In my previous post, In A Flash!, I explained how we use flash cards to help teach students to read notes on the staff. Students can look at the staff and quickly say the letter name of the note represented.
3 Step Reading
Of
course the letter name is not the full meaning of the note on the
staff. Letters are an abstraction that help us talk about keys and teach
music theory. We absolutely can't get through class without having letter-names for notes, but the piano key is the real meaning behind the note on the page.
Reading the note and playing it on the keyboard (Say it-Play it) is
the really practical skill, the end result of several steps, we are driving at.
STEP 1: A new student reads the note and identifies it "This is F!" (in my class, I have them sing the pitch as part of our game). Our purple flashcards help them learn this skill.
STEP 2: The student holds a mental visualization of what "F" looks like. Our alphabet pieces games from Yellow semester help them learn this skill.
STEP 3: The student seeks and finds the matching note, in the correct octave, and plays it. Again, I have them sing the pitch "This is F!" for ear correction. What do we have to help learn this skill? Teeny tiny flashcards.
Teeny Tiny Flashcards
I was looking for a way to really practice STEP 3 in the decoding process, and was delighted find these teeny tiny note flashcards that are exactly the size of a piano key (you can print them for $2) or you can get a similar, free version here.
I printed a set and mounted them on a foam sheet, and cut them up. I introduced them to my daughter in groups just as she was learning the groups in 3rd year.
Games
I keep my tiny flashcards a little treasure chest on the piano and play games with my daughter to reinforce step 3 of the reading process. Just do one game for a few minutes each day instead of or in addition to your purple cards.
Say It- Play It- Lay It: Your LPM teacher likes to play "Say It- Play It". We just add one more step. Draw the card, say the letter, play it on the keyboard, and lay the card on the key to show you're done. Each time you play this game, decide how many cards you will do. As you get faster, increase the number of cards you do at each practice. Attempting the whole box at your first sitting can be daunting, so pick a number that will just take 3 minutes, and congratulate your student on getting faster each time. Alternatively, decide you will work for 3 minutes and see how many you can get done.
Bananagram: Each person gets 5 cards randomly. Ready, set, go! Put them on the correct keys as quickly as you can. When one person is done, they say "take two!" and everyone must take 2 more (whether you were done or not!). Continue in this manner until the box is empty...then give everyone enough time to finish placing the pieces in their hand.
Fix-it, Felix! This game works well if you have a toddler who is longing to help. Let your youngster arrange the cards on keys in the octaves you are working on (they will be laughably wrong.) Then, your student chooses one card, picks it up and moves it to the correct key, bumping off whatever card had been there. She then takes that card to its correct home, bumping off whatever card had been there, etc. If you get a point when a card goes into an empty slot, do a quick check to see if you have won (everything correct) or not (when you find a mistake, pick it up and start working again.) It's exciting if you can win in one run without hitting any restarts! Your toddler will love to clean up for you, too, if you cut a slot in an oatmeal can for her to mail the pieces into.
Crazy Composer Choose 5-6 notes randomly from the box and put them on the correct keys. Play the 5 notes. Then, play them in any order to create your crazy composition. You are allowed to duplicate notes and make up any rhythm, but you can only use those notes!
Sol-Mi Soundboard: Draw a card, play the note, and place it on the key. Sing that note as "sol" and follow with a minor-3rd step down to "mi". Yes, they key in which you sing will change but you should be able to sing a sol-mi anywhere, any time, any key (LPM Teachers practice this, too)! That's the joy of being able to hear and sing intervals. (play 'sol' then play 3 keys lower to hear 'mi'. The color of key doesn't matter...just count down 3). Repeat with other cards. No matter where you start, you can sing this interval, I know it.
Go Fish: Play this game once you have all of the treble and bass clef lines and spaces in your box. Each player starts with 4 cards. Ask another player, "Do you have any treble-clef-spaces?" If so, they have to give them over! If not, you "go fish" for a card. Once you have all of the notes needed to sing one verse of our treble, bass, line, space song, place them on they keys where they belong, then continue the game.
Where are We Going?
Wow, the 3-steps for reading notes seems to take a long time: too long to be useful if we play every note in a song like that. As I mentioned in our post on learning to read, we read most of the song by looking at intervals and chunks of patterned notes. We only need to spell-check a small percentage of notes in a song, so it's okay if those take a little more time.
With practice, you'll also get incredibly faster at finding individual notes. When I read new music, I don't take mental time to think of the letter name. Because I have been conditioned, I have dropped that middle step and the process is faster.
It's like when we first learned to read words: we always noticed the individual letters (C-A-T) and thought about what sound each letter represented. As we improved, we stopped thinking of the abstract names of the letters, and just focused on the sounds they represented, and eventually moved on to noticing the whole word as a chunk. Learning to read music has a similar progression. For now, work on getting fast at matching staff notes to keyboard keys!
Want to be a Sight-reader?
Some musicians have a great ear, some are excellent at reading, and at Let's Play Music we set our students up to do both!
Sight-reading is the ability to look at music and play it correctly without having practiced it. How can you become better at sight-reading? A recent study surveyed MTNA-certified piano teachers and found that while 86% thought sight-reading was important, only 7% said they addressed it systematically with their students.
So it seems the answer may still be elusive, or may be the same for learning to read written words: read, read, read! This means you'll need a stockpile of easy-to-play tunes or a website that generates them for you. Songs you can sight-read correctly are MUCH simpler than songs you can play, but need a bit of practice on. So, you'll need a stockpile of easy stuff to start with. You might spend a few minutes at each practice sight-reading a few pieces!
Franz Liszt, known as the best sight-reader of all time, has a few tips for you as you begin your sight-reading journey:
1. Focus on Rhythm: The audience can forgive a mistake in pitch, but not rhythm. If you miss a beat, the whole song will be off (especially if you're playing with an ensemble!). Keep the rhythm perfectly and do your best with notes.
2. Don't Stop: Remember rule 1? The audience and judges will forgive a wrong note or two, but if you stop and go back to correct it, it draws attention to the mistake and disrupts the flow of the piece (and your ensemble will leave you behind!) So RESIST the urge to stop and correct. For sight-reading, you must keep going. (If you are learning a new song and not trying to sight-read, learn it measure by measure for goodness sakes.)
3. Let the most difficult passage set the tempo: Your goal is to play the whole piece correctly. You've heard this music before, and you know there's a tricky bit in the middle, so start off playing slowly enough that you'll be successful on the tricky bits, too.
4.Learn to look ahead: When you drive a car, you don't only look at the pavement directly under your car, or just in front of the hood! To be safe, you look a few blocks ahead so you know what is coming in the next 4-8 beats. In music, push yourself to be looking at the measure beyond what you are actually playing, so you can process and prepare for it.
Only play any piece of music TWICE for sight-reading. After that, I'm guessing you'll start to memorize it. If you had a lot of errors BOTH TIMES you played it, choose something easier for your sight-reading efforts.
Good luck with your reading skills: Read, read, read, and over time the difficulty level of your sight-reading material will advance. Maybe someday you'll be like Liszt: able to sit down and play challenging pieces you've never seen!
-Gina Weibel, M.S.
Let's Play Music Teacher
It's holiday season, and that means you have an opportunity to choose thoughtful gifts for the children in your life. Want to encourage music learning and help create a musical environment at home? Here are some ideas to get your shopping off to a harmonious beat:
Tuition for Music Classes
If Grandma or Aunt Betsy asks what the kids could use this year, be sure your bases are covered for tuition. Having some or all of a class paid for is a clutter-free gift that stays with your child forever. Don't forget how easy it is to offer a semester of Sound Beginnings to toddlers and preschoolers on your gift list, too! Need to find a teacher for those nieces and nephews? Use our FIND A TEACHER button.
Big Ticket Instruments:
A Piano Or Keyboard:
If this is your first year in Let's Play Music, you'll need a piano or keyboard at home next year. Check out our guide on how to choose a piano or keyboard. Warehouse clubs like Costco often have deals on 88-key digital pianos during the holiday season, and Target has had Black Friday keyboard deals for the past several years.
An Autoharp: You might also enjoy an autoharp at home, especially since the portable instrument is fun to take along on camping trips and pull out at family gatherings.
A Metronome: Finally, by the 3rd year of Let's Play Music, your student will be ready for a metronome. There are some fun games you can play with a metronome, but of course it will be a tool for improving musicianship skills. There are many economical options and even apps. A nice traditional metronome can last a lifetime, so you might consider getting a top-notch one.
A Ukulele: New to the list in 2016! I finally decided that the uke is easy enough to learn that even kids as young as 6 and 7 years old can get some great mileage from it. Once you learn a handful of chords, you'll be able to play lots of songs from tab sheets as well as quickly compose your own creations, and that's a fun feeling. Of course, the Let's Play Music songs will be popular favorites to play from day one. When buying a ukulele, it's worth your while to visit a guitar shop and see what real instruments look/feel/sound like before you accidentally get bamboozled into buying a toy uke from Toys R Us for $10. I'm not saying you must spend $100, but if you do buy a $30-$50 uke, be prepared to immediately replace the strings with better strings and potentially spend more time initially getting it in tune. You'll need a tuner, too.
Rhythm Instruments:
The Gift of Your Time: Now that you've got the piano taken care of, it might be fun to have a "rhythm box" of instruments accessible to your child. Help him learn the rules about instruments (handle them gently, put them in the box when you're done, ask politely to use what someone is holding) while playing along to favorite songs with the family. Of course you'll be able to recreate the rhythm games from all years of class (and even find more online) that you can play to improve rhythm and reading. Start a rhythm tradition; build a time into your day when the family can giggle and dance to a song, using the instruments to keep the beat or play a rhythm echo game. The instrument itself is the first gift, your instruction on how and when to use and enjoy it is the second!
Tambourines and Rhythm Sticks are must-haves in a rhythm box. Rhythm Band is a great vendor with sets or individual instruments.
A Gathering Drum by Remo is an all-time favorite. They have several other drums and items for children that sound excellent, too.
Boomwhackers are fun and sturdy and can be used along with your tone bells and many additional family games and activities.
Echo-microphones encourage kids to sing (and read out loud), and don't cost much.
Kazooks and Harmonicas are just the right size to fit into a stocking.
Tiny music boxes like these make great stuffers, too. AND you might even be able to find some that play the classical songs we study in Let's Play Music and Sound Beginnings (I have seen Ode to Joy, Vivaldi's Spring, Waltz of the Flowers, Brahm's Lullaby, Over the Rainbow, Edelweiss, and Twinkle Twinkle, Itsy Bitsy Spider, and Baby Elephant Walk). For a young student, cranking this thing is excellent for hand and wrist motor-skill building. For an older student, nothing is more cool than making your OWN crankshaft music box!
Electronics:
CD Players, Ipod Docks, Bluetooth Speakers: If you don't already have a device for your child to operate when he would like to play his Let's Play Music songs (and other music), this would be a worthwhile gift. Teaching your child how to operate the equipment to turn on songs he would like to hear empowers him to make music part of his day, and puts a smile on your face when you hear the sounds of your independent little one off in his room singing to his CD (and perhaps playing bells.)
During the second and third year of Let's Play Music, you'll
also want a dock or CD Player near the piano so your child can play
along with the recordings- here's your chance to get prepared!
MP3 Players: For those worried about replacement costs, MP3 players can often be found cheaply ($15 and less) and can be loaded up with carefully-chosen Let's Play Music and other songs. It's worthwhile to choose child-safe headphones or educate your child about safe volume levels on headphones before turning him loose.
Music to Listen To:
Performing Arts Tickets: Nothing sends the message "we care about music" quite as succinctly as giving your child tickets to see live musical performers. Check your local symphonies and performance halls for performances that would be especially child-friendly (and respect age limits on those that are not), but don't overlook college, high school and community performing arts centers, too. If there is a performing group you think your child may aspire to joining in the future, it's never to early to become a fan; find out where they will perform and take your child to check it out.
Music CDs:
You can help your child improve musicality and music literacy by giving her opportunities to listen to lots of music. Don't make the mistake of skipping over "kids" music in an effort to speed your little Einstein to success. Simple, easy-to-sing songs have a definite place in your child's learning curve; she'll probably appreciate that she CAN easily discern the melodic patterns and chord progressions. KIMBO has a huge collection of traditional rhymes and sing-a-longs; my preschoolers always especially love the "Six Little Ducks" album.
A large number of children's artists are writing songs that parents enjoy too. You can browse the CD collection at your library before you buy, or try some of my children's suggestions:
Laurie Berkner
Brady Rymer
Ralph's World
Stevesongs
Putumayo Kids :world music
Dog on Fleas
Imagination Movers
Justin Roberts
Lunch Money
Milkshake
Recess Monkey
Karaoke Machine: Encouraging your child to sing out loud during music class might be as easy as encouraging her to sing out at home! Consider a karaoke machine for the family to enjoy with some kid and adult favorites.
Encourage Classical Music:
Beethoven's Wig Albums: All this children's music talk doesn't mean you should avoid classical music. I ADORE the albums by Beethoven's Wig, which put silly lyrics to popular classical tunes. My kids sing along with joy, then eagerly listen to the traditional tracks with no lyrics, then demand "I MUST learn to play this piece on piano!" I cannot say enough great things about the delights of these albums, so I guess these win the EDITOR'S PICK AWARD for this entire blog post.
Maestro Classics: Listen to the London Philharmonic play and hear a familiar story to go with the music in each of the 13 Maestro Classics. There are even activity workbooks. Give it a look!
Books about Music: Encourage music with a few books about instruments and fun stories about the orchestra. Here is a top ten list to get you started.
Scarves for Dancing: Encourage the experience of classical music with our Sound Beginnings "Smart Moves", or make up your own dances to go along with favorite music. Scarves to dance with make it all the more fun.
Puppet Theaters: Pinterest can give you ideas for making your own puppet theater, or you can purchase a lovely one to showcase the many classical shows you'll know by the end of Let's Play Music!
Additional Learning :
8-Note Bell Music: If you're wishing for more songs to play on your bells (or boomwhackers), the best place to start is with these 2 songbooks from the Let's Play Music Holiday shop.
Extra Sheet Music: Peruse your local music store for sheet music that will interest your child. I adore playing duets with my kids, so we have enjoyed Alfred's Chord Approach Duet book . The Faber Accelerated Piano Adventures Pop Repertiore is exciting and fun and just right for our third year students.
Giant Piano: Your physically active musician will be inspired by youtube videos of giant piano performers dancing their way through the classics.
Educational Apps: If you have a device, your child might enjoy a few new apps all about making music.
Toy Piano: If you just can't resist the cuteness, you might give a toy piano to your preschooler. I'm told the keys on the Schoenhut pianos are full-size, which makes me happy because your child's fingers will develop muscle memory for these distances. The 25-key pianos will at least have enough keys to play the Red, Yellow, and Blue chords with one hand, but the 15-key pianos will frustrate your child when she tries to play Yellow with no low B. One parent desperately wanted this toy but worried that it would somehow stunt the actual piano learning. I'm of the opinion that anything that draws your child to play and experiment with music (and practice real chords) can't be bad!
Giant Staff: Love games on the giant staff mat in class? Make one of your own to play with!
If you have (or hope to have) a musical child, I hope you've been inspired to find at least one gift this season to nurture the love of music learning! Happy Holidays!
-Gina Weibel, M.S.
Let's Play Music teacher
