New Piano Lab Find : Online Music Activities by Phil Tulga

Today, a fellow music teacher referred me to Phil Tulga's music activities site.  This fun resource
allows students to create melodies and rhythm patterns using a variety of sounds.  The tools that I am excited to add to my music lab activities are:
Unifix Cube Drum Machine - a fun way to help students hear and visualize syncopation or practice tapping and counting 2 handed rhythm patterns
Counting Music - Choose from 2/4, 3/4 & 4/4, and build customized rhythms from whole to sixteenth notes and rests to practice counting or mastering tricky rhythms in their music
Musical Fraction Bars - Compose 2 measure melodies on "rhythm rulers"
Virtual Fraction Tubes - Introduce the pentatonic scale.  Great ideas for melodies to teach by rote using the black keys
Fraction Pies - Reinforce the relationship of notes and their durations using "pizza" fractions
Sequencing with Simon - Improve aural memory by playing back melodies on a virtual Simon game using notes from the C major arpeggio

Music of Thanksgiving and Gratitude

 It seems like the stores skip straight from Halloween to Christmas and don't place a lot of emphasis on Thanksgiving, yet I love the yearly reminder of giving thanks and want to cultivate an attitude of gratitude within my children, as it is so easy for us to forget our many blessings.  Following are a few songs that I have used in my piano studio and home approaching the Thanksgiving Season.
For Health and Strength  - a short one line round perfect for siblings to practice in duet or round form
I remember singing this song often at church as a young child.  It was probably my first exposure to singing in a round.  One evening as I was gathered in the bathroom with several of my siblings to brush our teeth, someone broke into song.  We had a memorable and jovial impromptu choir practice in front of the bathroom mirror as we practiced conducting with exaggerated motions to cue each new part and sing this song with multiple rounds.  Now when I hear this song it makes me think of the blessing it was to grow up in a home full of siblings (there were 6 of us) surrounded by love.  I am thankful for parents who took me to church regularly and filled my life with music that helps me remember the Lord.  Following are a few of my favorites.
My Heavenly Father Loves Me I love the soothing melody line in this song!
Thanks to Our Father - Haydn + Robert Louis Stevenson
Family Prayer     Sometimes we use this as an attention getter to gather our own 6 squirmy children for prayer.
 Children All Over the World  As a child I was intrigued by the challenge of learning to say thank you in many different languages when I was taught to sing this song.
Hymn of Grateful Praise and  various arrangements by Sally Deford
This year I accompanied my daughter this year as she sang her first solo in church - "Come Thou Fount".  One of my piano students who was in the congregation called me afterward and asked what the name of the song was because she loved it so much.  The level of difficulty was beyond her reach, but since she was so enthused about learning it, after she mastered the melody line, I had her identify the chords in the harmony and showed her some tricks for improvising it to her level.
All Things Bright and Beautiful - simple arrangement by Susan Paradis
This week I was asked to give a short talk (sermon) on the topic of gratitude.  It was the perfect topic for me because its something that I need to work on.  It is easy for me to be honest, to be obedient, but being grateful and optimistic is a continual challenge.  I want to be more like Job who after having most of his temporal blessings stripped from him was still able to say

·       " Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord. In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly."

I I love the reminder in this short video of a simple daily exercise that can help me live in thanksgiving daily... not just as I approach Thanksgiving.

I

As I watch "My New Life," the story of Stephanie Nielsen, a young mother who survived a plane crash, it chokes me up almost everytime.  Maybe its because I'm still in the phase of life with precious little children at home to care for who have many needs and yet who are the joy and delight of my life.  The background music is beautiful and it reminds me of the amazing husband I am privileged to share this life together with.

Pianoanne Tutorials Lab Assignments

Watch Piano Anne YouTube Tutorial Videos to help you answer the 10 questions below.

Level 4
Piano Anne YouTube Video: Ledger Lines

Define ledger lines.

Level 5

Piano Anne You Tube Video: Major and Perfect Intervals

1. Which intervals #s are major?

2. Which intervals #s are perfect?

Circle of Fifths

3. Name the order of flats and name the order of sharps.

Relative Minors

4. What is the easiest way to find the relative minor of a major key?
5. What is the relative minor to D Major?
6. What is the relative minor to A Major?
7. What is another memory aid to remember the order of sharps that you could use instead of Fluffy Cat Goes Down And Eats Breakfast?

Minor Scales

8. What are the 3 types of minor scales?
9. Which degree (or note) of the scale is raised in a harmonic minor scale?

Degree Names of the Scale (Tonic, Supertonic...)

10. Name the technical degree names of the scale in order including roman numerals

Why Teach by Rote?

I recently read a thought provoking mini essay by Dr. Julie Knerr and Katherine Fisher at PianoSafari.com.  Previously I had viewed teaching by rote as something I should beware of so that students don't use their ears as a crutch to avoid learning how to actually read music.  But their logic regarding learning to speak a foreign language resonated with me.  Perhaps that's because after 2 years of college courses in Spanish, I can (sort of) read the language,  but my actual conversational abilities in Spanish are seriously lacking.  As a piano teacher I want my students to be musically fluent, not just good music readers. 
I've started intentionally incorporating more rote teaching in my piano lessons lately and have been very encouraged by the enthusiasm and progress it is fostering in my students technical, aural and memory skills.  Although I've been teaching basic technical skills like pentascales and arpeggios by rote for many years.  I've steered away from teaching songs by rote for fear that my students would play by ear rather than learning to read the music fluently.


The Pedagogical Resources Link on Piano Safari include several other interesting essays.  I like the suggestion in "Assigning Pieces" to mark some review pieces for students to include as part of their weekly practice.  The "Teaching Strategies" essay includes some great concrete ideas applicable to a variety of teaching situations.  I also love the insurance and osmosis analogies.  This is a website definitely worth checking into!

Trick or Treat Rhythm Parade

I think the cute graphics on these Rhythm Trick or Treat worksheets recently posted at "Ear Training and Improv.".are adorable, and my preschooler does too.  So after identifying the quarter and half notes on each page, I decided to extend the activity by cutting out all of the trick-or-treaters to form a rhythm parade.   We arranged the characters in different patterns and practiced clapping and counting the rhythms.
To start out I thought it would be fun to chant
"Treat" for the quarter notes
and "Boooo!" for the half.
Then we switched it up to regular counting.
Another fun variation might be to form 2 lines of characters.  The teacher claps one of the rhythm parades and the student has to guess which one they clapped.

Bach Halloween Music Listening Lab

Bach Toccata and Fugue in d minor for piano

Listen to the first part of this performance. 
1. A Toccata is a piece including fast-moving lightly fingered passages.  When does this song start to sound like a toccata?
2. Do you think the performer is using the pedal? Why or why not?

Bach Tocatta and Fugue in d minor for organ

3.  Bach was a Baroque composer.  The piano was not invented during his life, so his keyboard pieces were actually composed for organ or harpsichord.  How does the organ sound different than the piano?
4.  Different sets of keyboards on an organ are called manuals.  How many manuals do you see on this organ?
5.  A fugue is a piece that usually has 2 or more voices (melodies) that often imitate each other.

The lower "giant keys" played by the feet are called the pedalboard. How many black pedals can you count on the pedalboard?

Does this song sound
A.  Major Throughout
B.  Minor Throughout
C.  Some Major and Some Minor passages

Follow this link to Classics for Kids to hear more Spooky Halloween music!

You can find a simplified piano version at gmajormusic.com

More Piano Teaching Halloween Resources

Halloween Themed Free Piano Resources

Halloween Piano Challenge: Don't Scare Me, Surprise Me!

Halloween Piano Group Fun

Halloween Composing

Bach Halloween Music Listening Lab

Will Baily Free Spooky Halloween Piano Tunes

 

Adapting Music Games

I started a new adventure this fall one of my children, so my piano blogging has been pretty sparse the last few months.  I have a new respect for homeschooling moms!  Because of the time crunch its created for me, I've fallen back on many piano games and resources already in my collection to make last minute lesson fun.  I tweaked the rules of some games a bit to make it more novel and challenging for my students.

For example I used the Tic Tac Toe Notenaming  cards from Susan Paradis to start lessons out with a quick game of "Don't eat the Poison Pumpkin" (aka Don't eat Pete).  I chose a "poison" music alphabet letter.  Students had to correctly name the notes on the cards before removing m&ms from each space on the card. 

My Mitten Match Rhythm Cards from Sing a New Song were used to play BANG.  I just added a few contrasting "Rhythm Addition" cards of the same size to the piles, tossed them in a paper lunch sack and had 2 students take turns grabbing and clapping rhythm cards from their own bag to see who could collect 4 cards first.  I used different leveled rhythm cards to match the skills of my students.