Pre-Made Holiday Themed Canva Recital Program Templates

Need help with a quick and easy recital program? I made 6 different Holiday Themed Recital Program Templates this year you can use using Canva.com

You can access them here using this LINK. You must create an account to access, and be sure to save the templates to your account before you make changes so everyone can access them as they are now.

Happy Teaching!

Becky

Unleash Your Income Potential: Discover New Ways to Increase Your Revenue Streams

Ever find yourself doing the same thing over and over again in your music studio and wonder, what if I just made something so I don’t have to keep writing this same thing out all the time?

That was me. Always write out the fingering chart for scales, week after week and student after student. I have a general rule, if I’m consistently doing the same thing, find a way to automate it. So I took my own advice and created a scale book for double horn.

But wait, there’s more. There’s nothing like this already out there…so what if I were to sell it, and increase my studio earnings through the book sales, but wait…what if I self-publish it on Amazon and have the potential to reach a greater audience?

In my area, I’m limited by how many students I can have in my studio by my county. So I have been thinking outside the box on how I can help more people on a broader scale and ultimtetly increase my revenue streams.

• Online sales of products like ebooks

• Offering Online Lessons, or premade lessons someone can purchase as needed

• Create a Presence on social media (playing famous solos, or your students playing, or ways that you teach have a creative spin to it. But something duplicatable that you can recreate over and over in a slightly different way.)

These are some ideas on how to make your studio successful outside your teaching space. The world is a big place and there is so much growth potential ready for you and your ideas and knowledge to share!

What are other ways to help make your studio successful outside of your teaching space? Comment below!

Happy Teaching!

Becky

Master Your Recital Performance with These Pre-Recital Practice Tips

Spring is HUGE for spring recitals! I personally spend at least 2 weeks working on recital prep with my students. We act out how they will get onto the “stage”, bowing, performing (including releasing the final note and what to do with their hands or instrument) final bow, and then returning back to their seats. We do this over and over each week to just make it super easy for even the youngest student to remember come recital time when nerves are high.

Recital prep starts 3 weeks before the recital date. I’ll explain why below. But first…

🎶 Secrets to Success: How we do recital prep in my studio

1) Pick a place near your piano to have the student sit in while they wait “their turn” to come on stage.

2) Introduce them as you will in the recital, with their name and the title of their piece. After their name is called they will then come on stage, place their music on their stand or bench of the piano and turn to the audience to bow, then they will sit and prep to play.

3) I always instruct my students to take a deep inhale before they begin playing, again as a way to help reduce the nerves.

4) Once they are done playing, hands gently in their lap then stand and SMILE (at their mom) and take their bow. They then depart the stage back to their seat. I keep the music and will hand that back to them at the end —one less music rustling around while other kids are playing. You could collect their music beforehand as well, but I found most kids like having something to hold on to help them not fidget so much.

ALWAYS, whenever someone is bowing, each student should clap just like they want to be clapped at when they perform. We even practice clapping in lessons.

3 weeks before the recital we practice this process at least 3 times before we move on to other music if there is time. Lots of talking and explaining each step, and how to bow (hands at their side not in front and back)

2 weeks before the recital we have “Distraction Week”. This is where I enlist my children to pretend to be the most noisy audience ever. My kids will literally try to distract my student while they are playing. The goal, the student can ignore all distractions. But I still call them up and have them bow and follow the same step-by-step process.

The week of the recital is recital prep week. Shortened practices because the point is to run through their recital piece 3 times following the steps of sitting in their seat, being called up, bowing, playing, bowing, and returning to their seats. By this point, they have got it down. So the lesson will be super short anyways and you don’t want your students playing their sone more than 3 times anyways.

Happy Teaching!

Pre-made Recital Program Canva Templates

Need help with a quick and easy recital program? I made 4 different Holiday Themed Recital Program Templates you can use using Canva.com

You can access them here using this LINK. You must create an account to access, and be sure to save the templates to your account before you make changes so everyone can access them as they are now.

Happy Teaching!

Halloween Week Lesson Plan

October is one of our fun months in the studio where the room decor changes/add in Halloween decorations and the magical candy bowl appears, (you can read about that here). The beginning of the month each student starts to learn a Halloween specific song that we work through over the 4 weeks, I have a collection of Halloween books and various levels of sheet music that I call “community music” where the student will borrow it and bring it back at the end of the month. I use the Inventory Acquisition, sales and loan log to keep track of who has what music.

Each year in my studio, we have what we call HALLOWEEN WEEK! Halloween week is a special week where the students are encouraged to dress up in their Halloween Costume, I wear mine as well, but we focus the lesson completely what truly makes Halloween, Halloween…THE MUSIC!

I consider it a throw away lesson where we don’t go over anything new in their lesson books but focus solely on musical examples, playing different songs either over Youtube (youtube kids has great little kid appropriate songs that are fun to listen to that aren’t scary) , the origin of Halloween music, sounds, chords, and so forth. This works great and fills in easily for my 30 minute lessons.

Students that have longer lessons we also sightread and start working through 1-2 Intermediate Halloween pieces.

For my advance 60-90 minute lessons students read through Saint-Saëns - Danse Macabre or Macdowell Witches Dance.

Each student also gets a treat to take home. This year, I’m making these Monster Rice Crispy Treats.

SECRET: Discuss with each parent ahead of October to see if they are okay with their child learning Halloween songs. Have a book with Thanksgiving themed songs just in case.

Use this template to make a flyer / poster to hand out or send your student family to remind them about Halloween Week!

Make Holidays Count In Your Studio!

Never underestimate the power of incentivizing! Mid September I had one student asking when I will start putting the Halloween candy bowl out? It’s funny, because kids remember the smallest details. And while it’s just something super small and just for a month (also December with various candy cane flavors) the students ALL LOOK FORWARD to earning that piece of candy after their lesson.

So, use the holidays to help drive incentives when you can. Make is special for the kids and they will come back each and every week excited, or have something to look forward to each and every holiday.

Don’t break the bank, just keep it super simple, but PLAN AHEAD. (It’s near October and I’m already thinking about a little something for the students for Christmas.)

Holiday treat ideas that we have in my studio:

Halloween: Candy basket, let them pick it out BEFORE lesson so that a) they don’t forget to grab it before they leave b) they have that candy staring them in the face and it helps them stay focused more during lessons.

Thanksgiving: Turkey gift, you can make little homemade treats, I make these turkey cookies. Don’t feel like you have to make a whole plate for the whole family. It can be just a single treat just for your student.

Christmas: Candy Cane plate. I also plan a Christmas gift for each student. In our house I have hidden horns and pianos on my tree and add to it year after year. I’ve started this for my students. They each get an ornament for their tree (year after year students can start collecting an assortment of ornaments for their own music themed tree) Or any gift, big or small. Remember to track all purchases for your expense report in your Bookkeeping

Valentines: Heart Cookies. I like to make a big batch of sugar cookies. And because they are easier to make as a batch, each family will get a plate of cookies.

Easter: Little mini Easter baskets, and fill with candy. Super simple and low cost.

Happy Teaching!

Elevate Your Music Event with These Free Spring Recital Templates

Need help with a quick and easy spring recital program? I made 4 different FORMAL-themed Music Recital Program Templates you can use using Canva.com

You can access them here using this LINK. You must create an account to access it, and be sure to save the templates to your account before you make changes so everyone can access them as they are now.

Happy Teaching!

Strike the Chords of Your Success: A Comprehensive Guide to Hosting a Flawless Online Music Studio Recital

The world is in a different place right now, but the show must still go on. Whether you had to move your private music lesson business online or you’ve decided to stay or choose to teach online, we still want to showcase our students the best way possible and that happens with a RECITAL!

1) Use the same platform you teach lessons on for your recital. I personally use Zoom. It’s easy to use and currently, there is no max time limit on how long you can host a group event. (I suspect things will change in the future) But be mindful of the max time limit for online group events.

2) Send out specific and detailed instructions to the families 2 weeks prior to the recital about how and where to set up the camera — for my piano students, I request a profile view so we can see the student’s hands and some of their faces. —so that the student can be seen and heard. Also, advise them about extra lighting. Set up a lamp next to them (in front of them) or a ring light so that their child is well-lit and everyone can see them easily.

3) Send an email to all families with the link and a special password to access the online event 2 weeks before the recital so they can send it to their family members who want to attend.

4) Set up the link that people can’t just automatically enter, that they will be entered when the host allows, so you can get the exact time you need for the recital. Also, so they are automatically muted when they enter so you don’t have to go through and mute everyone or when new people join halfway through the recital because they missed the initial time, they will be automatically muted.

5) The morning of the recital email the recital program to all the families and ask them to email it to those that are joining in so that they have a program to follow. This works as a great reminder the day of the recital to ensure everyone remembers!

6) Be short and quick. Most people are taking time out of their day to attend to listen to the performances but keep your remarks and intros for the students short. You don’t have to give details about every student before they perform or at the end of the performance. The families are there to listen to the student perform. Plus if there is a time limit you want to make sure everyone has access to listen to all the performances.

Happy Teaching!