Jazzin’ on the Soccer Field

Jazzin’ on the Soccer Field

I wrote this piece about 4 years ago for a special student and it was up on my website for a while. Recently I revised it for another student, changing some of the rhythm notation to make it easier to read. I also added some more dynamics and articulations that I had my student  play, but were not notated. After I compose a piece, the last thing I want to do is go back and add all the fingerings, articulations, and dynamics. However necessary it is, I find it very tedious and boring. I would rather just add that stuff when the student is learning it, but that certainly doesn’t help others who might want to play it!

To be honest,  I really don’t care how you articulate it as long as it has a jazzy sound. (I am not one of those jazz experts who can tell you exactly how Duke Ellington and all the other real jazz players do it. It’s hard enough to remember the different styles in classical music. )  It would be fine, too, to change things around and improvise a little.  But if  you use it in a  festival or some other judged event, you have to play it like it’s written and you really need all the bells and whistles so the judge has something to write about!

I’ll leave it up for a few months, so print it now if you want it. If you printed it a few years ago, you might try this version and see which one is easier to read. If you see any mistakes or some better way I should notate it, please let me know right away so I can revise it.

Easter Rhythm Games

I am posting several games to play the week before Easter. Some teacher will be having group lessons and these games might come in handy if you have younger students.

Easter Egg Find the Notes

Here are how the cards look when printed and cut out.

This first game can be played with one student or a small group. After printing the cards in landscape format, cut them out and fold them so the egg is on one side and the note on the other. Hide them around the room. Ask the student to find all the quarter notes, or find all the whole notes. Little ones love to play this. For older children, set your timer and have a timed race. You might need to print out more than one copy. From experience I have found that if they are laminated they do not fold well unless you only laminate one side. These cards are similiar to the  Quarter Note Hunt game that I posted a  while ago. If you don’t want the Easter Eggs on your cards, print out the earlier version, but the rhythms are a little different.

Easter Egg  Hunt

The second  game can be played more than one way, but it was designed for a group. Of course you can modify it for one student.  First, there are 2 pages and they need to be printed front and back on card stock so the rhythms are on the back of the eggs. If my rhythms don’t suit your students, print just the colored page and write in your own rhythms on the back.

After printing the front and back twice, I cut out the eggs and laminated them. The next step was to cut out the eggs after they were laminated.  I used this two step process because I have trouble cutting laminated card stock in circles. Usually I design things with straight lines so I can cut them with my paper cutter.

You have a choice of games with these cards.  You can hide them around the room and let a student or a group of students look for them. When all the cards are found, the student will clap  the rhythm of the card he found.   This is a good hide a seek game for students too old to play the first game. Be sure to print enough cards for your group.

Another way to use these cards  is to sit in a circle and pass the cards to some music. Older students like to play the music while younger ones pass cards. Have one less card than the number of students. When the music stops, everyone has to clap their rhythm card, and the student without a card is out.  Or you can pass one card and whoever has it when the music stops has to clap it. Well, the possibilities are endless and I’m sure you will have a lot better ideas than me! If older students are playing, you really will have to print some blank cards and draw  some harder rhythms.

Last week I posted a staff with little eggs on it for notes. This week, all the younger students are going to use it with jelly beans as notes on the staff. Then when we’re finished I’m going to let them choose a plastic egg that has a little chocolate egg inside and a rhythm note. If they know the name of the rhythm value, they can put all their jelly beans inside the egg and take it home. If they get it wrong (and I don’t think any will, because by now they all know their rhythm note values) I’ll let them keep trying until they get it right.  I want all that candy out of the house and I want them to go home happy!

MTNC Conference Notes

Natalie, who writes the Music Matters blog, attended the MTNC convention this past weekend and has a great series of posts about it. She wrote detailed notes about the sessions she attended and it is all very interesting. If you have ever wondered what goes on at a music convention, head over to her site and read up. I was not able to make it this year because I had other plans, but Natalie made me feel like I was there. While you are at her site, check out some of her fun games. Thanks, Natalie!

I have a couple of Easter games I hope to get posted before Monday for those of you with group lessons before Easter, so check out my blog this weekend if you are interested.

Easter Egg Notes

Easter Egg Notes

I like to make holiday worksheets for writing note names and I realized I have never posted  one with Easter Egg notes. You can also use this with beginners to write L and S for line and space.

I made one copy on card stock and laminated it. It sits on the table with some dry erase markers and students can do it while they wait for lessons or for parents to pick them up. If a student is just learning the notes (and for younger children), I sit and do it with them because they need some help in saying the alphabet up and down the staff.

If students do enough of these throughout the year, they really do learn note names! Learning note names is a long process and it takes a lot of reinforcement.

Be sure to set your printer to landscape mode.

If you want some Easter composing ideas for young students, go to my website and check out the composing section where there are two levels of Easter composing activities.

Ode to Joy

Ode to Joy

I have a student in My First Piano Adventures who learned the first 8 measures to Ode to Joy and really loved it. Now that he has progressed, he asked to play the rest of the melody, so I wrote it out for him. There are skips in the third line that are sometimes a challenge, but he was up to it. We circled the skips and practiced them in the air and on the piano cover. His Mom played the symphony for him and now he is a  5 year old Beethoven fan!

Which Way Is Up? Bean Bag Game

An inspirational colleague  of mine told me about her staff rug, so I decided to make one myself. I bought a remnant of  plastic material on sale at Hancocks and added a single staff and a ledger line for middle C. I used black tape for the lines and the whole thing only took a few minutes. Notice it is puckered because my remnant was thin. I hope to re-make it with a heavier vinyl that will not pucker.  

We used my new staff to play bean bag games. I thought I would share my latest bean bag game, which I made up to reinforce the notes around middle C. After some discussion with  students, we decided to call this game Which Way Is Up?

The objective of this game is to reinforce the 2 notes above and below middle C, which are D and E in the treble clef and B and A in the bass clef.  Even though they learn these notes early in piano lesson, students get them mixed up. 

I put the large staff on the floor with enough space to walk around to either side.  

First we stand on one side of the staff so that middle C is in the treble and we try to throw the bean bag to middle C.  Then we walk around to the other side and *presto, chango*,  middle C is now on the bass staff, way up on the top. No, I haven’t used clef signs so far, but I am seriously thinking of making them.  They will have to be very large and my idea is to cut them out of a dark vinyl.  

Then we walk back to the treble side and try for middle D. Next we walk back around so it’s the bass clef again and I ask the student to tell me what note will be in the space below middle C.  If they say B, this lets me know they understand the concept. 

 Finally, we go back and try for middle E on the treble and then back to the bass side for the A below middle C.

At this point we stop because I want our activities at individual lessons to be fast and to the point. After all, we’re learning a recital piece and a sonatina for our Sonatina Festival that is coming up. But they seem to enjoy this activity because their aim is usually better than mine and they get a kick out of beating me!

If you don’t have any bean bags and you’re not the sewing type, ask your parents for help. You may be surprised that one of your parents or even a student can stitch up a few bean bags in less than 30 minutes. One of my students in 3rd grade made the ones in the picture above.  I mentioned to her that I used to love to sew, but now my eyesight is  poor and I can’t see the thread anymore.  She made some and gave them to me the next week. 

So far I have not tried this with my youngest students. My thoughts are they need something with more structure. Children need to be about 7 before they can visualize the changing staff in their heads. Of course, as piano teachers we often have students who are intellectually gifted and these children will have no trouble. But play it safe and if your student gets confused, stay on one side of the staff. 

One more thing, make your bean bags first and then make your staff to fit the bean bags.

The picture above was taken at a group lesson. The older students were throwing the bean bags to make triads. We have played a lot of different games on this staff, and I usually change them around to fit the student or the age group.

Three or Four?

Does the music move in three or four?

I like to give my students something to listen for when they play for each other at  group lessons. I was watching the Olympics and decided it would be fun to hold up numbers at the end of each piece like the judges in some of the competitions.  But our numbers are not  a rating. Students have to listen to each piece and decide if the meter is in 3 or 4. 

The older group had one piece in 6/8, but it was played  rather slowly, so students felt it in 3. This gave us an opportunity to discuss how 6/8 should be felt in 2 when it is played up to tempo and I was gratified that the students remembered what I was talking about.

Another student played a piece in 4/4 time with accents grouped in threes  in the first few bars that faked everyone out. Students learned they need to listen to the entire piece.

When I first announced we were going to play Three or Four, it was interesting watching the younger students quickly open their music to check out their time signature.  So we were able to discuss why they should know the meter and key signature of their own piece!  The games we play in group lessons usually lead to some interesting musical discussions, and hopefully some new things learned.  

If you want to try this activity, here is how to make the signs. Click on the link under the cards. That will take you to my website. Click on “download” to print. After printing the PDF,  cut the cards out and paste to large size popsicle sticks. I put 2 cards back to back and laminated them in my home laminating machine. That way the back of the cards we not laminated and stuck a lot better to the popsicle sticks. After I cut out the cards, it looked like the laminating material might pull off, so I put them through the laminating machine again. That worked great.  I used a glue gun for the adhesive because kids can be rough. They used the cards to keep time on their knees!

Students had a lot of fun holding up them up,  and it gave them something to listen for, which is sometimes hard for students. 

Now that I have the cards,  I’m going to try and come up with some other way to use them. Any ideas? Should I make more numbers and use them for intervals?  

The rest of the group lesson we played games from my links, such as D’net and Music Matters. There are other great sites for games, so check them all out.

Three or Four?