Music Ace Maestro Giveaway & Review

One of my favorite bloggers, Natalie at Music Matters Blog is doing a giveaway for the Music Ace Maestro software. The Music Ace Deluxe Program which I currently use in my studio has been such a great resource during studio lab time. I would love the Maestro version which includes additional lessons and allows you to track the progress of even more students then the I/II or Deluxe versions.
Tracking
One thing I have found very useful about the Music Ace software is that it doesn't just test students on their preexisting knowledge of musical skills, it includes lessons that introduce new concepts w/ games to reinforce their knowledge along the way. I also like how each unit is subdivided into smaller segments so that if a student doesn't complete the entire unit in one sitting, they can easily start where they left off on their next lesson. My 5 year old son is especially motivated by the thousands of points he sees displayed while playing the games and has found it very rewarding to try and beat his previous scores:)
Content
The lessons on Music Ace cover a broad spectrum of concepts including rhythm, notereading, ear training, melody/harmony, tempo, time signatures, scales and more. Sometimes I "prep" the students by having them complete the music ace lesson about a concept coming up in their lesson book. Other times I have "review" concepts by assigning them a lesson that corresponds with something I've recently taught them during their time with me.
The "Doodle Pad" feature provides a fun way for students to try their hand at composition. I generally allow them to 'play around' on the doodle pad once they've completed their assignments because they love it so much.
Age Level
Most of my students ages 8 and up have been able to complete most of the Music Ace lessons with very little assistance from me. Yet the content is not too "child-like" to make it unsuitable for teens and adults. My 3 & 5 year old have even enjoyed some of the beginning lessons on pitch, notation and feeling the beat with a little bit of coaching :)
Exposure to Music
I love how the lessons incorporate a variety of styles of familiar music as part of the instruction. Each lesson begins with a brief musical excerpt - folk songs, boogie-woogie, Chopin, Mozart, etc. and often include samples throughout that help students become familiar with the melodies of many great works. In fact today, while my daughter was perusing this site about Mozart's life she asked me to come and listen to this cool song she found (Rondo Alla Turca). She said, "It sounds familiar... oh yeah, I heard it on Music Ace!"

Using Songs To Teach

I love the power of songs to aid in memorization. Lately around our house I've been singing a little song I made up to the cub scout law to help one of my sons who was having trouble learning it. I was thankful when earlier this year my daughter's school teacher sent home a book of songs to go with her multiplication facts. It so much easier to remember things when you put them in a song.
So I was delighted when I discovered a few new "piano" songs this week.
Thanks to Wendy at Compose Create for her post on some fantastic new games, my preschoolers are excited about piano practice this week because of the fun Piano Discoveries videos on You Tube that we watched together. I love how it teaches students how to identify & draw the clefs and landmark notes through song. For some reinforcement of the Landmark Notes, we used my magnetic dry erase board and magnet notes with this clever "Barnyard Board" staff from the Piano Discoveries site. Don't you love the cute drawing of the Middle C Cat that my son came up with spontaneously?
My students also enjoyed this catchy FACE song to help them learn the treble space notes. After watching this video my son was excited to beat his score on the Treble Clef Notes on Music Ace.

Another one of my favorite "teaching" songs is the GBDFA song from Susan Paradis's site.
Do you have any favorite songs for teaching piano concepts?

Teaching More Than Piano

"A good teacher realizes that his most important purpose in teaching is-
First, to inspire the student to love study; awaken within him a desire to rise above himself.
Second, to teach the student how to study; train him to think. Or, in other words, inspire the student to love truth, and then teach him how to find it."

"The objective of education is to develop resources in the student that will contribute to his well-being as long as life endures; to develop power of self-mastery that he may never be a slave to indulgence or other weaknesses;"

I find these quotes from Secrets of a Happy Life by David O. McKay (p. 46-47) so applicable to the study of music. There are so many benefits of music study beyond the satisfaction of playing the piano well. Through the process of learning to play the piano, a student also learns to work persistently at difficult tasks, overcome challenges with patience, appreciate beauty and develop self-mastery. In the end I hope that through teaching piano I can teach help my students develop some of the character traits essential to living a happy life as well.

Future Piano Hands

My hands have been a bit busy for piano practice, teaching and blogging lately since the newest addition to our family arrived. I love to watch her discovering her hands and hope that someday she'll discover the joy of playing the piano with them.

Monkey Says...On the Staff

After reading Natalie's excellent summary of the Faber's presentation on Fostering a Love of Music, I decided to play some spontaneous staff games with my daughter who is beginning to learn note names on the staff.
First she chose some colored lines of curling ribbon to help build our staff and treble clef on the carpet.

Then we"skipped" our monkey and cow up and down the spaces on the staff.
Next we added magnet letters to the staff gradually to label the spaces the monkey and cow were playing on. This evolved into a game of "Monkey Says" (like Simon Says). I let my daughter take the lead and tell me which space to skip or leap to. I was surprised at how much fun she was having calling out commands for me to follow like "Monkey says - skip to the A-space....Monkey says leap to the E space." Once she was pretty familiar with the space names, I had her choose one letter to remove at a time until she could remember all the space names easily.
When she spotted my jingle bells and kazoo in the piano preschool bench she decided it was time for the animals to have a party. We ended up playing "house" with the magnet letters that live on the treble staff. The mommy and daddy letters (uppercase) lined up in their "space" houses joined by their baby letters (lowercase) and then their animal friends came to join the party. My daughter enjoys counting things so I had her add up the toys in each space and she figured out that the "A-space" had the biggest party:)

I'm convinced that engaging in this activity "in the spirit of play" will be much more memorable for her than if I had just identified the space names for her.

Studio Organization with Stickers

I have grand ambitions of getting my piano studio totally organized over the summer. To start I purchased a few inexpensive tools to organize my piano studio - colored sticker circles and address labels.
Whenever I purchase music to add to my library, I stick one of my address labels on the back bottom corner.
I also use a color coding system based on the colors of the method books I use most often (Level 1 Blue, 2-Purple, 3-Yellow, 4-Green etc.). I fold a colored circle sticker over the spine of the books with the stickers placed lower on the spine for lower levels and higher on the spine for more advanced levels. This had made it so much easier for me to locate supplementary materials during lessons to check out to my students.
The next project I'd love to tackle is organizing my piles of flashcards and games. I plan to sew some clear vinyl pocketsto hang on the inside of my piano cabinet -that way I can easily access and see what is stored in each pouch but keep things out of sight when lessons are done. What are some methods you use to keep things organized in your studio?

Monster Candy Jar Practice Incentive

I have my good friend Angela to thank for this great idea to help motivate students in a fun way.
I usually do a "monster candy jar" incentive around Halloween - but it could work easily during any time of the year. I fill up a couple of jars with candy. During the month (or 2) students get a chance to guess how many candies are in the jar at their lesson each time they complete an item on their task list (see the ice cream party checklist). For some years I've done the contest based on how much they practiced that week (4 days=1 guess, 5 days=2 guesses, 6 days = 3 guesses), so the more they practice the more likely they are to win because they get more guesses. At the group lesson, students dress up in costumes, play songs for each other and then I announce the winners of the candy jars. The hardest part for me is resisting the temptation to "snitch" candy from the jar when its hanging around my house for a few months. I just make sure not to fill it with Snickers!