Visual Motivation For Learning Scales

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Scales Links

Do you remember learning scales as a piano student? Well I do, and there was nothing exciting about it. As a student I couldn’t see how learning scales would improve my playing or what in the world they had to do with playing songs. Of course that way of thinking is exactly why it is so important to have a piano teacher! Piano teachers know that learning scales improves technical facility at the keyboard and understanding of how music works, how songs are built, and provides us with a wealth of tools for improvisation.

What piano teachers sometimes don’t know is how to make the process fun and interesting for students. So today I’m sharing a tool from my piano teacher bag of magic – Scale Links. Each time a student masters a particular scale, he or she gets to write out the notes of that scale on a colored strip of paper. Then the student glues the ends of the paper together to form a loop. As more scales are learned more loops are added and linked together. The scale links are hung up in the studio so that students get a visual picture of their progress. They also get to see how quickly other students are progressing which of course leads to more practice!

 

Hit The Road Jack

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Found this today while browsing other WordPress blogs.

Mary Dannelle's avatarMy Life with Christ.

This just sends shivers to my spine… I’ve seen jazz in a new way… Luuurve it! They added their own twist to it, the ending was absolutely WONDERFUL! ❤

PS. these guys are married! Don’t they just sound sooooo good! I’m luvin’ it!

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Performing for Seniors

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Playing At The Oaks Senior Living

Playing for seniors is a wonderful opportunity for young piano students to give service to the community. Not only do the kids gain valuable experience performing, they also get to see how much joy music can bring to seniors. So yesterday in observance of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday here in the US some of my students performed at a local senior living facility. The comfortable living room at the facility was great for a low pressure performance – no intimidating stage lights and an at home feeling. It was a wonderful sight to see the residents, parents, and students gathered around and sharing music. One of the parents even played his djembe at the end!

 An added benefit to this performance was that it helped students get over the after Christmas slump and get back to playing.

In preparation for the performance we used some lesson time to talk about what songs might appeal to this audience. This discussion really helped the kids get out of “me” mode and understand that when we perform we are giving something to our audience. It is not so much about how much applause we can get but how much joy we can give. In turn for an entertaining performance, the audience rewards us with their applause. For some of my students this idea was a tough sale until… they played the chosen songs in the performance and saw the awesome reaction the seniors gave them! So, here is the list of some of the songs that were performed on yesterday –

Misty

When The Saints Go Marching In

Man In The Mirror

Those Were The Days

Hit The Road Jack

Fur Elise

Rocky Top

Pink Panther

The Star Spangled Banner

This Little Light of Mine

Big Dog Boogie (My First Piano Adventures)

Party Song (Piano Adventures)

A Fun Way To Introduce Music Notation

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Have you heard of the Freddie The Frog series?  In this picture book series,music educator and author Sharon Burch uses the adventures of a frog named Freddie to introduce music notation and rhythm to early elementary kids. The series is perfectly suited for classroom use, but I use it with private piano students and have found it to be quite useful and enjoyable for students. I was pleasantly surprised to meet Sharon Burch during the 2013 Jazz Education Network (JEN) Conference.   If you are looking for a fun way to introduce music notation to k-3 students, this is it! There are also supplemental games and coloring sheets at http://www.freddiethefrog.comAuthor of Freddie The Frog Series (center) with Dana Rice and Allison Upshaw

Author of Freddie The Frog Series (center) with Dana Rice and Allison Upshaw

Jazz For Young Children

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If you read my previous post about the Jazz Education Network Conference  that I recently attended you already know that I am really excited about incorporating some of the many ideas about music education I was exposed to while there. Today I want to share some of the ideas on teaching young children about jazz in both the group setting and the private lesson.

The picture above is from the cover of a jazz CD for kids as young as preschool by music educator and artist Louise Rogers. I used songs from this CD in my preschool music class this week and the children LOVED it! While listening to the CD the children experienced jazz rhythms, scat, jazz history and jazz themes. Even some of my shy preschoolers who usually don’t dance during music time got on their feet and moved to the beats!

My favorite thing about Bop Boo Day is the way Louise uses poetry set to jazz to teach the children the history of this music and familiarize them with some of the jazz greats like Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald and others.

This week I’ve also used the CD to play in the private piano studio as students arrived for their lesson. The jazzy beats really helped the kids (and me) get geared up for their lessons after a long day of school. We kept the music going from the door all the way to the piano keys as I showed the students how to play along with the songs on a single note in swing rhythm. If you’ve been looking for a fun way to encourage your students to improvise, this works really well.

If you’re interested in resources to help you teach jazz to young children, check out the JEN K-8 Jazz Education site here.

 

2013 Jazz Education Network Conference Notes

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There was a whole lot of toe-tapping, bippity bopping, swinging and swaying, musical stretching, and growing  last week at the 4th Annual JEN Conference of the Jazz Education Network! I had the privilege of attending and couldn’t wait to share some of the nuggets I picked up from the conference with the Kids and Keys readers.

In case you are unfamiliar with the Jazz Education Network or JEN,  it is an organization dedicated to
building the jazz arts community by advancing education, promoting performance, and developing new audiences.

During the conference I was able to attend several workshops that were not specifically geared to piano teaching. I found that it was VERY helpful to listen to what presenters who play saxophone, trombone, and strings had to say about music education. There were several statements that I will be applying to piano teaching and using with my students even for non-jazz repertoire. Some of the most helpful are:

1. Students want to sound good – This is not always obvious to us as teachers, but is certainly important for us to remember! Just think how much more committed students are when they know they sound good! Let’s teach them music that they like and sound good playing. Better yet, let’s give them music that their friends and families think they sound good playing!

2. Practice is Preparation For The Unexpected –  Let’s prepare students for performances so that once they are on stage they won’t have to make music happen, they can be free to let music happen!

3. Challenge students to have more than just nice performances!  – Nothing should be nice, it has to be entertaining!

4. Not rushing is a discipline of the mind – In jazz, the power comes from grooving and playing behind the beat, but the discipline of not rushing is something that EVERY musician must have!

5. Students have to be taught how to listen with music ears – They don’t usually come to us with music ears. It is up to us to help them improve their hearing – without surgery!

Thanks to the clinicians whose workshops I attended and from whom I gleaned these insights: David Guidi, Pete McGuiness, Gary Motley, Mark Gridley, and Matt Wilson.

Stay tuned tomorrow for more from the JEN Conference. I will be blogging about the session on teaching jazz to young children. In the meantime, visit Jazz Education Network’s website at www.jazzednet.org to learn more about the organization and how you can get involved!

Blog Of The Year Award

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Well, here we are in the 2nd week of 2013 and this is my first post of the year! The end of 2012 was very busy with performances that left no time for blogging. In all the busyness, though, I was pleasantly surprised by Laura Lamere with the 2012 Blog of the Year Award! She writes a wonderful blog about parenting creative kids. I am so inspired by the way she actively supports her children in their artistic endeavors and enlightens the rest of us on how to do the same with our own children. Since she is one of my favorite bloggers, I am humbled that she would present me with this award. Thanks, Laura for your support of Kids and Keys.

This particular award was established by The Thought Palette whose tag line is “Things to challenge and inspire you”. Now, how intriguing is that?

Of course there are some rules for accepting the award:

1 Select the blog(s) you think deserve the ‘Blog of the Year 2012’ Award

2 Write a blog post and tell us about the blog(s) you have chosen – there’s no minimum or maximum number of blogs required – and ‘present’ them with their award.

3 Please include a link back to this page ‘Blog of the Year 2012’ Award – http://thethoughtpalette.co.uk/our-awards/blog-of-the-year-2012-award/   and include these ‘rules’ in your post (please don’t alter the rules or the badges!)

4 Let the blog(s) you have chosen know that you have given them this award and share the ‘rules’ with them

5 You can now also join our Facebook group – click ‘like’ on this page ‘Blog of the Year 2012’ Award Facebook group and then you can share your blog with an even wider audience

6 As a winner of the award – please add a link back to the blog that presented you with the award and then proudly display the award on your blog and sidebar … and start collecting stars… (read more about collecting stars here.)

So, here are the blogs I would like to present this award to…

Laura Lamere’s blog would have to be the first one. As I stated earlier I am inspired by the purpose of her blog which is to share with parents of creative kids ways to support them in their creativity. As both a parent and an artist that whole concept makes me happy!

LaDona’s Music Studio gets my vote for 2012 Blog of the Year because it is definitely one that I try to visit everyday. LaDona writes helpful and thoughtful posts about teaching piano and she has a great sense of humor.

Color In My Piano by Joy Morin is a blog for piano teachers with a WEALTH of tips, printables, and great ideas. Joy’s blog is definitely one to visit often if you are working with kids and piano.

Don’t Shoot The Pianist  is one of my new favorite blogs. It is a collection of music related cartoons that make you laugh, think, then laugh again!

Foxx Piano Studio Resources by Jennifer Foxx By now you can tell that I’m addicted to piano blogs! This one is where I find out about a lot of technology to use in teaching music. Jennifer has a weekly series called Tech Tuesdays which appears on her blog in addition to all the wonderful ideas she shares from her piano teaching studio.

And those are my picks for 2012 Blog of The Year. Congratulations to these bloggers and thanks for the time they each put into sharing their ideas!

If you’d like to find out more about the 2012 Blog Of The Year Award, click here.

 

2012 Piano Concert

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Group2As we say goodbye to 2012, I thought I’d share a few pictures from one of December concerts. Thank you for visiting this blog! Stay tuned for more in 2013!