Category Archives: Group Class Ideas

Monday Mailbag – The Treble Clef Game

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What a great filing system. I’m interested in the treble clef on the side of the tall cabinet. What do you use it for? A game? counting goals?

This is a much-loved game in my studio! It’s one of the first ones I made and students don’t mind a bit that it’s all constructed of simple, homemade materials.

Here’s a close-up of the treble clef game. The treble clef shape is cut out of white posterboard and orange and blue circles are placed on the treble clef to create a path. Then I laminated it to preserve it. To play, each student places their game token on the first circle and draws a card from the draw pile. If they answer the card correctly, they get to roll the die and advance their game piece.

The dice are made from foam cubes and then I used a black ink pen to draw a keyboard or staff with a different interval on each side. The student rolls the die that corresponds to the color space he is on on the treble clef board. He must identify the interval and then move the equivalent number of spaces (i.e. 4th – move 4 spaces).

Here are a few specific ideas for pre-reading students:
* pictures of a piano keyboard with an “X” to identify the name of the key
* simple rhythm patterns
* note values
* basic dynamics
* pictures of instruments to identify

Here’s a close-up of the simple note identification questions that are included in the deck. For students just getting into reading notes on the staff, you could make cards with all the staff notes and just include a specified range of those in addition to other easier cards. Or you could make it multiple choice. Another fun approach might be to do a series of notes and have the student see if she can identify the word that is spelled. (Click here for a list of Musical Alphabet Words.)

Remember, if you have a question you’d like to contribute to next week’s Monday Mailbag, leave it in the comments below or send me an e-mail sometime this week with Monday Mailbag in the subject line!

And this Year’s Practice Incentive Theme Is…

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An Italian Intrigue: Musical Adventures in Heart, Mind, and Strength

Last month I had the amazing experience of spending three weeks in Italy! I decided to do double duty and use the trip to do reconnaissance work for this year’s theme. It was a ton of fun and now I’m excited to take my students along with me for a journey through the country! Along the way they’ll be racking up Complication Coins, trying to identify the hideout of the Mystery Musician, traveling covertly at times to get double earnings, completing Italian language lessons, and  learning to play the piano beautifully, excellently, and naturally.


I made the official announcement at the September Surprise! last Thursday. To start off the event I gave each student a strip of paper with several measures from a familiar tune. They had to try to find all the other students who had excerpts from the same tune. Once they all found each other they laid out the measures in order and then did something to get my attention. After all the groups were formed each one took a turn humming, whistling, or otherwise vocalizing their tune for the rest of us and then telling us what the name of it was.


After a round of students played their prepared “surprise” selections, I had the groups from the introductory activity re-form and spend time working together to come up with a musical way of playing their pieces. Every member of the group had to be involved in some musical capacity in the performance. I had a box of rhythm instruments and a xylophone available for them to use in addition to the piano. This group did a lovely job with their rendition of “Ode to Joy.”


“Jesus Loves Me” was the perfect selection for this group that included quite a few young and/or beginning students. I was really impressed at how well they all kept the beat together on their instruments!

Whistling, playing piano, and a few rhythm instruments made “Spring” from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons sound great!


This group ended up being all girls. They had the tune “Greensleeves” and did a beautiful job playing and singing it together – harmony and all!

The evening was a great reunion after our month off and we’re all super excited about the year ahead!

Kick-It-Up-A-Notch! a one-week intensive piano course Materials Are Available!

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After hours of writing, working, testing, tweaking, re-designing, and implementing, I am excited to announce that the Kick-it-up-a-Notch! a one-week intensive piano course package is now available!

This course is specifically designed for middle school and high school students who are serious about music. In order for students to participate, I required them to commit to an hour of practice between each of our daily 2-hour sessions. Some of my older students are used to this kind of practice schedule, but for some it’s an entirely new experience. But it gives them a glimpse of what they can accomplish when they work diligently to accomplish their goals! You can see a few photo highlights from our first week of Kick-it-up-a-Notch! in this post.

One teacher has this to say after receiving her package of materials:

“You are amazing, that’s all I can say!  It is so well put together.  I can’t imagine the time you have put into all of this.”

I am really excited to share these materials with other teachers, and hope that you and your students find the experience as beneficial and rewarding as we did!

A Great Way to Start Off Piano Camps!

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Finding Focus. That was the title I gave to our first activity each day of last week’s Kick-it-up-a-Notch! piano camp. Prior to the class I selected a piece of music approximately 10 minutes long. I printed the title at the top of a page in the student workbooks, but other than that I left the page blank. The goal was that each student would use the first 10 minutes of our time together to give their mind and body a rest from all the other activities of the day and prepare for the couple of hours we would be spending in intense music study.

During the Finding Focus time, the students could write or draw on the corresponding page in their workbook, finish up homework from the previous day, close their eyes and relax, or just sit and watch the clip on YouTube as the selection played. There was nothing particularly special about the selections (except that they are some of my favorite pieces!), but this proved to be an excellent way to start out each class session. It did seem to help the students focus and prepare for our studies, and it also gave them exposure to some beautiful music that hopefully inspired them as much as it did me to just sit back and listen!

Kick-it-up-a-Notch! Kicks Off!

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As I mentioned in my Summer Musings post, we gave piano camps a bit of a twist this year in my studio. I wanted to give my older students an opportunity to study music in a more intensive way than we are able to throughout the year. Thus was borne, “Kick-it-up-a-Notch!”

It has been a ton of work for both the students and me, but I think I speak for all of us in saying that it has been well worth it! They found out really quickly that when I said, “intensive,” I meant “intensive.” :-) In order to participate, each student had to commit to practicing at least an hour between each session. This time is split each day between written theory homework, technique, and solo repertoire. I have been so impressed with their dedication and hard work!

Since it’s been so quiet on the blog this week, I thought you all might like to catch a glimpse into what we’ve been doing:

The essential planning supplies: hot tea, notebook and pen, books for research, iPod Touch with everything else!

The first group of the day includes these four. Naomi and Amanda practice one of their duets while Joey and James do some analysis of their piece.

During the second group of the day, Suzie and Hannah discuss the duet that they’re working on.

Noelle and Abigail have fun sight-reading and perfecting their duets!

A snapshot of one of the students’ notebooks from our discussion on “Principles of Notation.” Surprisingly enough, this has been one of the favorite segments so far for several of the students.

Today is the final day for these two groups, so I’m hoping to share more from our experiences in the coming days!

Boil ‘em Cabbage Down is a Hit!

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A couple weeks ago, I mentioned my group class collaborative experiment. As you’ll notice in the video clip below, we didn’t get everything polished, but we did have a ton of fun! We only had a few minutes for this activity, so it was all sight-reading and playing by ear for the students. They all responded really favorably, though, to making music together on their different instruments. We had a cellist, a guitarist, a drummer, a trumpeter, a xylophonist, a keyboardist, and several pianists. It’s definitely something I would recommend doing, and hopefully we’ll do it again, too!

Group Class Experiment with Collaborative Music

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Normally I don’t post about group activities and games until after I’ve tried them, but I’m so excited about this one that I thought I’d go ahead and post it anyway. I’m hoping to use it at tomorrow’s group class, so I’ll try to let you know how it goes after the fact, too!

A while back I came across this page for a Beginner Guitar and Fiddle song that caught my attention. The song is the simple, but catchy, Boil ‘em Cabbage Down. The couple of video clips on the page are great! Being able to play music in a group like this seems like so much fun and I really want my piano students to enjoy similar ensemble experiences. So I’ve printed out the sheet music, told all my students to bring their second instrument if they play one, gathered up the various keyboards in my studio, and decided that we’re going to try playing it together and see how it goes!

Have any of you tried anything like this? Any tips? Thoughts on what works well and what doesn’t?

The Perfect Game for Reinforcing Stem Placement

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My students do a lot of notating, whether for compositions or for various games. One thing that always gets me is how much I have to remind them which direction the stems should go and on which side of the note they should be placed. It doesn’t seem like it should be that complicated, but for some reason this particular concept takes lots of reinforcing. That’s why I am thrilled about this Stem Placement Game designed by Jennifer Fink!

I immediately added it to the lesson plans for our next Investment Club Meeting (a.k.a. group class name for this year’s practice incentive theme) and can’t wait to try it with my students. Maybe this will cement stem placement principles in their minds once and for all! :-)

Another Winning Group Music Game!

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This game was even more popular than the Musical Terms and Symbols game I mentioned yesterday! This one is called, Who’s the Leader? Here a couple video clips and the instructions for how to play it:

Who’s the Leader?

Players stand in a circle. One player goes out of the room. A leader is appointed. The whole group starts clapping and continues until the player sent out returns and takes the center of the ring. It is his business to discover who is leading the crowd in its actions. The leader changes from clapping, for instance, to patting his head, twirling his thumbs, jumping up and down, etc. All the players do the same thing immediately. They should try to be discrete as they watch the leader so that it’s not obvious to the one guessing. It’s amazing how quickly the action goes around the circle, and how difficult it sometimes is to discover the leader. When finally discovered, the leader goes out and a new leader is selected. Play the game to music and encourage the students to listen and stay on beat with the music.

You can select any music, but here are the pieces I chose for the game. We didn’t get to all of them this time…so I guess we’ll have to play it again! :-)

J.S. Bach: Sleeper’s Awake (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyWOIKCtjiw)

John Philip Sousa: Military Marches (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=–SVyKdx8u0)

Franz J. Haydn: Quartet in C Major (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbWufAEgdg4)

Bedrich Smetana: Má Vlast Moldau (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdtLuyWuPDs&feature=related)

Aaron Copland: Hoedown from Rodeo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqah1rucyRg)

Klaus Badelt: The Black Pearl from Pirates of the Caribbean (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDaDifRE1ts&feature=related)

John Williams: Summon the Heroes (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckGB_mLrheM&feature=fvwrel)

Fun Group Music Game for Knowing Your Terms and Symbols!

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Last Thursday was our fourth Investment Club Meeting (a.k.a. group class) of the year. One of the new games we tried is one I dubbed, “Call-it!” The inspiration came from a really old Fun Encyclopedia that I picked up years ago at an antique shop.

Here are the instructions:

Call-it!
Dump a set of scrabble tiles on the floor in the middle of all the students. Turn all the tiles upside down. Go around in a circle and have each student turn over one letter. As soon as they turn over a tile, the first person to call out a musical term or symbol that begins with that letter gets to take the letter. But in order to keep the letter they have to correctly draw and/or define it. Play continues with the next person. Play for an allotted time or until all the tiles have been taken. The player with the most tiles at the end wins!

James displays the eighth note he drew after calling it for the “E” tile. There was a wide variety of musical terms and symbols and other things used – from types of notes to names of composers to instruments. Very fun! I think we’ll definitely be using this one again!