Your Favorite Piano Methods, and our Next Topic!

April 14, 2010 Jennifer Boster

Thanks for all your votes on this week’s poll! Here are the results:

Other responses were:
Music Tree
Alfred’s Premiere Piano Course

I love seeing the results of these polls – they are so interesting! I think it’s safe to say that a lot of piano teachers really love the Faber & Faber series. I am one of them. However, I am now excited to look into some of the methods that I have never used before, such as Music Tree. There really are so many wonderful piano methods out there! There really is so much more we could go into on this topic – but for now…

…onto our next topic:

Teaching Beginning Technique

I am really excited about this topic…this is where it starts getting fun! We know that teaching correct technique right from the beginning is so important…so how do we do this in such a way to help our students internalize and remember the concepts, make them habit, and have fun in the process?

We’d love to hear your great ideas on how to teach technique to beginners. What fun games do you use? How do you teach your students correct technique? What technique exercises do you use with your beginners? We’re looking forward to a great week!

Also, don’t forget to enter our GIVEAWAY!! You have until this Saturday at 11:59 pm. Click here to learn how to enter!

First Lesson Poll Results & our new topic

April 7, 2010 Jennifer Boster

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Another week come and gone – I hope you all had a wonderful Easter weekend, and I hope that some of you are enjoying nice, warm spring weather (because here in Utah it is spring one minute, and a crazy winter blizzard the next!!)

Thanks to all who participated in our poll this week – I think it’s safe to say that nobody feels completely confident when they teach their very first lesson (and about a third of us felt completely clueless!), so you beginning teachers out there, take comfort! And if you are just starting out, be sure to check out this week’s posts on Teaching a First Lesson for some inspiration and ideas. Now to the poll results:

When I taught my VERY first lesson, I was:

Our topic for this next week will be:

Method Books & Repertoire for Beginning Students

Holy cow, what a huge topic! But what an important topic. We are going to need a lot of comments and input on this one. We would LOVE to compile some sort of chart or list of different method books for beginners/elementary students, and the pros and cons of each – it would be an awesome resource for all of us. It will probably be an ongoing project. So, in light of that, here is what we’d like to hear from you:

What piano methods do you use for your students, or what methods do you like?
Tell us some pros & cons of that method. Some ideas of things to mention:

reading approach (middle C vs. multi-key vs. intervallic)
theory that is included
skills included (such as ear training, transposition, harmonization, form, composition, improvisation, etc.)
quality of repertoire
included technology (such as listening CD’s)
overall look & quality of series

What type of student would you assign it to? For example, I would give this method to a student who is 6-8 years old, who has a pretty good attention span and is a great practicer, but plays too much by ear.

Also, don’t forget to take our weekly poll! Can’t wait to hear from you!

some poll results & a fun new topic

March 31, 2010 Jennifer Boster

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Well another week has gone by, and here are our poll results for this week’s poll about your studio!

What kind of studio space do you have?

Thanks for participating in our poll! It’s always interesting to see the results we get. We have also loved all the wonderful comments we’ve gotten this week. The comments are what really makes the blog great, because it turns into a discussion and we all help teach each other. Love it!

Now onto our new topic:

Teaching a FIRST Lesson.

Because let’s be honest: we have all experienced that brief moment of panic when we are teaching our very. first. student. ever. and we realize we don’t know what the heck we are doing. We thought this would be a useful topic 🙂 Plus we have tried to go in a somewhat chronological order with our topics of the week, and once you get your studio set up, decide on a few policies, advertise and get a few students – that’s when the teaching/fun begins!

So let’s hear it: leave us a comment and tell us about your first lesson you’ve ever taught (this could be fun…). Or, tell us how you go about teaching a very first lesson to a beginning student. How about transfer students – how do you handle their first lesson with you? Any tips for teachers who are just starting out? Leave a comment – ready, go!

Also, don’t forget to take our new poll as well as our reader survey! Become a follower or a Facebook fan to get updates when we have new posts…and to let you know about our giveaway that is coming up later this week!

Poll Results: Studio Policies – plus a new topic!

March 24, 2010 Jennifer Boster

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I have loved all the input and ideas this week about studio policies, and now plan to implement a couple more things in my own studio. Thanks to our wonderful contributors for their great posts!

Ok so I can’t believe another week has already gone by! I am so happy that spring is here – anyone else? It has been a beautiful week here in Utah! Here are the poll results for both of our polls about studio policies:

What kind of studio policy/contract do you have?

What is your make-up lesson policy?

Our three “other” responses for this question were as follows:

I make up lessons when they can switch with another student in the schedule
For each 13-week semester, the student gets 12 lessons
I have one day per month set aside for make-up lessons, if needed

Thank you to all who participated in our polls this week! Polls are a great way to participate and give your input, without having to actually type something 🙂 So take a second each week and share your ideas with the click of a button 🙂

And now for our new topic: Your Studio Space. We want to hear all about how you set up your studio space: do you have a studio in your home? If so, how do you make it nice and inviting to your students? Is your studio outside of your home? How do you organize your studio and your teaching materials? Any money-saving decorating/organizing tips for a piano studio? Anyone want to share a picture of their awesome studio to give us all a little inspiration? How do you decorate your studio? What fun things do you do with your studio to make it an environment conducive to learning? What hangs on the walls in your studio?

Anyway, you get the idea! Seriously, we’d love to hear from you! Leave us a comment or shoot us an email. We’d love to feature some of your great ideas on the blog.

p.s. a little reminder, please go take our reader survey! We’d love to know more about our audience, and more about the things that are important to you as a teacher that you’d like us to discuss on the blog.

Have a wonderful week!

poll results & a new topic!

March 17, 2010 Jennifer Boster

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It’s the end of our second week here at The Teaching Studio – thanks so much for reading and sharing! We have had many wonderful comments and ideas shared, we have a lot of new followers this week, and we are so excited that we got seventeen votes on our poll! Here are the poll results:

What has been your most effective way of finding new students?

The “other” answer that we had was:
contacting local music stores, giving them my info

Looking forward to this week:

Our topic this week is going to be Setting Up Your Studio: Studio Policies. So whip out your studio policies and get ready to share your great ideas! This could involve policies about tuition rates & billing, make-up lessons, practicing expectations, required supplies, recitals, etc. Should be a helpful week!

Also, if you have not taken our reader survey, take 1 or 2 minutes and fill it out! We would love to learn a little about you!

We also will be starting a regular feature where readers will have a chance to submit questions about teaching, and they will be answered (and hopefully discussed through readers’ comments!) We want readers to have the chance to discuss the things that come up in their own teaching, whether or not it fits with the topic of the week. So, start thinking about the things you need a little inspiration on, and submit your questions here!

Have a wonderful week!

Looking ahead to this week’s topic!

March 10, 2010 Jennifer Boster

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Thanks for a fun first week on The Teaching Studio! We are super excited about the great comments we’ve received and the excitement about the site that we’ve seen from so many pianists and teachers, and that we already have some followers!

We have loved talking about the joy of teaching and hope that if you have any thoughts on this topic in the future that you will still feel free to comment on these posts and share why teaching is a joy to you (because sometimes we seriously need a little inspiration, am I right?). We will be keeping a list of links *here* to all our topics we discuss, and we hope that, with our posts along with wonderful posts from our contributors and comments from our readers, it will become a nice little database of teaching inspiration and ideas.

And speaking of the joy of teaching, here are our poll results for this week (thanks to all who participated!)

What about teaching is a JOY to you?

(isn’t it sometimes so (sad but) true that the most joy you find is when the lesson is over??)

And now, looking ahead to this week’s topic:

Setting Up Your Studio: Finding Students.

Be thinking about any comments and ideas you might have to share! This topic could include things such as advertising for students (how to get your name out there to actually get students), conducting interviews/auditions with prospective students, how to make yourself as a teacher and your studio appealing to prospective students, when to be picky about which students to let into your studio, specific things you do in your studio when you get new students, etc. We can’t wait to hear your comments!

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