4 October 2021 Upright or Grand Piano – Which Better Suits Your Needs?

Upright or Grand Piano – Which Better Suits Your Needs?

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One of the most common questions we are asked when a customer stops into our store to compare the various models of pianos is:

Upright or grand piano, which is the better choice to suit our needs? 

And we get it. The two appear distinctly different. 

On the most basic level, the pianos are designed differently for spatial needs. A grand piano is going to take up considerably more space.  

But the most obvious difference is in the way each piano projects sound. Grand pianos are used in concert settings because of the way they move sound. 

An upright works differently than a grand at producing sound. 

With an upright, the hammer strikes a string from a vertical position. It relies on tapes and springs to make the action work flawlessly each time. 

With a grand, the hammer connects with the string in a horizontal position, relying on gravity to bring it back down into its resting place. 

That difference is what creates a cleaner sound. If you play a note repeatedly on an upright, you can hear the lack of connection as the hammer tries to keep up with the action. If you perform the same maneuver on a grand piano, you’ll have quicker response time, meaning you’ll note a difference in the sound. 

Of course, some manufacturers have worked on limiting this response time on an upright. They use various setups and materials to return the hammers to their original position faster, giving the player more flexibility when creating music. 

To decide which is better for you, it often is determined by what you’re looking for when you play. If space is limited, an upright may be your only choice. If you’re looking for something to fit within the space inside your home, you may have an idea in mind. 

Both uprights and grand pianos can make beautiful additions to any home. It comes down to the sound. 

Want to test several pianos and find the right one for you? Stop by today. 

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28 September 2021 It’s Time To Get Your Piano Ready For Winter

It’s Time To Get Your Piano Ready For Winter

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Winter is a time for many things – skiing, ice skating, playing in the snow. The days grow colder and shorter, meaning you can spend more time at home snuggled under a blanket with a good book. Or gathering around the piano, and practicing your favorite songs. 

While you might love the idea of slowing down and spending more time at home, the changing seasons can impact your piano in many ways. Pianos are a huge investment. Maintaining it is part of ownership, to ensure the craftsmanship is maintained throughout its life. 

When winter sets in and the temperatures dip, changes occur both inside and outside your home. To avoid damage to the internal components, here are a few tips to keep in mind. 

Create a constant humidity level

When the temperatures begin to drop, and you notice a chill inside, it’s only natural to turn up the heat and warm it up to a comfortable level. But with heat circulating throughout your home, it also makes the air drier in the process. Ever noticed you need a little more moisturizer in the winter? That’s because moisture slips from the air. While that dryness may leave you with a stuffy nose and cracked, dry hands, it can also dry out wood and cause piano strings to lose tension. Adding a humidifier to your home will ensure that moisture levels remain constant throughout the year. 

Pay attention to where you place your piano

While humidity levels in your home matter for keeping the wood and strings in good shape, it isn’t the only thing that can dry your piano out. If you place your piano in the wrong place, it can be subjected to sunlight, heat sources, and other things that can damage it. Avoid placing your piano near:

  • Open doors or windows where it receives constant bursts of cold air
  • Near vents 
  • Near a heater
  • Next to a humidifier
  • In direct sunlight

Maintaining your piano throughout the year

Owning a piano means performing small maintenance tasks throughout the year to ensure a long life, and that it sounds great no matter when you sit down to play. That includes:

  • Dusting the piano weekly
  • Covering the keys
  • Playing regularly
  • Tuning your piano
  • Making your piano a junk-free zone
  • Keeping liquids away

With just a little work, your piano will be ready for winter, waiting for you to play more often, or gather around with friends for a few hours of fun. 

Enjoy!

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24 September 2021 Easy Ways To Improve Your Child’s Piano Practice Sessions

Easy Ways To Improve Your Child’s Piano Practice Sessions

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As you start your child’s musical journey, buying a piano and signing up for piano lessons is only the first step in a very long process. 

Imagine your child playing for years to come, enjoying all of the benefits that come along with playing the piano. None of that can occur if your child reaches a plateau, starts dreading piano lessons, and asks to quit for good. 

How can you ensure you pass through these hurdles with ease? How can you encourage your child to keep practicing throughout the years?

Talk with your child about each lesson – ask them to tell you one thing they learned. This interaction can keep the lesson fresh in their mind, and turn it into a positive experience even when they’re in a difficult place. 

Be there to help them talk through their weekly goals – sometimes a child can get lost in the sameness of the routine. Be there for them to talk through what they learned for the lesson, and how they’ll apply it to their daily routine. 

Establish routines – while they are practicing, what routines can others in your family have? Maybe it’s a quiet time for you to read and relax. Or start dinner if the kitchen’s nearby. If all have a routine and stick with the schedule, it becomes natural as brushing your teeth. 

Have impromptu concerts as they accomplish new goals – how about recording a video for a grandparent or other loved one far away? Thanks to technology, you can showcase five minutes of talent anytime, and bring all of your friends and family in on advancements. 

Why not turn your student into a teacher – have you wanted to learn the piano too? Why not have your child teach you a few things too? Then you can work on increasing your knowledge, and enjoy the results together.

Encourage creating their own pieces – with the skills they learn along the way, why not have your child develop their own songs? Then have them perform them for everyone in your family. 

One of the best ways to improve piano practice is to stay engaged throughout the process. If you’re excited, they’ll be excited. And they may just become a budding musician they’ve been dreaming about. 

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21 September 2021 How To Find The Right Students For Your Piano Studio

How To Find The Right Students For Your Piano Studio

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Building a thriving piano studio takes a lot of hard work. 

Buying a piano and building a studio around it can be the fun part. Seeing your business cards and website for the first time can be rewarding. 

But you can start to question everything if you take on the wrong clientele and don’t enjoy what you do. 

That’s why initial consultations are so important. 

Before you agree to take on any new prospective student, initial consultations with both the student and the family are important to set the ground rules before you begin. Consider adding consultations to:

  • Allow you to meet the student and parents face to face before the lessons start.
  • To learn their goals, assess what they know, and make a plan to begin. 

This also gives both parties a chance to meet and assess if it’s a good fit. Do you see yourself working together long term? This is important from both of your perspectives. 

Consultations will fall into two categories: new students and transfer students. A lot of who you attract depends on what you put out to the world. 

Is your expertise designed around introducing piano to new students? Or do you work better with experienced piano players, helping them refine their goals and techniques? 

When you define your ideal client, you can build your practice around those types of students, and utilize what you learn to help attract more with the same goals and desires. Use this in your marketing and you’ll weed out prospects who don’t meet your standards. 

For your initial consultations, create a system that helps you analyze your prospective clients. Things you can have them bring include:

  • A filled-in questionnaire to help you understand their goals – this gives you a starting point for conversation
  • A piece of music they can play for you
  • A calendar to discuss potential lesson time slots
  • Audio or video of past performances
  • Q&A for you

Tailor this for who your client is. New students might bring in ideas for things they wish to play in the future, while transferring students could share more about past performances and goals for the future. 

Remember, initial consultations are as much for your new students as they are for you.

What do you wish to convey to the students and their parents before you begin working together? Don’t worry if you don’t have this all figured out. As you grow and learn, you can continue to build a more comprehensive consultation to help you bring in the very best students for you. 

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17 September 2021 Running a Successful Private Piano Practice

Running a Successful Private Piano Practice

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Love playing the piano? Want to run a successful private piano practice to help others fall in love with the piano too? 

It takes more than printing a business card and shouting it out on your Facebook newsfeed. Running a successful private piano practice takes time and commitment to build a piano studio people love to do business with. Where do you start?

Start with your teaching statement

Successful businesses start with a plan. You can do that by creating a teaching statement – why do you want to start and grow a private piano practice? What do you hope to accomplish? What do you want to share with your audience? What kind of experience do you hope to create for your students? How can you share that in everything you do? With this in hand, it makes it easier to build your website, your marketing materials, and your studio space. 

Find a teaching space

One of the first things you’ll have to create is your teaching space. Luckily, this can be just about anywhere in today’s world. Are you giving lessons virtually, or meeting students in person? Will you be creating videos, or will it all be one-on-one help? With a quick search online, you can get ideas from other piano practices and use them as guides. Be sure to make your space easy to find, and comfortable to use whenever you need access. If it’s in a school or office building, will you have access to it for weekend lessons or performances? Can you operate from there after school and into the evenings? Be sure the space works with your schedule, and has all the materials you’ll need, including a functional piano. 

Set your rates 

This can be one of the most difficult processes for private piano practices. It’s easy to look at what other instructors around you are charing, lowballing it if you’re new. But that doesn’t give you what you need to run a successful practice, nor does it take into account your expenses. 

First, figure out what your expenses will be. How much income do you need to make this a successful business? With these as your guidelines, you can start building your rates and packages around it. 

Piano instructors usually charge one of two ways: by the hour, or by the month/term. Research both and figure out which gives you a stable income to help you stay in business all year long. 

Create your policies

How many things do you sign a contract for? It’s a part of our daily process. Your piano practice should also have policies set to ensure your students understand how you operate. Include things like make up lessons, cancellations, and scheduling changes. Ensure you both sign and get a copy. Then stick with it to ensure your studio stays on track. 

Build your framework

To create a successful process means establishing systems for everything you do. 

How will you attract new clients? 

How will you manage the clients you have? 

How will you create your lesson plans? 

How will you handle billing? 

While you don’t have to understand every nuance of building a private piano practice upfront, as you discover more aspects of building a business, it’s important to put a framework to it. Systems help with efficiency. And to be someone who gets referrals from the community regularly, the stronger you build your systems, the easier it will be to handle new work. 

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14 September 2021 Have You Ever Thought Of Online Piano Recitals?

Have You Ever Thought Of Online Piano Recitals?

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Nothing beats listening to a concert in person. That’s something we all thought pre-pandemic. Now we’re rethinking everything. 

While in-person recitals still are a great way to take in the hard work your students put into learning music, there are benefits to online piano recitals too. Holding online piano recitals can:

  • Teach kids and parents the latest technology
  • Get kids used to being recorded
  • Give students the opportunity to be comfortable in front of the camera

While online piano recitals might not take the place of playing in person, it may be a time to incorporate them more into your studio’s schedule. 

How do you do that?

Start with a platform

Technology changes every day. If you’re bringing online piano recitals into the mix, do a little research to find out what’s new. You’ll have to consider your current technology as well as what is available to each of your students. 

In general, you can hold a recital live, or have it pre-recorded. If students perform live, you may experience a variety of glitches and cut-outs as people have problems with technology. By having student pre-record their recital pieces, you give them the opportunity to create the best video possible, then use that to create a dynamic presentation to share with the crowd. 

Communicate with your audience

Think through every step of the process. It starts with an email to the parents helping their kids record their performance. Consider giving tip sheets and possibly even an instruction video to make the process as easy as possible. Remember, not all of your students will be technology savvy. Make the process as easy as possible. 

Share with them how to record the recital pieces, what size file to create, how to upload it, where to share it. If you need specifics, be sure you spell that out in your instructions. Give a deadline to ensure people meet your timeframes. 

Put the recital together

Depending on how you’re going to display the recital, you can edit the videos and create a full length recital program. Add a welcome video. Add title screens and applause tracks. 

Be sure to place the final recital video in a private or unlisted playlist if you use a program like YouTube. Also request parents and students leave the link to the video private, without posting it to social media accounts like Facebook. This is protection for everyone in the class, especially for those who prefer their images aren’t placed online. 

Have you experienced an online piano recital? What tips or strategies worked for you? 

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10 September 2021 How To Teach Piano Virtually

How To Teach Piano Virtually

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If the past year has taught us anything, it’s that we can teach just about anything online. 

Want to move your business online? Want to teach piano virtually? It’s possible, and it doesn’t have to be difficult or complicated. 

You don’t need a high-tech studio. Instead, you need a plan and the ability to see, hear, and listen to your students. To support them as they achieve their own goals and learn piano from the comfort of their own homes. 

What you need is:

  • Any device with a built-in camera. While a smartphone will do, upgrading to a tablet or laptop will give you more flexibility in the way you set up your space. 
  • Access to the music your student will be using.
  • A place to set your device, such as a music stand, so you can work with your student efficiently.

As your studio space becomes more sophisticated, you can consider adding things like:

  • Headphones – they can help avoid feedback, and may make the communication clearer between you and your student.
  • External microphone – it can make your communication clearer, especially if you’re working in a group format. 
  • Tripod – if you move or change angles, a tripod can make the process seamless. 
  • Apps and programs – Zoom is a great way to get started. But the more comfortable you get with teaching virtually, the more programs you can incorporate into your lessons. 

Let’s get down to teaching the piano virtually:

When it comes to actually teaching online, it may take a few tries to adapt to a learning style that works best for your needs. 

The first step will be to instruct your student setup formats. Once you have this down, it will be easy to replicate for other students. Consider creating an intro class – you can even video this and provide it as a part of your welcoming packet – where you describe how to set up student space for effective learning. You can provide low or no cost ways to connect virtually, and have guidelines for setting up play space so you can both move throughout the training effectively. 

Because you won’t be sitting near your student, you’ll have to use words to direct your students. Learn to listen to the way they play. Direct a student to change angles if you want to see posture or hand placement. Discover what works best for you to stop them mid-play and teach them improvement techniques. 

Don’t hesitate to demonstrate the skills you’re teaching. But remember, communication will be everything. You’ll have to pay attention to sounds and visual cues to pick up on how your students are managing. 

The key is in booking your first lesson, and moving forward and trying. We’re all on a learning curve. You can modify your classes over time. Teaching virtually is something you’ll perfect as you go. 

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7 September 2021 How To Return To Piano Lessons After Summer Break

How To Return To Piano Lessons After Summer Break

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Summertime. It’s a time for relaxing, playing with your friends, and spending time at the swimming pool. It’s a time for summer vacations, and for leaving your cares behind for at least a little while.

For most families, that also means forgetting normal routines. You can start those up again once structure returns to your daily lives. Push aside piano lessons for a bit, and wait until the school year returns. 

But like everything, if you don’t make something a practice, you start to lose your ability. You forget the individual nuances that made your piano practice routine possible. 

Before you return to your weekly piano lessons, slowly bring the piano back into your lives by doing these few things. 

Start with warm-ups

If your child has taken piano lessons for any length of time, they know warm-ups are part of a normal practice. It gets your fingers and wrists into the game, and your mind on what you hope to accomplish. Let your child do a few things they enjoy. Practice scales. Play easy songs. Play music they enjoy. This will give them a positive reason to get back into the piano practice routine. 

Check posture

Kids can grow almost overnight. When was the last time you ensured their piano stool met their needs? Take a few minutes and see how they sit. Are they correctly placed at the keyboard? Also make sure they are sitting properly on the bench. No slouching. 

Check out new games

Every time you look at the app store, new games pop up, ready to be played. Do a quick search and see what’s new. Are there challenging piano games they might enjoy? This can get them back into the basics, and make them want to jump into playing the piano once again. 

Play with a group

Birds of a feather … Chances are if your child enjoys music, they have friends that enjoy it as well. Why not bring the gang together to make music? You can think beyond piano players – violins, guitars, flutes, even the drums can bring variety to practice sessions and allow your child to explore their creativity. Other parents may also enjoy the process. 

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4 September 2021 Ready To Start Your Child On Piano Lessons This Fall? Do These 5 Things First

Ready To Start Your Child On Piano Lessons This Fall? Do These 5 Things First

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Guiding kids in the right direction is a hands-on task. Every year you help them choose classes and sign up for activities that’ll make a difference in their lives. You hope to give them the skills that will make them happy, successful adults. 

Maybe that’s why you’re leaning towards piano lessons for your child. If you’ve done any research, you know it’s a skill that’ll make a difference in their lives from this point forward. It’s the one activity they can continue pursuing until they are 100 years old. 

You’ve made the decision. You’re ready to start your child on piano lessons. What should you do before they walk into the first lesson?

Buy a quality piano

Make sure it’s a quality piano, as you can find so many different options on today’s marketplace. A quality piano should have good tonal quality, be tuned, and provide your child with advancement as they improve. This isn’t something they’ll be able to do on a little toy piano. Acoustic pianos are wonderful options, and they come in a range of sizes and prices. If you want digital, that’s an option too. 

Get an adjustable piano stool

Depending on the age of your child, they will grow quickly. An adjustable piano stool gives them the option of changing the settings as they grow. It’s important to remain comfortable while sitting at the piano to avoid strain and injury while playing. 

Bring piano music into your lives

Depending on your child’s age, they might not realize how the piano is incorporated into today’s music. Let them listen to piano music in a variety of genres. Consider taking them to a concert so they can see the piano in action. Watch YouTube videos from their favorite music, showing them how their idols play the piano too. This sets them up for a desire for learning. 

Set clear expectations

Before they start their first lesson, talk about the experience. Tell them what they’ll face working with a teacher, and expectations at home during the week. Listen to their ideas, and use that to build up a practice routine. Would they prefer before school or after? Length of time doesn’t constitute good practice. Regular practice is better with clearly defined goals for each session. 

Commit to the routine yourself

Kids won’t commit if they don’t feel it from their parents. Set aside the time to ensure your child becomes successful at playing the piano. You can use the time they practice to do something for yourself. This gives you free time too. Or use the time to sit down and listen on occasion. It can be a great way to bond with your child. 

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28 August 2021 What’s The Best Age To Start Piano Lessons

What’s The Best Age To Start Piano Lessons

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When you have small children in the house, you’re constantly looking for ways to peak their creativity. You introduce art, keep them active, and share great music. 

To keep their artistic talents budding, it’s only natural to put them in classes to express themselves freely. Sign them art for painting? Of course. How about piano lessons? Sure, it’s a great way to introduce them to music. 

But when is the perfect time to start? What’s the best age for piano lessons? Is there such a thing as too soon? 

Learning something new as a child can have a dramatic impact on their lives. They may fall in love with it and turn it into a career. Or they may just find something they love that will be impactful throughout their lives. Either way, it’s up to you to introduce different activities in the right way. 

When a child is ready for piano lessons

While there isn’t an age too young for music, there is an appropriate time for starting piano lessons. It has more to do with the structure of their hands than what they’re capable of learning and retaining. 

Piano lesson readiness varies, and isn’t necessarily dependent on age. Instead, you should look for:

Hand size – to play the piano, you need to stretch your fingers comfortably on the keys to be able to touch five white keys next to each other. 

Dexterity – each finger will have to move independently of one another. 

Interest in playing the piano – if a child wants nothing to do with sitting and playing, there’s little you can do to motivate them. They need a desire to create music to ensure they stick with piano lessons. 

If you do a search on finding the best age to introduce piano lessons to your child, you’ll find advice ranging from age 2 to 7. Because children progress at different speeds and have interests in different subject matters, timing depends on when they’re ready cognitively and functionally. 

Once they reach that point, it’s up to you to pique their interests and find the right teachers to help keep them committed to creating music for years to come. 

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