I read a caption written by my friend Matthew Palumbo on Facebook last week that reminded me of the good we can bring into the world right now.  He wrote, "I told all of my students, even my itty bitty young ones and college students - your most important assignment right now is to make someone smile at least once a day."  I cherish this idea and asked my students to do the same this last week!  The one-on-one opportunity we have as teachers to be a listening ear and also remind students of the good that they can bring into the world in these days is so important. 

It is my mission to inspire my piano students to delight in the beauty and power of the timeless language of music.  I equip my students to practice productively with healthy technique, share their music with others, explore creative expression, and develop a rounded music education.  I may be teaching online right now and these values remain true!  I'm focusing on the aspects of teaching that are best supported on video lessons such as technique, creative expression, music history, theory, arranging, memorizing pieces, and sharing music with others.  This article is going to give suggestions from my teaching experience and what has worked best for me.

I know my students will continue to connect with their music, their friends in my studio, and myself as their teacher when I continue to provide creative solutions to this season we're in today!  I will be hosting my second group piano performance classes using Zoom the last Friday of this month.  

Last month, I had three small groups of students (6-8 each) meet on a Zoom call for 45 minutes to share some music with each other, introduce their pets to everyone, and give some feedback about each performance.   It was a lot of fun!  Another question I asked students is, "how does this piece of music make you feel?"  I value supporting students name their feelings, whether we're in quarantine or not.  Music gives us the place to do that!  We also played a few rhythm games that I'll write about in another blog post.  I had students come back to their individual lessons this week and ask when the next group Zoom call will be :) 

These are the steps I took to setup this Zoom group piano call:

• I scheduled a video call on my account for 5:00 - 5:45PM on 3/20/2020.
• I set a password for the video call.
• I copied the link for the Zoom lesson invitation and pasted it in an email to my students signed up at 5:00PM.
• During the Zoom call, I mute everyone except for the student who is playing so there is no added noise.
• I do have a "Pro" Zoom account so I am able to host meetings longer than 40 minutes with 3+ people.

Last week, I signed up to begin taking piano lessons again!  My teacher is Clark Beckham who was the runner up for American Idol in 2015.  Initially, Clark was supposed to be on his second tour right now until it was cancelled due to COVID-19.  He adapted to his circumstances and made the decision to begin teaching individual lessons on Zoom!  He focuses his teaching around five major pillars of music:  voice, instrumentation, arrangement theory, songwriting, and career advice.

It's always both vulnerable and life-giving to be a student again.  I'm taking some instrumentation and arrangement theory from Clark on a weekly basis.  Last week we re-harmonized a few songs and reviewed non-diatonic chord substitutions.  So fun!  I encourage you to consider reaching out to a teacher to see if they're taking any new students.  I know that when I'm learning as a teacher I'm more invested in developing a engaging curriculum for my students!  It's also helpful to see what it's like to be a student on an online platform.

My local music teachers association made the decision to cancel our honors recitals and competitions.  At this time, we weren't prepared to move all of those competitions online.  However, I want to encourage you to consider hosting your own festival in your studio!  Here's some ideas:

• Composing Festival:  hire a colleague who is a composer to adjudicate students' compositions!  Then, have a Zoom call with your students and the composer to perform the pieces.  Or, have students submit recordings.  This could either be a competition with ribbons, or simply a festival where students receive a very special letter with feedback from the composer.  
• Ribbon Festival:  create your own in-studio online ribbon festival!  Be creative.  Come up with unique levels, categories, and opportunities for students to record their pieces and submit them on an "unlisted" YouTube page or a private dropbox file.  You can adjudicate your students or hire a colleague to choose winners.   Then, mail out ribbons to your students afterwards!
• Note about uploading online videos:  make sure to have students parents sign an authorization and release form prior to submission of videos.  This is necessary even if videos are posted to a private online channel!

This is valuable all the time and especially right now.  There are a few pieces that just don't communicate best over a live video platform.  So, I ask my advanced students to record their pieces and upload to a "unlisted" YouTube channel prior to our lesson.  Then, they send me the link and I have time to review what we'll work on in lesson.  I can either write back to them with what to work on, or we follow up in lesson with what they've sent to me.  

I've used Noteflight for a few years now.   My students enjoy having a platform online that they can write their own compositions and share them easily with me!  Noteflight accounts are free to create up to 10 compositions.  Lately, I've been using Noteflight to write warm ups for my students.  This can look like a simple pentascale pattern or full 4 octave patterns.   I like Noteflight because it's easy to add unique articulations, transpose, and create something new each week for my students.

Now that I'm teaching on Zoom, I "screen share" with my students when I'm creating their warm up on Noteflight.  It's always exciting to figure out what all those unusual articulation symbols mean, and it's always funny to put a fermata at the top of your scale.   Also, it gives my students the opportunity on Zoom to "screen share" with me to show me what they're working on in Noteflight and ask me questions.  

I value the Music Teachers National Certification Program not only as a professional certification, but also as a continued education tool for myself as a teacher.  I encourage you to consider these 6 questions (written in bold) you can integrate in your lessons when you introduce a new piece with a student!​

1. When introducing this piece, what would you discuss with the student concerning the musical time period, composer and compositional style?   This gives you the opportunity to have a conversation about life during that time, share YouTube videos of dances and multiple performance videos.
2. When introducing this piece, what major elements of theory would you discuss with a student? These elements could, for example, include such information as major key areas, cadence locations and types, important modulations, interesting harmonies, the form of the piece, etc. Be sure to specify measure numbers and to which beat of the measure you are referring in your answers.  Personally, I'm having students make a copy of their music and write in more of theory cadences / chord progressions / unique chords and email it to me.  Then, we go over their analysis at our next lesson online!  It's brought up a lot of great questions that integrates theory naturally into a lesson.
3. Indicate at least three specific skills a student must possess to successfully play this piece.  Lately, I've been asking my students this question!  I think it's great for them to look at a piece and see what skills they think they need.  I am focusing on asking questions lately, and listening.  It's good to see what my students recognize as skills they must have, and eye opening to see what they don't think of when they look at a piece of music.  
4. Discuss how you would teach a historically and stylistically appropriate interpretation of this piece. This could include such elements as articulation, pedaling, dynamics and ornamentation.
5. Discuss at least four potential reading and/or technical difficulties in this piece and how you would help the student solve these problems.  This Is a great time to support students with more sight reading material and give them technical warm ups to work through their difficult passages!
6. Discuss where you would mark appropriate practice strategies and/or memory sections in this piece. 

Want do download your own Teacher Profile Project handbook?  Go to https://certification.mtna.org/Certification/Get_Certified/TPP/Piano_Overview.aspx
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".....your most important assignment right now is to make someone smile at least once a day." -Matthew Palumbo

​Whether you're teaching 5 students or 50 online this week, I want you to know that your presence in your students lives matters right now.  Even though students may not be in your home studio, the consistency of lessons with you might mean more than you may ever know.  Let's be kind to ourselves and the world around us as we take this day by day.

Much love,

~Miss Rose 🌹🎹

Have you ever played a piano painted like a monkey or a pirate ship? Everett, Washington and Mill Creek, Washington both have pianos out on street corners and in front of local coffee shops August 7-21! My favorite place to visit during this “Street Tunes” festival is Narrative Coffee in Everett. Anastasia and I (The Musical Mountaineers) met in 2017 and first played piano and violin together at a street piano! Whether you’re a student, lifelong musician, or teacher, I encourage you to visit one of these painted pianos and share your music!

Teachers, I encourage you to meet students and their families for an informal concert outside! It’s a great inventive for students to take on a 10 or 30 piece challenge then have an opportunity to go play their music at an outdoor piano this summer. Email me and tell me all about your adventure!

More information about “Street Tunes” including a Google map of piano locations:
https://everettwa.gov/824/Street-Tunes
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~Rose Freeman
Nationally Certified Piano Teacher & Pianist of The Musical Mountaineers
rosefreemanmusic@gmail.com

Sounds of laughter and friendly conversation danced in the air as I walked toward the Kilworth Chapel at University of Puget Sound last Wednesday morning. “Hi, Rose!” Within moments of stepping in the door, Kirsten Carlson greeted me with a smile, hug, a penguin, and the 2019 conference booklet. The next few days were packed full of honors recitals, master classes with Irene Peery Fox, and workshops. I value these opportunities for continuing education, but most of all, I treasure the conversations with colleagues I saw throughout the week! Here are three workshops that stand out in my mind as I look back at Conference.

Five-Finger Patterns and Famous Composers: Fresh Ideas for Solo and Duet Piano Works
Dr. Vincent Della Tonia, NCTM

This workshop outlined the benefits of five finger patterns such as directional reading, aural reference, transposition, technique, and improvising. He suggested some different reading approaches with the five finger patterns and suggested method books that corresponded with each approach. What I valued the most about this workshop was the time he spent sharing a comprehensive list of some lesser known piano literature for beginner to lower intermediate students! Here are a few of the solo and duet works that he shared:

• ​“Gradus - 40 studies for the piano” by Samuel Adler
• “The first term at the piano, Swindherd’s Dance” by Bella Bartok
• “Historietas Maravilhosas, No 7 Forest Fairy” by O. Lorenzo Fernandez
• ”12 Etudes Op 39” by Edward Macdowell
• “Bagatelles Op 5, No 9” by Alexandra Tcherepnin
• ”Pleasures of Youth, Six Sonatinas on Five Notes Op. 163” by Anton Diabelli
• ”Teacher and Pupil” by Joseph Low
• ” Three Jazz Duets” by Mark Nevin
• “Microjazz Piano Duets” by Christopher Norton

​“I Really Love My Minuet!” | Dr. Judith Schoepflin, NCTM

​Dr. Schoepflin highlighted keys to student engagement, ownership, and enjoyment in this thoughtful presentation. She shared four steps for every independent music teacher to embrace in their lessons with all ages of students:

1. ​They need to feel like they are the only person in the world playing this piece.
2. They need to develop an emotional connection to the piece.
3. They are more likely to develop ownership if they have a choice in the selection of the piece.
4. They need to engage their imagination.

She performed a set of pieces varying in style to demonstrate how to incorporate these four values into every lesson. I appreciated the specific examples she gave in how to engage students imagination and help them represent the musical time period of each piece. The books she recommended on her handout are fabulous. Here are a few:

• ​”The Minuet figures according to Kellom Tomlinson”
• ”Complete theoretical and practical pianoforte school, Op 500” by Carl Czerny
• “Hailstones and Hailbut Bones” by Mary O’Neill
• ”The Oxford Companion to Instruments and Ochestras” by Kenneth and Valerie McLeish
• ”An Illustrated History for Young Musicians” by Comeau and Covert
• ”The World at Your Fingertips”’ by Brewer and Lau
• ”Composer Highlights, an educational coloring book series” by Kidd
• “Shades and sounds of women composers” by Jennifer Booster

Market Your Studio Like You Mean It! | Mariya Lincoln

Mariya outlined “how marketing applies to the private music teacher and how the process of choosing a teacher has changed drastically in the last 10+ years.”
This informative workshop gave practical steps how to have an online presence without breaking the bank. She reinforced the value of having a simple studio website at minimum. If you aren’t sure about where to start to make a website, check out Weebly or Squarespace. Also, I recommend talking to your local music teachers chapter to work on your individual studio websites together!

She gave us a handout to apply her suggestions to our own studios. You can do this at home, too!

• 3 Goals
• 3 Roadblocks
• My Target Audience
• Where/how to reach target audiences (brainstorm)
• Where I plan out have/increase my online presence
• My contacts / network connections
• 3 steps I will take right away
• 3 creative or slightly uncomfortable ideas I'll consider

Why should YOU become a Nationally Certified Teacher of Music?
As the Washington State Music Teachers Association National Certification Chair, it’s my joy to work with teachers on their five teacher profile projects.  I love reading how each teacher expresses their heart for teaching and goals for their students through their Teaching Philosophy.  It’s remarkable to see teachers dive deeper into the questions of, “what do I teach, who do I teach, and why do I teach.”  The first project alone reminds teachers of their purpose in choosing a vocation in music education.   Over the next four projects, teachers share how they teach different styles of music, record a few lessons with a student to show progression of learning a piece, share information about their studio, and respond to prompts regarding ethics in music education.  These five projects give you prompts to invest in your students and evaluate how you can give them the best, well rounded, music education as a Professional Music Teacher.

Go ahead and treat yourself to a coffee or tea then come back to this post to get started!

Why MTNA Professional Certification?
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For MTNA:

• Fosters excellence in music education through the development of criteria, standards, and guidelines for assessing educational competencies in performance, music theory, music history/literature, and pedagogy/teacher education.
• Assures the educational community, the general public, and other agencies or organizations that the MTNA Professional Certification Program for applied music teachers has been clearly defined with appropriate objectives.
• Provides a national forum for the discussion and consideration of concerns relevant to the preservation and advancement of standards in the field of music and music education.
• Develops a national unity and strength for the purpose of maintaining the position of music study in the family of fine arts and humanities and providing qualified teachers to guide that study.
• Sets a uniform national minimum standard of achievement without restricting the development of new ideas, experimentation, or the expansion of personal standards.

For the Music Teacher: (Piano, Voice, Violin, Flute, Organ)

• Offers a process by which teachers may examine and update their libraries, teaching methods, business practices and philosophies.
• Encourages improvement in teaching through continuous self-study and planning.
• Raises the likelihood for a higher level of teacher competency and effectiveness.
• Provides a goal for personal professional achievement for music teachers.
• Increases the potential for earning power for music teachers.
• Improves the level of professionalism within the field of music teaching.
• Identifies for the public competent music teachers.

How Do I Get Started?

• Fill out and mail the Application for MTNA Certification or MTNA Collegiate Certification
• Download the MTNA Project Workbook for Piano, Organ, Flute, Violin, or Voice
• Contact me or your local Certification Chair to request a WSMTA Certification Grant!
• Complete your 5 Teacher Profile Projects within 1 year and submit them to MTNA!

Templates & Resources for MTNA Certification created by Rose Freeman, NCTM:

• 2018 WSMTA Conference Certification Presentation
• Certification Check List
• MTNA Certification Resources​​

*note: the following graphs are for organizing teacher project information. Final projects should be completed in written paragraph / outline format as directed in the Project Workbook*

• Project #2 - Analyze Four Teaching Pieces Graph
• Project #2 - Analyze Four Teaching Pieces Outline
• Project #3 - "Present Your Teaching" Sample
• Project #3 - Student Progress Report Template
• Project #3 - Clara Schumann Progress Report Sample​

Project #4 - "Inside the Studio" Examples of a positive teaching environment 

Documents from MTNA Certification Website:  http://mtnacertification.org/
MTNA Certification Application
MTNA Collegiate Certification Application
Piano Project Workbook
Organ Project Workbook
Flute Project Workbook
Violin Project Workbook
Voice Project Workbook
What will evaluators look for in my project?
MTNA Professional Standards
Video Authorization Form
Video tips 1
Video tips 2
Video tips 3
Application for Renewal of MTNA Certification
Professional Renewal Activities Points Form
Certification 101
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