Designing Printed Material for Piano Studios, Part 3

In a previous post I left you with a poorly designed flyer for group lessons. In this post you can see the same flyer with an extreme make-over. Like the first one,  this was quickly made using Word and  clip art from Microsoft that is freely available from the Internet to use for non-commercial purposes.   While I am blessed to have a Wacom tablet and the full versions of Photoshop and Finale, for the purpose of this blog I  limited my resources to Word and the free art from Microsoft. If all you have on your computer is Word, with a little experience you can design this, too.   

This particular type of handout can be difficult because there is a lot of information you need to present and the it can quickly become too busy, like my bad example below. 

Now I’m going to tell you how I corrected it. See the tiny piano in the upper LH corner? I deleted all the clip art except this piano.  Large clip art, if it is good quality, makes more of a statement so I enlarged the piano and deleted the background.  It looked cleaner, but was still too busy. An old trick in Word is to cover what you don’t want with a white rectangle, so I covered the  extra notes around the piano. I wanted to remind the students to bring their music, but I didn’t want it in a cheesy frame like my bad example, so I chose a font that matched the style of the art and made it part of the art, so to speak.

I used the same font for Group Lessons, made it the same shade of blue as in the piano.  It still looked plain, so I used Word-Art and added a small black shadow to bring out the strong black in the piano.

I wanted to  kept the excitement of refreshments, games, and prizes, so I put it at the bottom using red text to match the red in the piano, and aligned it with the rest of the graphic. You have to use text boxes in Word for this sort of thing. In fact, all the text except for the Word-Art heading are in text boxes.   I organized the dates so parents could see it right away. I added a yellow background and tried to match the yellow in the piano. I did not use the default yellow, but I chose a custom color. Details like that can make a difference.

For the dates and name of the studio I used black as a contrast and a sans serif font that I hope is a contrast to the other font and easy to read.

When I start to align things, another old trick is to draw a line with the line tool and then delete it when you are finished.  Word has a grid you can use if you need it and you can enlarge up to 500% to get a really good look at what you have done.

I was finished, but something didn’t look right. It still needed something so I went back to the Internet and got the little green splat of blue notes. I think it matches the style of the piano, it has some blue, and the green is just a little pop of color.  Note how it hangs over the yellow block?  This adds interest and gives some motion to the graphic. 

Yesterday I told you not to copy art from web sites because it is probably copyrighted. I know people do it all the time, but people copy music, too, and that’s not right. But Microsoft’s website has thousands of graphics free of charge.  http://office.microsoft.com/  Click on clip art in your Word document and  you will be directed to this site.  Type in a search word, save it in your clip board, and paste it into your document.  This site has  well made vector clip art that will look good printed at any size. It will not be pixelated and grainy if you print it on an average home  printer.  But that’s not all. Once you insert the graphic in your document, you can edit it some, mostly by changing colors and deleting parts of the art. Here are some examples. The top left graphic is the original and in the other examples I simply changed the color using the art tool bar in Word or selected something and deleted it.

There are other sources on the web to get  free art, so search around. There is usually a disclaimer, such as you cannot use the art commercially. If you plan to sell what you make, you will not be able to use free clip art in most cases, including Microsoft’s clip art and art from graphic programs you buy. If in doubt, ask permission. Some sites pay hundreds of dollars for their graphics such as a custom drawn piano, and do not take it lightly if they see it on your web site, even if you are giving it away. Photos are copyrighted, too, and professionals buy stock photos to use. If someone else makes your web site, make sure they are using legal art. 

You might decide to buy a graphics program rather than try to make something up from scratch in Word. Other Microsoft programs include Power Point, which can do adequate  graphic presentations and Publisher, which is inexpensive and has a lot of templates. Templates are really good if you have no design experience or inclination. Neither program has much clip art, but you can get it from the Microsoft site I mentioned previously.

Other graphic programs for home use have wonderful templates to help you out. Print Shop is an old favorite that I first started using in the 80’s. I like it  because it is very teacher and child oriented and easy for the beginner to learn.  There are some great, tasteful templates for certificates, business cards, invitations, and just about anything printed you can think of.  The clip art is fun for children,  and you can even copy the graphics and paste them into your Word document. The color of the graphics can be changed, and you can  uncrossed parts of the art like I did with the Microsoft clip art. 

Scrapbook, greeting card programs,  and photography programs also may help you out.  I have a Halmark greeting card program that I really love for quick, pretty cards. It has some nice clip art, too. An added benefit to these hobby programs is that you will get some great fonts!

If you are serious about drawing art and manipulating photos and don’t want to spend about $600.00 for the big Photoshop program, try Photoshop Elements, which is under $80.00. There are no templates and you have to learn how to use it, but if you want to draw things like I do, you need a drawing program, and this is the best one for the price. Sometimes you can get very good deals on an older version. You can also use it to take a few wrinkles out of your photo for your brochure! Plus, there are many free tutorials on the web to learn how to use it.

I hope this three part series, although limited in scope and non-technical, has helped you think of ways to improve the printed material you use or to start making designs of your own.  Give it a try!

Wendy’s Giveaway

Head over to Wendy’s blog http://www.composecreate.com/archives/1391 and leave a comment. You will then be entered in a giveaway contest for a book of pre-reading pieces,  Hal Leonard’s Piano Recital Showcase Pre-Staff level book. I know a lot of you wish you had more pre-reading music for your beginners and this is a chance to win a copy. Wendy wrote 2 of the pieces, Cherokee Lullaby and Fire Dance and she is giving away 2 copies of the book. Wendy is an accomplished composer who has been very encouraging in my composing attempts. She has a great website, too, and you’ll enjoy looking around her site.

Unfortunately the contest ends Friday, July 31 at noon, so get over there right now!

 

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Designing Printed Material for Piano Studios, Part 2

How Many Mistakes Do You See?

In my last post I wrote about how to make the text in your printed material look more up to date. Today’s post is going to deal with improving the look of material you create with graphics, such as worksheets, newsletters, and handouts. These are general guidelines for piano teachers who want to spice up their printed material but have no design experience. Sometimes making a few simple changes can greatly improve the look of your worksheet.

1. Alignment is everything. Don’t paste things willy-nilly around the page. Give yourself some white space.
2. Only use blocks around graphics or text sparingly. Many times it looks clunky and homemade. If you want to highlight a paragraph, try using a light color behind it without the dark rectangular outline.
3. Instead of using all capitals in a heading, try enlarging it by 1 point and making it bold.  All caps looks amateurish so avoid using them. How many headlines in a book do you see in all caps? On some teacher-made material I see sentences that are all caps, bold, italicized, and underlined. You never see this in professional material:    ALL PIECES SHOULD BE MEMORIZED.     Be strong and resist.
4. Match your colors and don’t use too many colors. Do use complementary colors or darker shades of the same color. In a worksheet you can try matching your text to a strong color in your art, but when in doubt use black for your text. You have to be able to read it.
5. Clip art can be helpful or terribly wrong. The incorrect use of clip art is probably the biggest mistake I see in the items piano teachers make, not counting improper alignment.
6. Don’t use too much clip art on your page. It can take over your document! The graphics should not get in the way of what you have to say, unless the art is the message like a comic book. One big picture can do more than a lot of little pictures scattered all over the page.
7. A lot of clip art in a variety of illustration styles will make your document look unplanned and wild. You should not have a piano that looks like it was drawn by Picasso on the same page as a romantic landscape. Well, if you are trying to show historical styles it would be fine, but not if you are writing a newsletter. Style is everything in music and art.
8. Even worse than too much clip art in different styles is low-resolution clip art. While a 72 dpi image looks good on a website, it looks bad in print. If the image is poor, it is best not to use it. Even if you have a 600 dpi printer, if your image is grainy and pixelated to start with it is not going to look good in print. But if you’re trying to use an image from the web, read on.
9. Illustrations and clip art on someone else’s website is not free for us to copy and put in our documents or on our websites. Most websites have a copyright at the bottom of the page and even if they don’t, the images they use may be under copyright. If you copy their  art and use it yourself, you are violating the law. I recently read about a woman who is being charged thousands of dollars in fees for using images without permission. Unless the website gives you permission, please do not steal other people’s art. Of course, being piano teachers, we don’t have hundreds of dollars to buy illustrations art so in my next post I will go over some ways to get free images legally.
10. Less is more. Try to keep things clean looking.

I created the graphic at the beginning of this post in Word. It took less than 5 minutes. I humorously tried to make every mistake I’ve seen in home-made handouts. It would have only taken me a few more minutes to make a good one that I could keep on my computer and use for the next group lesson. How many design flaws can you pick out? How would you design a group lesson notice?

Designing Printed Material for Piano Studios, Part 1

Today I am going to post some hints on improving printed material such as your policy sheet and letters for parents.  These are meant to be helpful hints for piano teachers, not professionals in the field of type and graphics, so the suggestions are general in nature.

 When I was in high school I took a secretarial course for a year. Although I was planning on majoring in music, I very practically decided that music might not lead to immediate job opportunities and, if necessary, I could get a job as a secretary. Besides, I could already type and I knew I could get an A in the class. 

 I’ve always been grateful I took that class. Not only did I learn to type beautiful printed material, I was able to type my husband’s dissertation, compete with extensive mathematical footnotes on a non-electric typewriter.

 However, some of the things I learned in that typing class are obsolete with the advent of word processing software.  

1. Do not double space after a period. This rule was for old-fashioned typewriters.  Who uses one of those anymore?  Computer word processing programs adjust space automatically after a period, so when you double space, you leave too much white space and it looks like you are as old as me and learned how to type on a typewriter. Who wants to age themselves?
2. Do not use more than two fonts in your document, and if you do use two fonts, make sure they completely contrast in style. For example, don’t use two script fonts. 
3. Watch out for the center alignment option. This is best used for formal invitations. If you have to center align, make sure each line is drastically different in length. If the lines are of similar length, it looks like it is not aligned at all.
4. Avoid the use of the Comic Sans font unless your document is specifically for children. I know, it is a cute font. But it is extremely overdone and has become so recognizable as a children’s font that it should be avoided. Do not use it for your professional material for adults and try to find another cute font for children.
5. The default font in Word, Times Roman, is very over used. The same goes for Arial (Helvetica). There are other dignified fonts you can use instead. Check them out.
6. Do not underline words in your documents. Nothing looks more amateurish than an email address that is underlined in a letter, policy sheet, or brochure! If your word processing program does it automatically, you should turn off that feature. Ask someone for help if you don’t know how.
7. Don’t underline music book titles. Underlining was done back in typewriter days when we couldn’t italicize words. In fact, don’t underline anything; use italics instead.
8. I have seen so many poor examples of brochures made by piano teachers. Start a collection of good brochures to see how yours measure up. Make friends with a graphic designer and let her look yours over. Please be very careful how you use Word Art. When Word Art first appeared in Word for Windows, I was totally enamored with it and used it all my brochures. When I saw that my 11 year old students were doing the same thing, I had second thoughts. 
9. Unless you are writing for children, don’t use 12-point type. It doesn’t look grown-up. If your document is crowded, try 9.5 or 9. If your document is too short, don’t use a larger font. Instead use more white space.
10. Finally, with the advent of desktop publishing, parents and your future clients expect professional looking documents. Check out some books in the library that have examples of business letters. Notice especially how they are aligned and the importance of white space.

 

My next post will be some tips on using graphics such as clip art.

Picture of Table Top Keyboard

I decided to add a picture of the table top keyboard that my students are using from yesterday’s blog post. This one is sitting on the coffee table in my piano studio (living room). My husband got  a glass top to put on the coffee table so I don’t have to worry about students messing it up.

You can see the chips I bought last year. They are called Counting Chips and came in a package of 75 with 5 different colors. I got them at an office supply store in the “teaching” department. They are about 1 3/8″ in size (about 3.5 cm), so they are quite large for chips. This makes them very good for very young children.  Notice that they come blank, but I’ve written the alphabet on some of them. You can also use, milk carton tops,  checkers, or soda caps. If you want to make your own out of construction paper, find something around the house to draw your circles with, such as a medicine bottle.

Now think of all the games you can play with this table top keyboard!

Table Top Keyboard

Table Top Keyboard

I have some large colored bingo chips that I bought at Staples in the teacher supply section. This paper keyboard is large enough for those chips. Print it out in landscape on card stock, cut it out, laminate it, and tape it together. Then you can spend some off-bench time with your student learning the names of keys, steps and skips, and intervals. Children need to get away from the piano some, especially children with different learning styles. Children who learn kinetically do a lot better if they can place a manipulative on a keyboard and move it around.

If you don’t have any bingo chips, cut out some colored paper into circles that will fit this keyboard.

This graphic can also be used by young children to write the names of the keys. If you do this, you can print it with  economy mode  of your printer on inexpensive paper or even the back of paper you’re discarding. I never throw away a piece of paper if I’ve only used one side!

Cecilly’s Incentive Program with Composer Bucks

Cecilly, who made up the games in the category “Cecilly’s Games” plans to implement an incentive program in her studio this fall. She has given me permission to publish her plans here. The reason I am posting it is because I want to show other teachers an example of a well-thought out program. She has thought out who, where when, and why. While it takes time to think of something in this detail, in the long run it will save you time. Parents appreciate knowing all the details, too.

It is always helpful for teachers to see how other teachers are doing something. My incentive program is different from this one, but I hope I can organize it as well.  If you have an incentive program you would like to share, send it to me and I’ll post it.

Composer Bucks Incentive Program from Cecilly

Participating students: beginner, elementary, and intermediate piano students who are in the Basic and Standard Courses of study.

 Goal: to motivate students to develop more effective practice habits, improve skills, and increase self-discipline related to their piano study.  Also, to recognize and reward consistent efforts made to progress, and to encourage students to move beyond the studio in applying their developing skills at the piano.

 How the program works:

• Students will select a “composer” account from a given list to correspond with a composer statuette that they will be working to “buy”. They will also receive an info sheet with basic facts about their composer.
• Students will receive a pencil pouch for storing their earned composer bucks, their studio bank card, etc. for the program.  This pouch should be kept in the front of their binder for easy access.
• Throughout the teaching year at each lesson, students can earn composer bucks (money) for reaching & exceeding expectations, achieving goals, practicing, etc. (see below for details).
• Also, fees, tickets, and various citations will be given for careless or faulty preparation, execution of skills, etc. for which the student will have to pay a fine from their composer accounts. 
• Monies earned must first be put toward the purchase of their selected composer statuette.  Once this amount has been reached, any remaining monies earned can be used to purchase items from the studio “store” or “chances” for the recital raffle give-away of $20 (real money). Statuettes will be given out at the April recital.

 Monetary rewards: The following is a list of what will be rewarded and for what value:             

             $1 …

• For each practice day beyond the expected 5 days per week (parent’s initials required).
• For each assignment criteria met at a given lesson.
• For each technique skill securely demonstrated as pertains to the student’s level of study.
• For adequately completing any weekly theory assignment.
• For sharing 1 composer fact (limited to 1 per lesson).

$2 …

• For any assigned piece receiving a “Gold Star Pass”

$5 …

• For each 5-day practice week recorded with parent initials.
• For each 16 measure piece or section of a piece securely memorized.
• For each piece recorded successfully on the student’s “Studio Recording Club” disk.

$10…

• For presenting a private home performance concert of 3 learned assignment pieces for family/friends.  Student must list each piece played, date & time of concert and audience members present (with initials from each).

$15…

• For any “out of studio/home” performance before a public audience (church, school, community setting).  Student must record date & place of their performance, and the initials of 1 teacher or 2 other adults who heard the performance.
• For attending a local music concert (church, school, or community.) A program, ticket stub, or note initialed by parent or other verifying adult must be provided.

$20…

• For participation in a studio recital or adjudicated event during the year.

$50…

• For attending a professional Classical music concert performance (Symphony, Choir, Chamber ensemble, etc.).  A program/ticket stub must be signed by parent or other verifying adult.

 $75…

• For having your piano tuned/serviced. Tuner’s business card or invoice receipt must be dated and initialed by the tuner.

$100…

• For subscribing to “Piano Explorer” magazine.

 

Fees, Fines, and Violations:

• Late fee: for arriving late to a lesson without notice. $_____
• Borrower’s fee: for not having all needed materials and having to borrow the teacher’s book(s) for the lesson.  $_____
• Speeding ticket: for rushing practice/performance tempos resulting in avoidable errors.  $_____
• Parking ticket: for careless or faulty execution of rhythm in assigned activities or pieces.  $_____
• Failure to yield ticket: for neglecting to observe expressive markings printed in the music.  $_____

             

Available Composer accounts and cost of statuettes: $_____

              Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, Debussy, Grieg, Handel, Haydn, Liszt, MacDowell, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Rachmaninoff, Schubert, Schumann, Tchaikovsky.

Ledger Line Flash Cards

 

Ledger Line Flash Cards

I still remember the day as a student when I counted down ledger lines to find a low bass note one time too many. After all, I had found the note the day before, but I couldn’t remember it. In disgust, I decided right then that I would memorize the bass and treble ledger line notes so well that I would never forget them. It was such a relief and I remember wondering why I didn’t do it earlier!

As a teacher I work with my beginning students using flash cards, worksheets and what have you,  and so many times assume my intermediate students will learn their ledger line notes on their own. From my own experience this does not always happen, so this year I am going to use these flash cards with my older students.

There are 3 pages for you to print. If you plan to use these regularly, be sure and laminate them in some way if you print them on a home printer. If you don’t, the ink will smear. Also, check to make sure your PDF document window shows that you are printing at 100% size. One day everything was printing out too small and I found that was the problem.

Many thanks to my friend Glenda who suggested I make these cards.

Wiggly Worm

Wiggly Worm

I wrote this pre-reading piece a few days ago for my new student who is almost 5. Since he is so young, I was interested in knowing just how much reading he is able to do on his own so far. I wrote this to be a beginning *sight reading* exercise, so to speak. Sight reading is so much more successful if you prepare the rhythm, so we did that by first learning the rhyme, tapping it on our knees, and then the fall board using the correct hands. It worked very well, and he was able to play it with the correct fingers without any prompting from me.  Now I know he has learned the basics of pre-reading. He is a very visual learner and I think he’s going to be an excellent music reader one of these days.  

Because of my background in Kodaly, I always prepare the student for what is coming up. That is one of the many reasons I like My First Piano Adventures, because this preparation is built into the lessons.  At this lesson we continued our preparation of playing on the white keys by identifying the names of the white keys. Last week he learned C D E.  This week I  made a paper keyboard and he put chips on the correct keyboard names. (I will post that keyboard soon.) Also, he drew lines to the correct keys on a fun worksheet. Finally, we played  the “how fast can you run up and play the correct key” game. I was  amazed that he knew every one of them!  Next week he is going to learn his very first song on the white keys and he is very excited about that.  

We also worked on rhythm, steady beat, hand position, singing,  and some Kodaly hand signs. I try to do a little bit of everything at his lessons, even if it is just briefly and  not  spend too much time sitting at the piano. Teaching this age is quite different than starting an average age beginner and the teacher has to really feel comfortable with young children and moving around the room. A lot of teachers had bad experiences with pre-school children because they tried to teach them like a 7 year old.

I hope you like my new banner and also the redesign of my website. Now my website has tabs that organizes everything into categories. If you like my new website design, send me an email! I really love hearing from other teachers.

Music Money

Some teachers use  “music money” as a reward system.  At the end of a specified period, students can exchange the music money for various items. You can set the price of each item at whatever you think is best. 

You can give music money for filling out assignment sheets, playing with a steady beat, sitting up straight, having a good hand position, weekly improvement, learning a scale, playing with good dynamics,  having a great attitude, and many other things. I like to give out rewards generously.

Remember, this is not real money, so when students buy items, they don’t need to be realistically priced. The price will depend on how generous you are with giving out the money and how long your contest runs.

Teachers differ in how they store the money students earn. Some keep it an envelop in their assignment book and some save it for the students in the music studio.

Before you start something like this, plan it out to the smallest detail.  Check on prices and items you will use in your store. If you plan early, you can find items children like on sale or at a dollar store.  You might find a business or even a parent who will donate items. One time I had a mother donate inexpensive nail polish that she had stocked up on and a Dad in marketing donated some fun items from his business.  You can find unused items at garage sales or a friend my have some new things she would like to get rid of. One time a store was selling pencil cases for 5 cents each so I picked some up.

Plan how you will announce it to your families and how long you will run the reward system. Plan on how you will store the music money and what you will do if it is lost or a student or parent gets upset.

Don’t just start passing out music money without a good plan! This is how we get in trouble!  By planning,  you will come up with creative ideas that work best in your studio. What works with one teacher may not work for you. You have to be comfortable with it. If you are a traveling teacher or have no storage space, this contest may not work for you.

I have used this kind of reward system off and on for at least 25 years. It works best for me to use it for a short time period.  Other teachers find it very satisfying to do all year long, every year.

If the idea of giving a reward for something a student should be doing anyway rubs you the wrong way, then don’t get started with music money. You will feel put upon and resentful and the whole thing will be an ordeal and not a fun thing that adds a little interest in your studio. Don’t apologize or get defensive about the way you feel one way or the other.   All teachers are different and that is a good thing!

This file is not currently posted on the web. If you are interested, I will send you the PDF file  if you will email me at my gmail address.  [Due to the large volume of requests, this will be the only way I can reply for the time being.  I will not be able to honor requests that are left as comments here. ]      susanparadis.wordpress.com/contact/

Right Hand, Left Hand

Right Hand, Left Hand

I tend to write things in a series, because as I’ve said before, I make this material for actual students. My new student loves the things I make for him and always looks forward to what I’ve made each week.

This “piece” is very practical. It is his first piece with both hands and it was so rewarding to see the look in his eyes when he realized he was going to use both hands!  I made Right Hand, Left Hand so he would be very successful on the first try, and the color coding did just that. I had prepared him well for stems going up and down. He uses My First Piano Adventures, and so he has done a lot of preparation in both the lesson and the writing book.

If you have a very young student or one with some learning differences, try this color method and I think you will find it to be very successful. I want to mention that the more we can do to help students be successful in piano, the more educated musicians we will have in the future. No, it’s not “dumbing down” teaching piano. It is opening the door to more students. Of course, we could teach the old way where most students drop out of piano, and only the most naturally gifted or extremely dedicated students take, but is that really our goal as teachers?

I am attending the National Piano Teachers Institute at SMU this week. I met one teacher from another state who knew me from my web site. She was a teacher who had suggested one of the ideas I posted. That was so cool!  I hope to post more about the workshop when I have some free time.  Let me just say that if you ever have a chance to see Dennis Alexander in person, please go!

What the Robin Said for beginners

What the Robin Said to the Worm

If your little student never mixes up his 2nd and 4th fingers on at least one hand, you have a very special preschooler. I find that about 100% of my preschoolers have trouble with the 2nd and 4th finger, but most of them eventually get it right. I also get my 2nd and 4th fingers mixed up so I certainly can understand the problems a pre-school child might have. In fact, when I first printed this I noticed that I had reversed those fingers on the little keyboard and I had to do it over again. Because of this reversal problem, I added little blocks to write in finger numbers. If your student is old enough, she can write it in herself. If will also be fine and save some time to discuss it and play various finger games, but you write it in for the student. It depends on the student.

If this is the first time you have seen this kind of music notation, take a look at my Fourth of July blog posting from  a few days ago. There I explain how to teach this kind of graphic. One other thing, be sure to encourage students to drop into the keys. They often have trouble doing that on the black keys, but don’t dwell on it.

I have posted several quick worksheets to help students with finger numbers if they continue to have trouble, even after all the activities in their method book.  Take a look at Colorful Fingers and Writing Finger Numbers if they need extra help.

To print this sheet, click on the title below the picture above. Do not click on the picture because there is no link there.  This will take you to my website where you click “preview” to print out a color PDF copy. Be sure to set your printer on landscape.