Recital Program Templates

Since this is a busy time of year for so many music teachers, I thought it might be helpful to post a few of the recital programs I have used in the past. They are done in Microsoft Word, and all you need to do is type your information in over the sample text. Feel free to change and customize this all you want to fit your needs.

If you really want to go all out, you can do like I do and put a photo and short blurb about each student in the program. If you have Microsoft Publisher, I can mail you the template I use for that program. Just drop me an e-mail!

Recital Program 1

Recital Program 2

Recital Program 3

Quarter Note Royalty

I was so excited this morning! I have a beginning student that was going to be introduced to quarter notes today. I got everything ready, and waited, and waited…but he didn’t show. I didn’t want to waste the preparation, so I enlisted my daughter to show everyone our incredibly fun and memorable “Introduction to Quarter Notes” lesson.

To begin with, I put a bit of tape on the back of 4 or more quarters and stick them to a white board. I explain to the students that every time we see a quarter, we will clap and say “ta.” I will often let the students use boomwhackers or other rhythm instruments for this activity.

Then, I magically change the quarters into quarter notes by adding stems. I make a big deal of turning the quarters into quarter notes. We then clap and ta the quarters again. I ask the student many times throughout the rest of the activity what kind of notes we are playing.

Next, I have the student take a quarter away. I erase the stem, and replace it with a quarter rest. We then clap the rhythm again, saying “sh” on the rests. We continue taking quarters away until we are left with only quarter rests. I ask them at every turn what kind of notes they are clapping. It’s not too hard for them to remember it is a quarter note or quarter rest!

Next, I tell the students that if music publishers actually put quarters into all of the books, not only would they be very heavy and cumbersome, but also SUPER expensive! To fix this, they just use black dots instead of actual quarters. I then draw quarter notes on the board, and we clap them just the same as before.

Finally, they have a test. They have to tell me which symbols are quarter notes, and which are quarter rests. They clap several rhythms all by themselves. If they are successful (which they all are after all of that) I dub them the Quarter Note King or Queen. I crown them with a Burger King hat, with a quarter or two taped to it.

The students are so excited to show their parents the honor they have earned, and they NEVER forget the name of a quarter note!

Technique Achievement Poster

My good friend Claire showed me a wonderful technique chart she had made for her studio.  I liked the idea so much I made a poster for my own studio.  I LOVE it!  When a student masters a scale, they earn a foil star in the corresponding box.  Different colors of stars represent various levels.  For example, red stars for pentascales, blue stars for 1 octave scales, and so on.  Since only the major keys are listed at the top of the chart, we use small dot stickers inside the stars to show the minor key has been learned. 

I can tell at a glance where an individual student is and what technique they are working on.  Students are actually excited to do their scales, because they earn a point for each star, and seeing the progress of other students keeps them motivated.  My chart also has spaces for local MTA events that the students have participated in. 

I thought it would be nice to modify the chart for general use.  The major and minor keys are listed across the top, and the left column is blank for student names.  Version 1 has a key similar to what I use in my studio, telling what colors of stars represent each skill level.  The second chart has no key, so you can use it however you would like.

The chart will print on 4 sheets of paper, and will be about 15×19 when finished.  Trim the paper at the crop marks, mount on a half sheet of poster board, and you’re ready to go. 

Note: when the picture is clicked, lines are missing on the chart.  Click on the words, and your chart will look and print as it should.

Technique Poster 1

 

 

 

 

 

Technique Poster 2

 

 

Oops! Cards to Avoid Late Payments

There has been a wonderful discussion at the Faber’s Piano Teacher’s Forum about helping parents remember to pay at the beginning of the month. One of the teachers made up some Oops! cards. If a student doesn’t give her a tuition check, she will send them out to their parent after the lesson with a card in hand.  She uses a “friendly” font, and prints the cards on bright green paper. I loved this idea, and made up some Oops! cards of my own.  They will open in an MS Word document, so you can change them to fit your needs.

Oops!

 

 

 

 

“Baby, Take a Bow!” Part 2

(To read Part 1, click here)

Now, for the second part of our exciting “Baby Take a Bow” group lesson…

After practicing our bad vs. good bows, it was time to practice our pieces for the upcoming performance at the local mall. I explained to the students that there are always distractions while we play. Babies cry, people sneeze and cough, someone might forget to turn off their cell phone, and on and on. These distractions would be even more prevalent at the mall where we were performing.

We discussed how important it is to stay focused on the music we were playing. No matter what happenens, we must not react to it. That can sometimes be a hard thing, so we took the opportunity to practice. I had a student come to the piano. Another student was assigned as the “distractor.” Their job was to do anything they could to get the performer to loose their concentration. The only rule was they could not invade the performers personal space or touch them in any way.

Oh my, did the kids have fun with that one! They slammed doors, dropped books, jumped up and down, stared at the performer, and anything else they could come up with. My teenage group was a bit more hesitant to make such annoying distractions, so the whole group played “distractors” during each performance. They soon warmed up, and were jangling keys, playing hand-clapping games, and were much more distracting that my elementary group.

Every single student performed admirably with all of the distractions. No one lost their concentration, even with all the revelry going on around them. After we had all taken our turns, I praised them for their focus when performing. I told them that it would never (I hope!) be that bad in an actual performance. There would always be distractions, though, and now they knew that they were capable of a polished performance no matter what was going on around them.

The lesson was a great success, and when the annoying security alarm kept going off at the mall, my students kept going with their focused, polished performances!

Look What I Did!

On Saturday, Feb. 23 I was at the local high school for a piano rehearsal.  On the way to the car I stepped wrong off a curb, twisted my knee, heard a loud crack, and was down on the pavement.  Seeing as how my leg was at an unnatural angle, and it hurt something fierce when I tried to move, we ended up calling 911 for help.  Three very wonderful firemen splinted my leg, and helped me to my van and a friend drove me to the emergency room.  They gave me some lovely painkillers, took lots of x-rays, told me I broke my leg just above the ankle, and set my leg.  That hurt.  A lot.  Then I went home with a prescription for more pain medication and instructions to see an orthopedic surgeon on Monday.  Here’s a picture of one of the x-rays they took:  I broke the fibula bone (the one pointed weird there in the x-ray), broke a chunk off the bottom of the tibia bone, dislocated the ankle, and who knows what all else. 

Monday I went to see the orthopedic surgeon, who took one look at me and sent me to the emergency room.  I kept telling him I was just fine.  Yeah, so I was shivering uncontrollably and showing signs of shock, but really, I just needed to go home and rest.  For some odd reason, he didn’t agree with me, and so off to the ER I went.  After a long 10 hour wait, I was finally taken back and looked at.  They did an ultrasound on the leg to check for blood clots, and lots more x-rays.  I knew I was in trouble when the nurse said that the second set of x-rays were much worse than the first set taken 2 days before.  Somehow in my trips to the bathroom I had managed to dislocate even more bones.  So, they set my leg again.  That was the worst pain I have ever had in my entire life.  I thought they were done, and they started adjusting things again.  Then they stopped and started a couple more times while tellig me to relax.  It was excruciating. 

I was then admitted to the hospital.  I kept telling them I was fine to go home, but again, nobody believed me.  On Wednesday, the swelling had gone down enough that the doctor was able to perform surgery.  It was supposed to last for 90 minutes, but lasted for almost 2 1/2 hours.  I did a lot more damage than the x-rays showed.  I now have a metal plate and 12 pins holding me together.  They aren’t pins, though.  They are screws.  They just say pins to make it sound better.  Here are a couple of pictures of my leg.  My husband says it looks like a hardware shop gone wrong.  

Thursday evening I was able to go home.  I was in a soft cast and mostly bed-ridden for 2 weeks, and just graduated to a hard cast that I will have for another 6 weeks.  It feels like forever.  I can’t put any weight on it at all.  Makes being a mom of my children ages 4, 5, 5, and 8 rather difficult.  After that, I get a Darth Vader-looking boot for a month, and get to learn to walk again.  I am looking forward to that physical therapy, painful as they say it will be.  I just want to be able to walk again!  The doctor said it will be 6 months until I am back to normal.

I had all these grand thoughts about all of the things I could do during my convalescence.  I planned on working on things for the website, MTNA certification portfolio, and all sorts of stuff.  Unfortunately, the programs I use to make all of my games and such are on the desktop computer and not my sweet but not-too-powerful laptop, and sitting at the computer hurts because there is no good place to elevate my leg.  I have also discovered that painkillers make it difficult to do much anyway.  I am so grateful I had them when I needed them, though!

I don’t like being so helpless, and not being able to get about.  My parents borrowed a wheelchair from some friends for me since I’m not stable enough on my feet to use crutches.  I have a walker as well, but I am so sore from using that!  I never realized how wonderful it is to walk to the mailbox, or bend down to pick something off the floor.  I miss not being able to sweep, vacuum, and take out the trash. 

I have been greatly blessed, though.  My husband is wonderful.  He has been such a comfort and pillar of strength for me.  He even gives me those awful shots in my stomach every night that I have to have since I just can’t do them myself.  My children have been just wonderful.  Piano parents have been so understanding with the weeks of missed lessons.  People from church and the local music teachers group have been graciously bringing in dinners and coming to help get lunch for my daughter and me in the afternoon.  My mom has come in the evenings to dish up dinner for the children, and get laundry done.  My sister-in-law has been coming in the evenings to do the dishes and sweep the floors for me.  One of my piano moms has come every week to mop the hardwood floors we have throughout our house.  It isn’t easy for me, though.  I have decided it’s much easier to serve others than to be the recipient of service.

So, if there aren’t many updates, or if it takes me awhile to respond to comments or e-mails, you’ll know why.  I suppose God is using this as one of those great learning moments for me.  I am just grateful he is doing it with a broken left leg, so I still have use of my pedal foot! 

“Baby, Take a Bow!” Part 1

Before our first performance this past October, we had a group lesson to rehearse our pieces, and practice playing for an audience. Sounds like it could be a bit boring, doesn’t it? Not in this performance class - it was a riot, and both the students and I had a great time.

Preparation for this is pretty minimal. All I did was go to the grocery store, and buy lots and lots of candy. Not the little Halloween-type bars, but the normal-sized good ones. I only bought candy that was on sale, and happened to hit it when there was a lot of candy for 25 to 33 cents each. Before the class, I put all the goodies in a big basket with a lid on the piano. Times like this make me glad that I charge a registration/materials fee at the beginning of each year.

The theme of the class was “Baby, Take a Bow!” There is nothing I like more than a professional, well-executed bow at the beginning and end of a performance, and I wanted to drill that into everyone’s head. So, to start the class, I stood up from my chair, rambled up to the piano bench, didn’t look once at the audience, plopped myself down on the bench, and gracelessly stuck my hands on the keyboard. Without playing anything, I asked the students to tell me how my performance was going to sound. Not surprisingly, there was not a single positive comment! I told the students they were horribly unfair to me - they judged my playing before they even heard a note!

Then, I did it again. This time, I “walked like a princess” to the piano, looked at the audience, bowed, sat nicely down on the bench, and made sure I was at a comfortable distance from the piano. I collected myself for a moment, then gracefully placed my hands on the keyboard, ready to play. When I repeated the question of how good of a pianist I was, responses were all glowingly positive. I told the students people judge the kind of pianist you are from the moment you stand up, before a single note is played.

Next, it was time for our first game, known as “How Bad Can You Bow?” I had each student make a grave bowing error, such as bowing with feet apart, looking at the audience while they bowed, not making eye-contact with the audience, the bow-while-still-walking-to the-bench, and anything else the students and I could come up with. Everyone took a turn executing their “bad bows.” We were howling with laughter with some of them. We had a very informal vote, involving cheering and applause for the best “worst bow”. I declared us all winners, and had the students gather around the basket of candy. Their eyes almost popped out of their heads when they saw all that candy! Each student picked one candy bar.

Next, we played “How Good Can You Bow?” First, we practiced how to bow as a group. Then, each student walked elegantly to the piano, bowed, and sat down, and played one note or chord. The audience clapped, and the student bowed and walked elegantly back to their chair. If their bow needed attention, I had them fix it. Most were fine, though.  We clapped thunderously for the great bows, I declared us all winners, and each child picked another candy bar.  We listened to some classical music from the composer of the month while we feasted on our junk food.

This was a really good activity for the students, because they saw the difference between a polished pianist walking on stage as opposed to “just some kid playing a song in a piano recital” type of thing. They also got to see why I insist on properly executed bows. People often judge books by their covers, and pianists by their walk to the piano bench.

More about this amazingly fun group lesson to come soon!

16th Note Rhythm Cards

I had a request for Rhythm Cards that included 16th notes. Well, here you are! This set of cards includes 16th notes, as well as 16th,8th and dotted 8th combinations. There are 39 rhythm cards in all, and they are color-coded for easy sorting and reference. Enjoy!

Rhythm Cards Set 4

 

 

 

Go Fish for Major Tonic Triads

I am working with many of my students teaching them the pentascales and tonic triads. I thought a Go Fish game would be a perfect reinforcement to what we are doing at the piano. Students practice identifying triads and matching them to their respective names. Print the tonic triad cards out on one piece of card stock, and the names on another sheet. Click on this link for the rules for Go Fish.

You can also use these cards for games such as Memory or other matching games. Or, print the triads and names front to back for traditional flashcards.

Major Tonic Triads

 

 

 

 

More Simplified LDS Primary Songs

The list keeps on growig, and now there are over 30 simplified LDS Primary songs.  You can find them at my Primary Page.  If there is a song that you would like me to do, drop me an e-mail, and I’ll see what I can do. 

Happy Playing!