New Music

Sale on Books

Posted by Wendy on Nov 18, 2011 in New Music, Piano Teaching | Comments Off

Kristin Yost’s book How I Made $100k My First Year as a Piano Teacher is now on sale at the PianoAccents store.  In addition Neeki Bey’s Africa piano book is also on sale for only $11.  This book contains 10 classic folk and pop songs from the Africa and a play along CD. I believe the sale runs through November.  You can read at least 2 reviews of Kristin’s book here.

MTNA Teacher Enrichment Grants

Posted by Wendy on Oct 7, 2011 in Dollars and Sense, General, Good Deals, Piano Teaching | Comments Off

MTNA has announced that grant applications are now available for the 2012 MTNA Teacher Enrichment Grants.

The purpose of the Teacher Enrichment Grants is to provide assistance to music teachers for private study, specific college-level course work or other projects that will enhance the performing and teaching skills of the applicant. Applicants may apply for a grant in the amount of $250, $500, $750, or $1,000.

The applications and guidelines for the Teacher Enrichment Grants can be found on the Foundation Fund website on this page. Applications should include the original and three (3) copies of all materials. Materials submitted must be postmarked by January 9, 2012.

Free Christmas CD

Posted by Wendy on Oct 5, 2011 in Good Deals, New Music, Piano Teaching | Comments Off

It’s that time of year when we teachers begin looking for interesting Christmas music for ourselves and our students.  If you want this years’ Christmas recital to contain some really memorable arrangements, I’d invite you to listen to check out the All is Calm, All is Bright book.

Now through October 14th, if you order the All is Calm, All is Bright Christmas book, you will automatically receive a free CD for every book purchased!  This CD contains all of the 13 arrangements in the All is Calm book and is sure to add some spice to your holiday listening.

Teachers and musicians have described this collection as “innovative, fresh and sophisticated settings of holiday music.”  Another reviewer wrote that this collection “…captures the many moods of Christmas. One minute you sense the laughter of children running and jumping in excitement, playing games or dancing along to familiar tunes. The next minute, you experience the quiet of the holy child asleep in the manger, while the great expanse of the universe reverently observes the moment.” Read more reviews here.

Here are a few samples:

It Came upon a Midnight Clear
Angels We Have Heard on High
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
Deck the Hall Hoedown
Ding Dong Merrily on High
and eight more (including the beautiful In the Bleak Mid-winter)!
64 pages of music

Order by Friday and you will receive the CD for free! (Though the covers are different, the music is the same.  The covers are different because they were produced at different times and by different publishers.)

All is Calm, All is Bright Book
64 pages
$20.00 Plus free CD until 10/14

Discount on Rhythm Menagerie Expires September 20th!

Posted by Wendy on Sep 19, 2011 in Good Deals, Piano Teaching | Comments Off

I’ve been so excited with the response from all of you about the new Rhythm Menagerie! Tomorrow is the last day to get the $5 off by entering code “RMLaunch” in the coupon box of your shopping cart.  Please let your teaching friends know that the deadline is September 20th.

If you have purchased Rhythm Menagerie and have questions, you may find the answer on the Rhythm Menagerie Tips page.  If your questions are not answered there, please send me an email and I’ll be happy to help!

40% off Hal Leonard Fall Catalogue

Posted by Wendy on Sep 15, 2011 in Good Deals, Piano Teaching | Comments Off

Hal Leonard’s beautiful fall catalogue is now out and you can receive a 40% savings off many titles including:

• Hal Leonard Method Books
• Christmas music
• Fall music including Scatterbrained Scarecrow!
• The new Piano Teacher’s Guide to Creative Composition by Carol Klose
• New titles
• Much more…there’s way too much to mention here!

As usual, there are some special offers if you order above a certain amount.  Be sure to enter ad code EP911 at check out.  Offer expires January 15, 2012.

Also, if you are a member of the Hal VIP club, you can get 40% off selected duets and ensembles during the month of September.  Here’s the info about that promotion.  If you don’t belong to the HL VIP program, here’s how to join.

New! Rhythm Menagerie: Explorations in Rhythm

Posted by Wendy on Sep 6, 2011 in Games and Activities, Music for Teaching, New Music | 6 comments

Rhythm Menagerie is an exciting, reproducible PDF resource that features fun and intriguing activities to explore new rhythmic concepts. Rhythm Menagerie is much more than just a set of your typical clapping exercises!  Each unit showcases a unique animal and often incorporates some of the fun antics of that animal in the student’s activities. Students will learn about the crazy looking Tarsier, the beautiful Wingtipped Nightjar, the Jerboa Jumping Mouse, the Javan Flying Frog and much more!

Rhythm Menagerie is designed to take away distractions like note reading so that students can focus on learning new rhythms.  This 92 page PDF resource is designed to be a comprehensive approach to teaching and practicing rhythm and can be used alongside any method.  It is designed to be used in private lessons, but can easily be incorporated into group lessons as you will see in this video:

There are 8 units in Book 1 and each unit includes 11 pages of activities for the new rhythm concept.  Giving the student only 1 page each week will create excitement for completing the activity and anticipation for the next activity.  Each unit includes the following:

• An introductory page explaining the new rhythm concept as well as 5 different ways to practice it on the first week it is introduced:
   
• Single line rhythm pages in 3 different levels.  Here’s a sample of the Level 1 and 2 single line rhythms in Unit 1.
   
• Two-handed rhythm pages in 3 different levels.  Here’s a sample of Level 2 and 3 two-handed rhythms in Unit 3.
   
• Fun with sounds rhythm pages in 3 different levels.  Here’s a sample of Level 1 “Fun with Sounds” from Unit 6 and 2.
  
• And a stunning certificate of completion for each unit.
  

The rhythmic concepts covered in Book 1 include:

• Quarter and Half notes
• Dotted half notes
• Whole notes
• Quarter rests and ties
• Half rests and whole rests
• Eighth notes
• Eighth rests
• Dotted quarter notes

To order Rhythm Menagerie, simply place it in your cart and checkout!  You can either use your Paypal Account or pay with a credit card if you have no account. A link to your product will appear when you return to the site after you have paid.  This link will also appear in the email receipt you will receive at the address with which you paid on Paypal. Simply download the PDF file and save it to your computer, then print as many pages as you need whenever you need them!  Go to the store and click on the Rhythm Menagerie cover to see even more samples.

  $34.99
Visit the tips page to see how students can help pay for your printing costs. 

Do you have other questions about using Rhythm Menagerie?  Visit the Rhythm Menagerie Tips page.

Visit the store to see other products from ComposeCreate.com

*Music on the Rhythm Menagerie video is provided by IMMusic Inc. who also created the orchestrations for Wendy’s Returning to the Piano book.  Check out their free jingles to use in your own creative activities.