Hope you had a nice Christmas and are enjoying a break from teaching!
Now that Christmas is past, I can share about the gifts I made for my piano students this year. :)
As you may know, I love creating homemade gifts. Last year, I home-recorded a CD of a few favorite classical teaching pieces. In 2012, I baked iced music cookies and in 2011 I created personalized glass sheet music ornaments.
For this year’s project, I decided to compose two pieces (one mid-elementary level and one late intermediate level) and give them to my students for Christmas. Here is a peek at how the elementary piece turned out:
I notated the music using Finale. Using the Export Graphic feature in Finale, I created the layout for the music using a 30-day trial of Adobe InDesign. (Microsoft Word would suffice for most projects if you wanted to do this yourself.) I brought the completed PDF on a flashdrive to Office Max and had the music printed onto 12”x18” paper.
12”x18” paper is apparently not very common in the U.S.. I had planned to print my music at Office Depot, since MTNA members are eligible for a discount using the card (members must login to print the discount card). But the Office Depot near me did not carry 12”x18” paper, which is why I went to Office Max. (By the way, Office Depot and Office Max are in the process of merging since one bought out the other earlier this year. At some point, hopefully the MTNA discount card will work at either store.)
So, the total cost per sheet music came to $1.82, although I used a coupon to take off $35 from the total purchase. If I wanted to make the project more affordable, I certainly could have printed onto 11”x17” paper or printed the cover in black-and-white instead of color. However, I think this is still a pretty affordable gift even if you have quite a few students. I love how it turned out.
I played the pieces for my students at their last lesson before Christmas break. I think they enjoyed the surprise of receiving a piece composed by their teacher! At some point, I’ll try to make and share a video of a student and I playing the Holiday Parade teacher duet together.
As a Christmas gift to you, my dear readers, I offer a PDF download of “Holiday Parade.” All rights are reserved on this composition, however, permission is granted for you to print/copy from the PDF for educational purposes. The PDF contains two versions of the music: 8.5”x11” sized pages that will print well at home, and 12”x18” pages that you could have printed at your local print shop (you could probably request them to print on 11”x17” paper instead if you desire).
Download link here: Note: There is a file embedded within this post, please visit this post to download the file.
I’m also holding a giveaway for hardcopy prints of the sheet music. THREE winners will be randomly chosen on Friday, January 9, 2014 to receive two print copies of Holiday Parade. To enter, leave a comment below sharing about a memorable gift you gave or received this year.
Merry Christmas, my friends! Thanks for reading my blog!
P.S.: Tomorrow, I’d like to share a post with photos of various student gift ideas with pictures sent by piano teachers around the world. If you have a photo to share, would you email it to me? My email is admin[AT]colorinmypiano.com. (Be sure to change the [AT] to the actual @ symbol.)
