Last Thursday evening we held our fifth Olympic Event of the year (The Olympic Events are part of my practice incentive this year, which is titled “Go For the Gold.” After the year is over, I’ll compile all the materials and add it to my selection of practice incentive programs available for purchase.). My objective for this event was to help students learn the definitions of basic musical terms that it seems like I’m always having to remind them of during their lessons. As in…student has played their piece and I ask them what the tempo of the piece should be. Invariably I get a glazed-over look as if to say, “I have no idea what you’re talking about…I’ve never heard that word before…” So I remind them for the 47th time what the word tempo means. I was determined that after Thursday night I would never have to remind any of the attending students again what any of these terms mean (Realistic? I doubt it…but I’ve never been known for being a particularly realistic person. Idealism suits me much better… ). The six terms I chose for the night were: Tempo, Dynamics, Articulation, Mood, Key Signature, and Key, but the following activities could be adapted to any terms of your choosing.

Here’s the outline for the evening detailed descriptions of each of the activities:
* Terms That Stretch My Brain Object Lesson
I got this idea from a children’s conference I attended years ago and I just love it! (My students loved it too and kept asking, “How are you doing that? Are you magic?”) Here are step-by-step instructions for how to conduct this activity:

1. Print out the Terms That Stretch My Brain cards and display sign on cardstock paper. Cut along the dashed lines.

2. Introduce each term one at a time to the group of students. Have a student volunteer come to the front of the room and hold the term card in one hand and the definition card in the other hand. Say the term and definition once and then have all the students repeat it together after you (e.g. “Tempo means rate of speed”, “Key Signature means the sharps or flats notated at the beginning of the piece.”) Continue this process with each of the terms and definitions, having a new student volunteer come to the front and hold each pair. After adding each new term, review all the previous terms by having the students recite them together as you point to each student volunteer.

3. Collect the pairs from each student, placing the cards face down and making two separate stacks with all the terms in one stack and all the definitions in the other stack. Be sure that the location of the cards in the stack corresponds to the matching card in the other stack. Once all the cards are stacked, place one stack on top of the other. Shuffle the cards by placing the top card on the bottom until the students give the signal for you to stop. Count out six cards off the top and place them one at a time face down in a stack. Place the remaining six cards beside it without counting the cards off the top.

4. Refer to your Terms That Stretch My Brain display sign and tell the students that you will place the top card of either stack on the bottom of that stack for each letter of the word “Terms.” At any time one of the students can yell switch and you must switch to the other stack, placing the top card on the bottom. Once you move the card for the last letter of the word, flip over the top card on one of the stacks. Show it to the students and ask them if they can correctly recite either the matching term or definition (depending on which one is on the card you already showed them). Once they do so, flip over the card on the top of the other pile to see if they are correct. The top of the other card will be the match for the first card. If they are correct, let that student hold the matching pair. Continue the same process with each of the words on the display sign. Amazingly, the top cards on each pile will be a matching pair every time!

* Making Musical Term Posters

I divided the students into four groups and assigned each group a term (Tempo, Dynamics, Articulation, Mood). Their job was to design a poster for that term, including the term name and definition that we learned and all the symbols or other terms that would be included in that category. (e.g. Dynamics would include crescendo and diminuendo marks, forte and piano symbols, etc.) I had a stack of music dictionaries available for reference and the students had fun looking things up and learning new words (ever heard of Allegrissimo?). I also provided each group with a sheet of posterboard and lots of markers, crayons, colored pencils and stickers. After the allotted time was up, I had each group stand at the front of the room and show their poster to the other students and explain the symbols and terms they included on it.

* Performances
For the performance time, the students took their turns according to their term groupings. All the students from the Tempo group went first. As each of them played, the observing students were instructed to listen specifically for musical sounds they heard that related to Tempo. After each performance, we shared what things we heard, reinforcing the vocabulary of terms they learned while designing their posters. We followed the same procedure for each of the other three term categories.

We had a really great time and went over our scheduled hour and a half by almost 20 minutes. I told the students that I’ll keep their posters in the studio and if they come across new terms in their pieces or by doing their own research we can add them to the posters. I even agreed to give them extra points if they came up with new terms that aren’t already on the posters. And maybe, just maybe, in addition to having fun they’ll even start to become fluent in this often elusive language of music.

Last night we had a group class in the studio. Our focus for the evening was on “listening,” to correspond with the previous five-week session of our incentive program this year. In between performances we played listening-related games - Team Rhythmic Dictation, Team Melodic Dictation and Interval BINGO in pairs.

GAME #1: Team Rhythmic Dictation

Here’s part of the group that attended the class. I forgot to take pictures of the team rhythmic dictation, but it’s pretty easy to figure out. Here’s a basic run-down of the rules:
1. Split the students into two teams.
2. Give each team a set of note and rest value cards (just print these and cut them out; for better durability, I recommend laminating them and then cutting them out).
3. Specify the time signature and number of measures (we just used pencils as bar lines).
4. Give a count-in and then play a rhythm pattern on the piano.
5. Each team places the note and rest value cards in front of them to accurately reflect the rhythm pattern that you played.
6. Play three times to give them time to check their pattern for accuracy.
7. Correct any inaccuracies and then have everyone clap and count the pattern together.

GAME #2: Team Melodic Dictation

1. Split the students into two teams.
2. Give each team 5 bean bags and a giant-sized grand staff (this is one that I got from a retiring teacher several years ago that is drawn onto a large piece of vinyl - you can also purchase a giant-sized grand staff floor mat)
3. Specify the starting note for the melodic pattern and have them place the first bean bag in place (I used the smiley face ball for that purpose!)
4. Play a melodic 5-note pattern and have the students place the remaining bean bags in the correct places on the staff. I started out only playing only 2nds for the first couple of patterns, then I incorporated 3rds as well.
5. Switch teams and repeat the process for the second team. Alternate back and forth, with each team accumulating one point for correctly notating the pattern.

GAME #3: Interval BINGO

1. Group the students into pairs.
2. Give each pair a magnetic dry erase board, marker and handful of magnets.
3. Have them section the board as shown in the picture above.
4. Instruct each pair to randomly place intervals in each of the squares as follows: 2-2nds, 2-3rds, 2-4ths, 2-5ths, 2-6ths, 1-7th and 1-8ve.
5. Play an interval on the piano for the students to identify by ear.
6. Instruct students to place a magnet (or magnets) on the interval that you played. Once they have 4-in-a-row down, 3-in-a-row across or 3-in-a-row diagonally they should yell, “Interval!”
7. Check to see if the intervals marked on their board with the magnets match the intervals that you played. If so, that teams wins!

All of these games seemed to be a hit with the students and I was able to adapt the dictation ones on the spot to match the levels of the students. I’ve been trying to work with my students more on listening to their playing as well. It was exciting to hear several of them actually hold out the last note of their pieces for the full value (even with fermatas!) and not hop off the bench and run back to their seat as soon as they hit the last note. Ah, the little signs of progress that thrill a teacher’s heart!

Check out these digital flashcards! You can find note names, key signatures, intervals, triads, piano note names, reading piano notes, guitar note names and reading guitar notes - all at the click of a mouse! You can even set specific parameters in most of the categories so that it is appropriate for the level of the student using it. Doesn’t this seem more fun than traditional paper flashcards? I can envision using it during a lesson with a student or giving it to them as an at-home assignment. And I’ll definitely be including it in my list of websites that have games or activities students can complete to earn extra points.

In September of last year I made several sets of scale blocks. I’ve been using them periodically during lessons, but I decided to make more of a concerted effort to use them as a teaching and reinforcement tool with my students. Joey just finished learning all of his major scales, thanks to the aid and motivation of the scale chart in the front of his assignment book. Before we move on to the minor scales I told him that I want him to be able to immediately recall how many sharps or flats each key has and what they are. For example, I would say, “A Major” and he would reply, “3 sharps - F#,C#,G#.” I decided that step one toward that goal would be memorizing the order of sharps and flats. Enter: scale blocks!

After discussing how to figure out the pattern initially, Joey arranged the blocks in the correct order. I timed him and it took 25 seconds. I gave him 2 more chances to beat his time and he decreased it substantially each time, with a final time of 7 seconds. Next week at his lesson he’s going to see if he can beat that record! We repeated the same process with the flats. Part of his assignment this week is to write the complete order out on the staff in his manuscript book each day of the week in both bass and treble clef while saying their names out loud.

We both had fun and decided that using scale blocks is a great way to memorize the order of sharps and flats!

I’m going to continue trying to squeeze out my creative juices to come up with other fun ways to use the scale blocks. Does anyone else have any ideas they’d be willing to share?

Have you seen D’Net’s new website? It is loaded with all sorts of free downloadable worksheets and game ideas and now that she has her new site up, everything is categorized and easy to find. You must check it out!

A while back I started instituting this Mystery Song Game idea and it’s been a ton of fun! When a student finishes one of their method books I give them one week to prepare for the game. The following week we take turns with one of us playing a song and the other one turning around or closing their eyes so that they can’t see the book. The one not playing has to guess which song the other one played. I give the student extra points (or balls, dollars, etc. depending on what our incentive program is for the year) if they correctly identify the song I play and if they play a song well enough so that I can identify it. This way they have the potential to earn quite a few points and they are very motivated to do a lot of reviewing that week, which, of course, is the whole point of the game!

We just finished up a 5-week session focusing on rhythm and sight-reading in my studio, so at our group event last Thursday I decided to play a game related to rhythm. I grabbed my rhythm chart, cut slips of paper into squares with numbers 1-9 written on each card (I wrote each number on four different slips so that there were four complete sets of numbers), and packed up three dry erase boards and markers.

Here’s how the game worked:
1. Students were divided into three teams.
2. The first team selected a representative to go to the piano and play the rhythm patterns.
3. The team representative selected the slips of paper from a bag (the team determined together how many slips they wanted the representative to draw).
4. As they drew the slips, they lined them up in order on the music rack.
5. The representative could take a few minutes to look over the chart and prepare, then he/she counted in and played the rhythm patterns in succession while their team listened and tried to determine which blocks they played and in which order. (I held the chart up so that it was visible to both the representative playing the rhythm at the piano and the rest of the team trying to determine what was played.)
6. The team wrote the rhythm block numbers on the dry erase board in the order they thought each was played and was given three chances to listen to the rhythm before showing their final answer.
7. The other teams also listened and tried to determine the correct rhythm blocks.
8. After the third playing of the rhythm, the team displayed their answer. If they were correct, they received 10 points times the number of slips of paper drawn. If they were incorrect, the other teams could show their answers and receive 5 points times the number of slips of paper drawn if they were correct.

This proved to be a very engaging game that required students both to accurately play and identify rhythm patterns. It also proved to be more challenging for the students than they first expected. One team attempted a six block pattern, but missed one. Four blocks at a time ended up being the most popular choice. It turned out to be a lot of fun!

If you have not been to D’Net’s site lately, you have got to head right over there! She has been working up a storm designing a bunch of new games and worksheets and has them all posted and available for free download on her games page! I’ve been printing like crazy (now my printer is having issues, so I’m sending the rest to our local printer to have them printed for me) and can hardly wait to use these great new teaching materials.

I’m really excited about these Finger Number Cards that are designed as a pre-reading sight-reading sort-of worksheet. I’m getting ready to start a big sight-reading challenge and have just been wondering what to use for my students that aren’t playing on the staff yet. These will be perfect!

You’ll also want to print all 30 of these wonderful Interval Cards to help reinforce intervallic reading with your students.

And definitely don’t miss these Tic-Tac-Toe Cards that you can use to help your students get really good at identifying notes on the staff. She has different variations of the cards for different ranges of notes.

What a treasure trove D’Net has made available!

Inspired by this Bag O’ Blocks and several others like it that I’ve seen, I decided to try making my own scale blocks. I could have just bought this wonderful set from Music Educator’s Marketplace, but I wanted to have several octave sets and couldn’t afford to buy more than one.

So, I began my creative endeavor with the following supplies:

60 one-inch wooden blocks, matte finish craft paint, 4 one-inch paint sponges, small paint brush, a can of clear acrylic sealer (also matte finish)

Step 1:

Make sure I know what I’m doing. I drew up this little diagram so that I would know which blocks needed to be painted white-black-white-black and which ones needed to be painted white-white-white-black.

Step 2:

Start painting! I painted white first that way if there was overlap, the black would cover it up.

Step 4:

Keep painting! Since there were two sides that didn’t need key names, I decided to paint them in my studio colors: red and yellow. The longest part of this project was painting all the key names. It would have probably worked (and definitely been faster!) to use a paint pen, rather than a brush, but I didn’t have any on hand and didn’t feel like making a run to the store.

Step 5:

The paint dried very fast, so as soon as I finished the last key name I took them outside and sprayed them with the acrylic sealer. I left them out to dry for about 10 minutes, then turned them over and sprayed the other side. After about another 10-15 minutes, they were done. (I definitely advise using a sealer. It was amazing how much better the blocks looked and felt after they were sprayed with it. I can tell they will last longer this way!)

Step 6:

Bag them up, with two complete octaves per set, and think of lots of ways to use them! I’ve already used the scale blocks at least 5 times this week and hope to post some specific ideas in the future. They are such a blast!

For our Mid-Winter Ball, the theme was “an evening of serious music - experience the masterpieces of yesteryear composed by world famous musicians.” Each student played a classical piece and shared a biographical sketch of their composer. The games centered around the composers represented in the performances. Here’s a game that was a favorite!

Composer Trading Game
1. Print and cut out out 8 copies of the Composer Trading Cards
2. Separate each of the composers into his own stack. (There are 20 different composers.)
3. Select as many composers as you have students playing the game and mix them into one deck. (e.g. If you have 10 students, select 10 of the composers and include all 8 cards with that composer in the final deck of cards.)
4. Pass out 8 cards to each player or pair. (I paired students up at the beginning of the evening and they played this game in pairs.)
5. When you give the signal to begin, every player has to try to trade cards with the other players in an effort to collect all of the same composer. This is accomplished by holding out the cards they desire to trade face down and calling out the number of cards they are trading. (If you’re familiar with the game, Pit, that’s what this is patterned after.) Only cards picturing the same composer may be traded in a single trade. (e.g. A player may hold out a set of 3 cards with Schubert, but not 3 cards with Schubert, Grieg and Mozart.)
6. Players may change the number of cards they are trading at any time in order to complete a trade with another player.
7. Once a player has collected all 8 cards for one composer, they must ding a bell (or, I had them run to the piano and play the middle C).
8. Check to be sure they have collected all 8 cards!

Here’s a video of the Composer Trading Game in action!