Would you mind also explaining your step 1 of how you make the scale blocks – why you needed 12 of the first block and only 8 of the next ones?  I’m sure there is a very simple explanation, but at this moment it is eluding me!

This is in reference to the How to Make Your Own Scale Blocks post.  The only reason I did this is because I made four full sets of two octave C  scales, and I placed a C at the beginning, middle, and end. Here’s the picture so you can see what I mean:

It would probably make just as much sense to do an equal number of all the blocks so that it would be consistent for forming any scale, but I decided to do a few extra of the C-block. Click here for a variety of games and activities that you can play with your students using the scale blocks!

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!

For this game, I just used three dice and three game markers. One die had Major, minor, augmented, and diminished on various sides, another die was just a 9-sided number die, and the final die had Root Position, 1st Inversion, 2nd Inversion on varying sides.

The student rolled the three dice and the built the specified chord on the piano keys with the game markers. We just used the number to represent the identity of the chord (1=C, 2=D, 3=E, etc.). For another student later in the day, we used the scale blocks for this purpose instead of the number die. Here’s an example, then, of what is pictured above:

1=C

Root Position

Augmented

This is really helpful preparation for our yearly Music Progressions evaluations because one of the written theory requirements is that students both identify and complete chords on pictured keyboards. This helps them learn to identify and create chords without hearing the sound – quite difficult for those aural students! You could also adapt the game and instead of having them build the chords on the keyboard, have them do so on a printed staff. In fact, eventually, I will probably do both – have them build it on the keyboard and then transfer the same chord to a staff so that they see the relationship between the two, especially valuable for learning to recognize inversions of chords in music!

This is the game that I used all last week and everyone loved it!

Here are step-by-step instructions for how we played Interval Grab:

1. Dump out a bunch of scale blocks on the piano fallboard (or a table) and place a bell within reach of the student.

2. Instruct the student that you will call out a direction, an interval, and a starting note (e.g. “up a 3rd from F” or “down a minor 6th from B,” etc.). They must grab the scale block that represents the answer to the instruction, ding the bell, and then say the name of the note.

3. The goal is to see how many the student can correctly identify within an allotted period of time. I pressed start when I said the name of the key to start the interval from and stopped it when the student dinged the bell. All correct answers got moved to the right to form a pile.

4. Count the number of blocks in the “correct” pile at the end of the allotted time and then list the score on a white board in the studio.

5. Of course, this game can be easily adapted to all different levels even by just using steps and skips for the beginning students or by incorporating diminished and augmented intervals for the more advanced students.

For a fun variation, I played an Interval Grab/Spell-It! game with several sibling pairs who come to their lessons at the same time. I placed a board in between them and called out the various interval directives so that the final results would form a word. As soon as they had the designated number of blocks and could identify the word, they would ding the bell and call it out. A bit of a challenge, but they really enjoyed it!

This game is very similar to the Key Signature Line-Up game, but is designed to drill note identification instead. First I give the student a selection of note flash cards (in this case, we were working on bass clef notes from the low G up to middle C) and have him line them up in order from the lowest to the highest note. (This can be very revealing as it’s surprising sometimes to see a student struggle even with this first step and realize that they need help understanding the basic ascending pattern of notes on a staff.)

Once lined up, they place a scale block with each card to correspond to the name of the note. Again, sometimes it’s surprising to see which students still haven’t fully grasped the way the notes move alphabetically up the keys/staff. If the student struggles with this at all, we continue repeating this phase of the game until they grasp it and can line everything up quickly.

For phase two, mix the cards up and have the student lay them out in a random order and try to match the scale blocks with the corresponding card. You can time them and let them try to beat their previous times or just emphasize accuracy and let them work at their own pace, developing understanding as they go. Anything hands-on like this is great for kinesthetic learners and those who lack the focus to do worksheets reinforcing the same concept. And they have fun doing it!

As I mentioned in yesterday’s Monday Mailbag post about Finding Time for Games, this week I’ll share some of the games that I’ve been using in my studio this year.

This is a really simple game! First, have the student line up the key signatures in order from the least number of sharps or flats to the greatest. Then, they place a scale block in front of each key signature to identify the name of the key. You can see in the above picture that I had this older student identify both the Major and minor key. I try to emphasize the Circle of 5ths over and over so that my students use that to figure out their keys.

As an aside, I never use mnemonic devices or the other little tricks for figuring out key names. (Although sometimes they learn them at school and them come and proudly announce to me that they found out another way to identify their keys…at which point they often proceed to confuse themselves trying to remember which trick went with which keys, etc. )

But I digress…back to the game! After they’ve lined them up correctly, we proceed to phase two of the game. I mix up the key signatures and then place them on the music rack in a random order and the student proceeds to line up the scale blocks again, matching the key names to the corresponding key signatures. If it’s a student who loves competition, I often time them to see how fast they can place them all correctly, then let them try one more time to see if they can beat their previous time. Lots of fun and easily adapted to a range of levels by doing only Major or minor keys or just using a few key signatures at a time.

One of my favorite new tools to use with students are these fabulous keyboard labels that Susan Paradis, of the Piano Teacher Resources blog, created. I’ve started sticking one or more of these labels in the student’s assignment book and having them say the whole-step half-step pattern and place X’s on the corresponding keys. In light of some of our recent discussions on scale fingerings, it occurred to me that you could also use these to have the student write the finger number that plays each key instead of just marking the key with an X. It seems like that could be particularly effective; I’ll have to try it!

Here’s another fun activity that I did last week to reinforce scales. Hayley chose memorizing the Major sharp key signatures for her Cosmic Challenge last week and did a fabulous job, so I decided to reward her with this game:

1. Hayley randomly chose a flashcard with a Major sharp key signature from my hand.
2. When I said go, I started a timer and she could look at the card. Then she had to select and arrange the scale blocks to form the corresponding Major scale. (I encouraged her to line up all the notes diatonically first and then go back through and rotate them to indicate the appropriate sharps.)
3. After she was done, she would say “stop” and I would stop the timer. (I had told her that she would earn 10 points if she arranged the blocks correctly without any input from me. She asked if she could earn bonus points for doing it faster, so that’s when we added the timer element!)

Hayley loved playing this game and was quite pleased with all the points she racked up in the process! I really love all the great discussion and ideas that have been shared in regard to scales lately – it’s re-motivating me to emphasize scale theory and playing with all my students. I’d love to hear any other great ideas for helping students work on scale theory and/or playing!

I could totally relate to this comment that Mindy left on Monday’s Teaching Scales post and I’m sure that many others can as well!

But truth be told, I am sick to death of teaching scales. It’s not that I don’t think it is important, I do. I am just lacking incentive to go at it again with my students. They are in shock! Perhaps I need to rethink my approach and we will all be more successful. I’d take any incentive ideas you have for getting through all the scales.

So I thought maybe we could do some brainstorming and share ideas of ways to make learning all the scales more exciting. I’ll start with a few that come to mind:

* For starters, I include this scale and chord progress chart in my students’ assignment books each year. This helps us at least keep track of what scales they’ve learned.

* Plan a fun Olympic event centered on scales. Give the students a designated number of weeks to learn as many scales as possible and then place them on teams and have them compete against each other in a scale relay. You can watch a video from one of my piano camps where we did this. Here’s a post with a more detailed explanation.

* Make several sets of scale blocks and focus more on the theory-side of constructing scales for a while. You could teach the major and/or minor scale patterns and then have them close their eyes and draw out a block from the jar. Then time them to see how fast they can construct that scale. You could post the times or just record them in their assignment book to see if they can improve their times from week to week.

I’m sure there are tons of ideas that can help us incorporate scales into lessons in a way that we don’t become sick of them. Feel free to leave your ideas below or post them on your blog and link back to them! This should be fun!

As I mentioned in last Monday’s Mailbag post, I’m always looking for ways to turn the teaching or review of a concept into a fun activity or game. Here are shots from a couple of lessons last week where scale blocks became the perfect hands-on tool to help students grasp the concepts we were working on.

Naomi is working on understanding how to identify and construct major, minor, diminished, and augmented intervals. One of the things that I always want students to understand is the importance of determining the correct letter name of the interval distance first, then adding the appropriate sharps or flats to construct the designated quality of the interval. To help reinforce this, I gave her a starting note and had her place that scale block on the fallboard in front of her. Then I’d name the specific interval (dim. 5th, major 2nd, etc.). She had to first select the correct scale block and then either turn it to the corresponding sharp or flat side or just tell me what it should be (for instance, if it required a double flat or sharp since I don’t have a side on the block with double flats or sharps).

Holly is moving from pentascales into octave scales this year, so we started out by learning the complete pattern for Major scales. I had her write this out on the white board for easy reference. Then we used that pattern to figure out the correct notes for the first three Major scales that I teach: C, G, and D. She had to select and line up the scale blocks according to the whole step-half step pattern, and then we played the scales on the piano.

One of the things I’m trying to do better about is guiding my students to play things correctly the first time. This requires a great deal more explanation and preparation ahead of time, but it sets them up for success and more rapid progress. For example, when a student is learning the D-Major scale, I don’t want them to play it leaving out the C# the first time, running out of fingers the second time, with an inconsistent pulse the third time, etc. Instead, I want to prep them so that on their first playing of the scale they are able to play with correct fingering, accurate notes, and a steady pulse.

If they are trained to do it correctly from the very start, the likelihood of error-filled week-long practices greatly diminishes. Scale blocks are a useful tool toward this end. The brain is engaged, the concept understood, and then the technique well executed. I freely confess that this is an ideal that I often fall short of, but that’s what I’m working toward!

This sister duo is always begging to play a game if we have time at the end of their lesson, and I usually try to accommodate them! This week, the younger one was working on all her Major flat key arpeggios and memorizing the corresponding key signatures, so I decided to play a related game.

I gave each of them a set of scale blocks (+an extra “C” block). Then I lined up the flat key signature flash cards and had them line up their blocks according. Once they understood the pattern, I had them scramble their blocks and race to see who could get them put back in the correct order the fastest. When they both were getting this figured out without any problem, I decided to increase the challenge; I scrambled the key signature flashcards and then they had to rearrange their scale blocks in the corresponding order. This proved to be a bit more of a challenge, but was incredibly helpful in determining how well they really knew which key signature was which.

This is one of the benefits of having lots of ready-made tools (like scale blocks and flashcards) at your fingertips. You can spontaneously come up with games and activities that reinforce specific concepts that relate to what the student is studying that week. Plus, I tend to think this is a more fun and effective way to learn and reinforce concepts than filling out worksheets/theory books anyway.

It’s looking a little dull around here these days, so I thought it was about time for a picture post! Here are a couple things that have been going on in my studio recently…

Do you use the penny practice game? I have a jar of pennies sitting on my desk and my students frequently ask if they can play the penny game when we are spot practicing a difficult section in one of their pieces. The student just decides how many pennies they’d like to use. All the pennies they select are placed on the left side of the piano music rack. If they play the difficult spot perfectly, they get to move a penny to the other side. If they mess up, all the pennies on the right have to be moved back to the left. The goal is to get all of the pennies moved over to the right side. If they are successful, I let them keep the pennies. You wouldn’t believe how excited some of them get about taking home 8 cents! James, above, especially loves this game – and it’s perfect for him because he’s one of those start-at-the-beginning-and-play-the-whole-thing-again-if-he-makes-a-mistake students.

Earlier this month twelve of my students participated in one of our favorite activities of the year – The Clavinova Festival (nine of the ones pictured above are my students – the other three were in a different recital)! As a part of the festival, all the students get their name entered in a drawing for their own Clavinova. I practically squealed into the phone when Johnny called me to tell me that he won the Clavinova this year! Amazingly, that makes four students from my studio who have won a Clavinova over the years. (And one of them is sitting in my studio, because the student who won it gave it to me as a birthday present that year!)

For his mastery challenge last week, Andrew was working on memorizing the Major Sharp key signatures. Since he’s still a little young to fully grasp the concept, I tried this approach with him. I mixed up all the key signature flashcards and then had him arrange them in order from the least sharps to the most sharps. He knew that the key signature with none was C-Major, so we put the C scale block in front of that flashcard. Then I had him hold up his right hand and figure out the fifth note above C by saying the notes followin C in the alphabet to see which note corresponded to his pinky finger. It was G, so the G scale block got placed in front of the G-Major key signature. And so on. He loved doing this and was ecstatic when he conquered the challenge by getting everything unscrambled and lined up in the correct order in less than 30 seconds! What a diligent little student!