as time signatures, rhythmic notation, intervals, and chords. My less advanced students are especially enjoying my guided composition projects (found HERE on the “Free Stuff” page of my website).

3. Review games for the win!

Theory games and apps can be especially helpful for maintaining skills if your students are stopping lessons over the summer. I give parents a list of apps that I recommend students to use over the summer. Some of my favorites include:

Note naming: Flashnote Derby, Note Rush
Rhythm: Rhythm Swing, Rhythm Cat, RhythmLab
General Music Theory: Tenuto (the content from this app can also be found for free online at www.musictheory.net)
Sight Reading: Piano Maestro

4. Do a summer review challenge.

Encourage your students to keep up their skills with a fun summer review challenge! As I mentioned in my last blog post HERE, I created a summer review calendar for my students that includes a variety of challenges for each day in June and July. The challenges include: sight-reading a new piece, listening to a famous piece of music, improvising a piece, reviewing a favorite repertoire piece, and more! Click HERE to download the free summer review challenge calendars for June and July.

What do you think? What are you doing to keep your students motivated this summer? Any apps, games, or repertoire you recommend? Please leave a comment below—I would love to hear your ideas!

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Saying "goodbye" -- tips for making your last lesson count!

A Famous Classical Freebie!

A Summer "Repertoire Challenge" Freebie!

2019 Summer Review Challenge Calendars!

The Long Road to Summer Break

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