Piano by Megan

2024. Our first Piano Ensemble Festival. This is a I’ve got in terms of pictures for now. I have more later when everyone sends them to you. I was a little busy to take I tires and videos!!!! There no words to describe how proud I am that this event happened. What a weekend!!! More later…..

have commenced! There’s a lot going on right now.
1. I just switched my studio to an On Bench Off Bench approach, inspired by . It’s been two days and already it’s so much better! Students have 30 minutes on bench and 15 off bench doing a theory activity. Another student comes in for the on bench time during the previous students off bench time. I am so glad I made this change!
This weeks game of choice:

➡️Scale and Chord builder: Students first spell out the whole/half step pattern. Then, they pick a card. They spell out the scale using letter cards on the paint tin. (Dollar store!!!). Then, they spell the tonic triad of that scale using golf balls. There are many ways to adapt this game. More advanced students spell out all the primary chords and their inversions and have more scale options. Less advanced do five finger scales instead of octave scales.
➡️ keyboard builder game: this is for the very beginner in a four class trial. She loved it!
➡️ The ipad is ready just in case!!!
➡️ How do I spice up lessons during summer??? Well, first of all, there are only four. More on that later. This summer is the Go for the Gold challenge!!! Stay tuned for details on how I make lessons fun in the summer! 😀

Student favorite right here! This is called Rolln Rythyms. I need to give this any grade and add in some harder notations. AnywY, students pick a time signature. Then they roll the dice to start adding rhythmic notation. They can only use one card so if they roll a 2, they have to pick something that is two beats, etc. we usually d about four measures WTH. Then we might add in metric counting or ta depending on the level of the student. My kids love this one!

Ive decided that one of my superpowers is coming up with games on the spot or at the last minute when the lesson is not going to go as planned. This one is called “Bucket Interval Toss. We played it outside because this student and her brothers came to lessons completely fried from the standardized tests they took that day. It was a beautiful day and being outside was just necessary. Here is what I used:
1. Painters buckets from Walmart
2. Foam paper
3. Piano safari interval cards
4. Bean bags

How to play: Pick a card and correctly identify the interval. Toss a bean bag into the correct bucket

That’s really it! Easy peasy! My students were really good at interval identification but really bad at the bean bag toss. It was hilarious. I also used this in a partner lesson with two rambunctious boys. Playing an outside game was their reward for behaving in the lesson. Worked like a charm!!! 😀

A student forgot her books today. So this is what we did. 😁

I made a game today. And it was perfectly laid out on the table ready for students to play it! And then my four yr old came home. 🤦‍♀️.

New tag line!!! Stolen from a friend. But I love it. Piano CAN be a “team sport” with the right amount of collaboration within or outside of your studio. This is why I founded the Piano Ensemble Festival. I can’t wait to see how much our kids have playing piano in a group!!! Any other piano teachers out there adding ensemble playing their yearly events? What do you do in your studio to create a team atmosphere?

It is a daily struggle keeping my kids out of “mamas work stuff.” But this? This, I don’t mind. 😀❤️ piano

PianobyMegan on Instagram: "Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s “Papillons”. I love teaching this amazing student and am so thankful to @LeahClaiborne for introducing me to this piece. This is a new piece to me and this student. Let me know you think!...

Congratulations Cambridge and Audrey for outstanding performances at Tournament today! Both students received superior ratings. So proud of them both!!!

100%!!!!

Absolutely true! Today my heart was singing as generations of little ones who have known me for many years, and their little brothers and sisters too, came along to see me at Warnbro Library for my Christmas storytelling show. Some of them have known me as Fairy Rebecca for close to a decade! So lovely! I’m incredibly blessed to do the work I do! 🧚🏻‍♀️🎶💝

When your piano student has 90’s dress day at school and she comes to her lesson dressed like you in the 90’s.

One of the best side effects of assigning your student a piece you just discovered???? You get to learn it to!!! I’m having so much fun working on the is piece by Samuel Coleridge Taylor!

My sweet boy. My rainbow baby. The one who made me a mom. You are 6 today!!! You’re sweet, funny, a terrific big brother, a little rambunctious and sometimes weirdly moody. And how I live to watch you grow! In this year as a kindergartner you have learned to read, you’re really good at math, and you are still so athletic! I can’t wait to see what the next 6 years brings. We love you to the moon and more my sweet boy. ❤️❤️❤️

Painting day is here!!! Ok, so this actually happened like a week ago. I am just really bad at keeping up with posting. What do you think of the color? I was getting tired of he white anyway so took this opportunity to change it to something more soothing. It is crushed ice. I am IN LOVE!!! So excited for this to be done and be back in our home! .0

One month ago my house flooded during a severe rain here in Baton Rouge. An earlier post shows my studio area as we were drying out the house and packing things up to put in storage. Here we are in phase 2. Rebuilding. What you don’t see is the bottom two feet of Sheetrock that was demoed. These pics show the walls rebuilt and ready to be painted. As you can see, the floors were also torn up. So, piano by megan had to pivot (once again), and figure out how to carry on without our space. And carry on we did! Keep following to find out how I carried on through this adversity and how our rebuilding process is going!

Well this is what happens when you live in the south. Piano by megan is indisposed for a few days while we recover from the recent flood. Luckily it was only a couple inches. The piano is fine. 😊. We could use prayers.

We had our first in person group classes since covid yesterday! Masks, hand sanitizer, and lots of fun! It was almost like normal! And my students had a blast. 😊

The perks of working from home. When a student is late, the whole family comes to see mama and takes their turn on the piano! . 😂😂😂😂 (including the dog😂)

I needed this one today! Put those fears and doubts behind and keep moving forward.

Piano by Megan updated their info in the about section.

Taking a little time off this week to plant my very first garden ever and hang with my favorites (husband not pictured, he’s here too). It’s a staycation, but it’s a good one. What are you doing for spring break? Oh, and I got my second vaccine shot! So excited to see family soon!

Taking a break from sending festival videos to my judge to feed this little one lunch. She really loves lunch! ❤️😁

So a week or so ago I realized I was really missing daily practice. So I made a choice to fit it in. Every morning before I do my computer work and get ready for lessons, I practice for 20-30 minutes. Not nearly what I used to do back in the day, but it’s something. Sometimes I only have time to warm up. As long as I play something I call it a success! 😂. Today’s practice also included wine if my favorite things to do. Play a few teaching pieces out of the Celebration series. I do this so I can learn literature before I assign it. As you can see, I write notes in the margins so I remember if I liked it or not. One day this little pastime will turn into a bigger project, maybe?

Filling my own cup this morning with a little practicing of my own....