Chord Sharing
Prompted by one of the suggestions given in the improvising workshop I attended at the state conference earlier this month, I pulled one scale block from the jar (D) and instructed my high school student to see how many different chords she could come up with that contained the D. She went through all the triads and then launched into 7th chords until she had counted 24 different chords! By the end, she exclaimed, “Oooh! This is really fun!”
Whenever my students get to the Forest Drums song in the Faber Level 1 books, I like to pull out my Djembe and have them beat a steady pulse while I play through it for them. Addi loved drumming and had fun adjusting the tempo on me while I was playing along to her beat. 🙂
Cynthia was working on mastering the order of sharps and flats this week, so after she recited them to me, I had her demonstrate her mastery further by notating them on the staff.
Luke is learning his landmark notes on the staff, so we played a fun mix-up game with his flashcards. I would rearrange the order of the cards and have him play them and say the name of each note while he played. He got it down so well, that I decided to twist it up a little. I played a pattern of notes on the keys and asked him to arrange the cards in the correct order to reflect what I played. This proved to be a great deal more challenging and took several tries! We’ll have to keep working on that since he has the notes learned so well now!
I just couldn’t pass this one up… 😀 Isabella and I laughed for at least a minute at this comical perspective we shot of Graham. Not specifically musical or educational, but oh well, you can’t say we don’t have fun at piano lessons! And that wraps up another week here at the studio.
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