Wendy Stevens’ latest piece of early elementary sheet music, Tangy Tango, has hit the shelves and you’re either going to love it or hate it. 🙂 If you’re a good teacher who carefully prepares students for challenging elements they will encounter in a new piece, you will love it. If you’re a bad teacher who hands the student the piece of music at the end of the lesson and says, “here’s a really cool piece; learn it for your lesson next week,” you’re going to hate it. I am a bad teacher. My dear student Caitlyn and I almost did each other in with this one. Here’s proof:
That was the best version of our final performance. Trust me. Hopefully you can hear that the piece itself sounds super cool despite us butchering it (sorry, Wendy!). But it has a couple measures of killer rhythm for a beginning student, namely the quarter-note-quarter-rest-quarter-rest-quarter-note-half-rest-half-note measures. I knew from the moment I played through the piece that said measures would pose a difficulty, so I claim full responsibility for my student bombing her attempt to learn it. What can I say, I’m an optimist.
Anyway, I think it’s safe to say that I learned my lesson. When I teach it to the next student (because I will be teaching it again – Wendy’s compositions are always a favorite in my studio!), I will absolutely require the student to count out loud and master those pesky rhythms before I send them home with the sheet music. This piece is ideal for a student who has a great natural sense of beat and musicality but is also able and willing to count it out for precise rhythmic accuracy. I suppose that’s true of every piece, but for some reason this one just seems to deserve the highest level of performance you can get out of a student!
Now…for the exciting part – you have the opportunity to do your own good-teacher-or-bad-teacher test! 🙂 Wendy has graciously offered to giveaway a copy of Tangy Tango to one Music Matters Blog reader! Just leave your comment below to be entered in the drawing to win this fun sheet music. The drawing will end at noon (CST) on Thursday, March 17, and the winner will be chosen using a random number generator.
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