More about the Mastering the Mystery of Music Practice Incentive

I’ve received some questions about the latest practice incentive that I uploaded to the website, so I thought it would be helpful to give a few more details here for those interested in possibly using it in their studios. It’s called Mastering the Mystery of Music.

This is the one I used with my students last year. My goal in developing it was to challenge them to work toward mastery of different skills. The Assignment Book includes a set of Mastery Challenge worksheets that are separated into eight different categories: Staff Scout, Scale Sleuth, Rhythm Recon, Key Signature Specialist, Terminology Trainer, Chord Commander, and Arpeggio Agent.

Each category contains a list of 5-7 specific mastery challenges. The student chooses two mastery challenges each week and works toward having them mastered by the following week (along with whatever other repertoire assignments they are working on). If they are successful, then they are given the clue for that week. At the end of each session (there are six sessions throughout the year), they use the information from their clues to research and try to find out what the answer is.

The clues and answers all fall within a particular category, like: The Symphony Orchestra (where they are trying to figure out what the mystery instrument is), Great Pianists (where they are trying to figure out the identity of a particular pianist), God’s Mystery Revealed (where they are trying to identify what famous person said a series of quotes), Not-So-Famous Composers (where they are trying to identify the name of a composer), Folk Songs of the World (where they are trying to figure out the name of a specific folk song), and Ancient Instruments (where they are trying to figure out the name of an ancient instrument). After they’ve solved that mystery, they look back through their clues to figure out which one is the false clue.

Then, at a group class (aka Private Eye Workshop – or at the following lesson for those who can’t attend the workshop), I give them the code to crack the clue that’s hidden inside the false clue. The mystery word from the false clue is then entered into a blank on their Detective Worksheet so that by the end of the year they have discovered the sentence that reveals what The Mystery of Music is.

This particular Practice Incentive includes both print-ready and editable files for the Assignment Books so that you can either use it as-is or adapt it in any way for your own studio use. You can use the clues, mystery words, and Private Eye Workshop lesson plans that are included or you can re-create your own according to your studio goals and needs. Either way, I hope that your students have a blast being super sleuths and that it inspires them to work hard and “master the mystery of music”! 🙂