I love arbitrary holidays. I have a calendar on my studio wall created by Sandra Boynton called Every Day’s a Fabulous Holiday. Because of that calendar, we’ve recently celebrated Static Electricity Day (Jan 9), Learn Your Name in Morse Code Day (Jan 11), Kazoo Day (Jan 28), Ice Cream for Breakfast Day (Feb. 6).
You may have seen that January 21st of this year was the 21st day of the 21st year of the 21st century. Nothing special happened on that day for me, this year or any year as far as I can recall but now it’s kind of special because of that distinction. (If your birthday is January 21, Happy birthday, 32 days ago!)
For all us math lovers, March 14 is truly a day to celebrate as Pi day. Pi, in case you aren’t familiar, is the mathematical equation of the circumference of a circle divided by its diameter. In decimal form, the value of pi is approximately 3.14. As a lover of puns, I’m planning to serve pizza pie for dinner with buttermilk pie for dessert. Not the most nutritious meal but definitely memorable.
Another remarkable day in March is the 29th. What’s so special about the 29th you ask? Well, it is the 88th day of the year! Since most acoustic pianos have 88 keys, March 29th is officially Piano Day.
I’m not joking, there’s a website and everything. If you go to the Piano Day website, you will be able to see how others around the world are celebrating this special day. Be sure to click the black and white tiles at the top of their home page to create a fun, musical sound. There is even a Spotify playlist you can add to your Spotify library and listen to beautiful, new piano music.
Listen to the full episode here
To do our part to celebrate Piano Day, we are hosting a practice incentive for the whole month of March.
To do our part to celebrate Piano Day, we are hosting a practice incentive for the whole month of March.
Really, the timing couldn’t be better. March is the middle of the spring semester, a time that sometimes brings a lull in practice motivation. For my studio, the beginning of the spring semester was focused primarily on theory exam prep for the Texas Music Teachers Association theory program. Now that that is complete, we will soon turn our attention to spring recital prep. During this middle zone, I like to offer my students another goal to aim for.
In his book, Atomic Habits, and on his blog, James Clear often talks about the importance of getting started. He talks about removing things that would hinder you from beginning a new habit and participating in it regularly.
Learning to play the piano depends heavily on good and consistent practice habits. Just getting your piano kid to the piano is the biggest hurdle. If we can get them to the piano in a fun and engaging way, the practice and the improvement, and the growth will come as a natural by-product.
While our piano kids will enjoy playing a practicing game this month, we know that the real goal is just getting them to the piano, getting them started in a practice session. A fun practice incentive can be just the thing to bring them to the piano.
March Pianogram BINGO
This year, that practice incentive is March Pianogram BINGO.
Did you ever play BINGO as a kid? It’s a fun and easy game that everyone can enjoy together. The original game was called Lotto and dates back to 1530 in Italy.
According to an article at MuseumofPlay.org,
Bingo was popularized in the United States due to the ingenuity of Edwin S. Lowe. In 1929 Lowe, a traveling New York salesman, spotted a carnival as he passed through Georgia. There he noticed a crowded booth where people were playing a game with hand-stamped boards and beans. He learned that the game was called “Beano,” and that the game operator derived the activity from a lotto game that he had played in Europe. Back in New York, Lowe experimented with numerical combinations on the Beano boards and invited his friends to test out the game. As the legend goes, one of his guests mistakenly called out “bingo” instead of “beano” after a winning combination of numbers and the new name stuck.
For our March Practice Incentive, I’ve created a few BINGO cards with practice prompts on them. One square says, “Perform with your eyes closed”, another says, “Perform for someone online”. Keeping with the times, there are squares to remind piano kids to clean their piano keys and sanitize their hands. Or course there is a square to take a piano selfie on our special day, March 29th!
While I’ve made the March Pianogram BINGO cards available to you. Exactly HOW you use them is entirely up to you. You can have an in-house contest to see which piano kid BINGOs first. You could get involved in the game with your piano kids (In fact, I’ve got a special edition BINGO card for piano parents that I’ll tell you how to get in a bit.)
Piano teachers, you can host a studio-wide challenge and post results on your studio’s Facebook page or website. I know there are several studio apps that allow you to create challenges within the app. Post a BINGO card and have your students annotate theirs as they score practice squares and then share the completed card once they get five squares in a row. You may have to set your own ground rules as well, like, you can only mark up to two squares per day. This will encourage practice sessions over a series of days rather than cramming all their practices into the day before their lesson.
Really, you are only limited by your imagination.
A Little Friendly Competition
In my studio, I will share the first BINGO card with my students via text and I will ask them to mark their card on their phone and send me a screenshot of their winning card. With their permission, I will share that on my studio’s Facebook page. Then, I will send them a new card to complete. I plan to make a BINGO board to post in my studio for students who attend their lesson in-person. A little friendly competition is a great motivator!
Saying friendly competition might be a little misleading because we aren’t declaring a single winner. Every student who spends time at their piano is the winner. Every parent who encourages their piano kid to practice and successfully gets them to the piano is the winner. Every teacher who has engaged and prepared students in their lesson is the winner.
I will be sharing some of the BINGO cards on Instagram for you to download and share with your piano kids. However, there are some special edition BINGO cards that I will only share with subscribers to my email list. I’ve got a special edition card for teachers, one for parents, and even one that you can customize yourself. To gain access to those special edition cards, go to www.PianoParentPodcast.com/march or complete the form at the bottom of the show notes for this episode.
Throughout the month of March, I’ll be sharing some of my own BINGO wins along with those of some of my students on Instagram. I’d love for you to follow me. You can find me @pianoparentpodcast.
Tag me there, too, to share how you are celebrating Piano Day on March 29. There’s no reason why we have to wait until then, let’s get the party started today!
Resources mentioned in today's show
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