“Works of art make rules, but rules do not make works of art.”
— Claude Debussy
Every Wednesday brings Words of Wisdom here at the Color in my Piano blog in the form of a musical quote or joke, intended to bring inspiration or humor to the middle of your week. Have suggestions? Send me a message here.
There are quite a few places you can download and print free music note-naming flashcards. Anne Crosby’s website and Susan Paradis’ website come to mind, for example. However, I recently realized that I wanted a set of jumbo-sized cards, to use with my Piano Readiness classes.
I can hold up these jumbo-sized cards during class and my young students can still see the note on the staff. Young beginners or students with disabilities may also benefit from having jumbo-sized flashcards.
I color-coded my flashcards according to the range of notes. I printed the Middle C position notes on green paper, the next few notes up to Treble C and down to Bass C on yellow paper, and the next notes up to High C and Low C (ledger lines) on blue paper.
You can download this FREE pdf on the Printables > Other Resources page, under “Jumbo Note-Naming Flashcards.”
Jumbo Note-Naming Flashcards (459.7 KiB, 48,717 hits)
Yesterday, I asked for your favorite game ideas involving note-naming flashcards. I can’t wait to try out some of your ideas — keep ’em coming!
Last week, we had a Forum Q&A discussion about health insurance for self-employed individuals (such as piano teachers). It has been great to hear all of your feedback about this important issue, and I have found it helpful with my research!
I have a new question for you today. Your responses will be helpful when I post a new freebie printable later this week! 😉
Please share any game ideas you have that involve note-naming flashcards. The games can be for either solo lesson or group class settings.
I can’t wait to hear about your game ideas!
I love being able to print out rhythm cards for my students to practice at home. I can give them just a few cards to start, and add more advanced rhythms and time signatures as needed. My students store their cards in a zipper bag and bring them to their lessons each week.
At first, I assign students to randomly choose a few cards clap and count at home each day. When that becomes easy, we are ready to play the Rhythm Train game. 🙂
a music game for 1 or more students
Materials:
Gameplay:
Ask the student(s) to randomly choose 2 or 3 rhythm cards with the same time signature. First, make sure that the student(s) are able to accurately clap each rhythm card separately. As they master each card, they may add it to the train behind the engine, with the caboose at the end. When all the cards have been added to the train, ask the student(s) to clap the entire rhythm. Challenge the student to see how many rhythm trains they can make, or assign the student to make a rhythm train every day at home.
Playing the Rhythm Train game makes clapping rhythms just a little bit more fun. 🙂 It works well both in the private lesson (it can be played at the piano on the music rack, or off-the-bench on the floor) or in group classes.
You can download the free pdf of the train cards and instructions on the Printables > Games page, under “Rhythm Train game.” Enjoy!
Note: If you don’t have any rhythm flashcards, you can find a pdf download to purchase at ColorInMyPiano.com/shop/. Your purchase includes a license to be able to print the rhythm cards as many times as you wish, as long as you are using them with your own students.
“Young people can learn from my example that something can come from nothing. What I have become is the result of my hard efforts.”
— Franz Joseph Haydn
Every Wednesday brings Words of Wisdom here at the Color in my Piano blog in the form of a musical quote or joke, intended to bring inspiration or humor to the middle of your week. Have suggestions? Send me a message here.
Our last Forum Q&A post was sharing about the first piano you learned on as a child. It was fun hearing your piano stories!
It’s time for a new Forum Q&A topic. This one is an important topic for any self-employed music teacher to consider: Health insurance!
Do you pay for your own health insurance out-of-pocket, or does your spouse’s job provide insurance for you? If you are paying for health insurance out-of-pocket, did you find insurance through the services partnered with MTNA, or through another source? Does your insurance only cover major medical, or does it cover annual check-ups, etc.? Do you feel that your health insurance adequately covers what your needs? Is the premium reasonable, and is the co-pay/co-insurance reasonable?
I’ll admit that this topic is timely for me, because I am currently shopping for health insurance. As I’ve been researching health insurance, I found it very interesting to learn how difficult it can be for self-employed individuals in the United States to find both adequate and affordable coverage, especially for those who have “pre-existing conditions.”
This is a topic definitely worth discussing. I hope you’ll all take a moment to leave a comment below to share your experience!
I’m proud to announce that the first woman composer lapbook has been added to the Color In My Piano shop: Amy Beach!
Studying Amy Beach gave us the opportunity to discuss the challenges of being a woman composer, especially during Beach’s day. Among other things, we learned about the MacDowell Colony and how Beach’s perfect pitch allowed her to write down bird calls in musical notation.
The Color In My Piano Shop now has 16 different composer lapbooks to choose from! Check them out here.
My “piano party” group lesson this month was a lot of fun. We began with the Rhythm Name game — always a favorite. 🙂 The Rhythm Name game is described in this post.
Next, I played a variety of short classical pieces and asked students to aurally identify the piece as AB form or ABA. This was also a good way to expose my students to repertoire by various composers.
This led us right into a listening activity of Leroy Anderson’s The Syncopated Clock, using Jennifer Fink’s wonderful worksheets.
We listened to the piece a few times, filling in the information on the first worksheet about the three clocks in the piece. Then, I passed out the worksheet showing the living room wall, and we listened again for the form of the piece and glued the clocks on the paper in the right order. My students loved the music and enjoyed figuring out the order of the clocks!
After our listening activity, we played a couple of games: the Swat-A-Rhythm game and the Ice Cream Intervals game, as described in previous posts earlier this week.
This was our last Piano Party of the year. Over the summer, my students will have the opportunity to interact at the summer camps, and we will start up our monthly Piano Parties again in the Fall.
Planning monthly group classes does require extra time and planning, but I think it is so worth it! It is valuable for students to make “piano friends,” and I love having the opportunity to reinforce old concepts, or focus on new concepts that don’t always receive the attention they deserve during weekly lessons. I will definitely be continuing group classes again next year!
“Art is not an end in itself, but a means of addressing humanity.“
— Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky
Every Wednesday brings Words of Wisdom here at the Color in my Piano blog in the form of a musical quote or joke, intended to bring inspiration or humor to the middle of your week. Have suggestions? Send me a message here.
At last Saturday’s Piano Party with my students, we played a fun game that I call the Swat-A-Rhythm game. I have seen many variations of this game on various forums and websites, so I am not sure who to credit with the original idea. In any case, I will describe the way I played this game with my students. 🙂 I also have some ideas for varying the game for concepts besides rhythm — such as notes, intervals, melodies, and terms.
Materials:
Gameplay:
Spread the rhythm cards out on the floor, within reach of each player. After the teacher finishes clapping the rhythm on one of the cards, the first student to swat the correct card earns a bug card. The player with the most bugs at the end of the game is the winner. (Note: You may wish to stress that anyone who swats before the teacher finishes clapping the rhythm cannot win the point.)
I’ve created a free pdf with the bug cards and game instructions. You can download it on the Printables > Games page, by scrolling down to the S’s for Swat-A-Rhythm Game.
It is sometimes challenging to come up with good aural-based games, but I think this one is a winner! My students had fun with the colorful fly swatters, and the game provided an incentive to listen closely to the rhythm.
Variations:
I hope your students enjoy this fun, versatile game!
Check out the newest item added to the ColorInMyPiano Shop!
Being able to read notes on the staff intervallically is crucial for sight-reading. I like to tell my students that reading music is at least 80% interval reading, and only 20% note identification. To help my students learn to identify intervals quickly upon sight, I created the Ice Cream Interval game. Continue reading “Ice Cream Interval game”
Even from the beginning, the pieces in most modern piano method books require the student to move around the keyboard quite a bit. Older piano methods (at least, the ones that utilize the Middle C reading approach) require the student to stay around the middle of the piano during the entire first level, or even further in some cases. I’m glad modern methods require the student to move around the keyboard, because this because it helps student become familiar and comfortable with the whole keyboard from day one instead of inadvertently teaching the student that anything away from the middle of the piano is “hard.”
I’ve had parents notice and comment on this difference between older and newer methods. They are surprised when their student needs to use the whole keyboard at their first lesson, because when they took lessons as a child, they remember playing around Middle C and never venturing to the extreme ends of the keyboard.
As an example: The first four pieces in the Primer Level of the Faber Lesson Book require the student to play a simple pattern on the black key group of 2 or 3, and then to repeat the pattern twice, moving up an octave each time. Other pieces throughout the series require students to play notes up or down an octave, especially at the end of the piece. Other method books take a similar approach.
Often, to the student, making those leaps across the piano is the most challenging aspect of a piece. They sometimes need to stop to think about where their hand needs to go. Even if they know where their hand needs to go, they still might take some extra time searching the keyboard with their fingers to put the correct finger on the correct key. This, of course, disrupts the rhythm of the piece.
How can we help students solve this problem? Continue reading “Teaching Tip: Leaping Across on the Keyboard”
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