Using Sight Reading Pattern Cards and Updates

I think I've posted before about how much I enjoy using the Sight Reading Pattern Cards at Jennifer Fink's Pianimation site. (They're free!) I use them with every beginner starting at about the 4th lesson while they're still in pre-reading notation as an introduction to how notes move on the staff, and I continue to use them throughout the first and second year. I pulled them out for a 2nd year student yesterday. She came up with a great variation for using them all by herself, and I thought you would all enjoy seeing it!

She wanted to make a composition with them. So, I let her choose 2 at random (pick a card, any card), and then she assigned a rhythm to the notes. We considered  rhythms in 3/4 and 4/4, and she chose this one. My cards are laminated, so we can write on them with dry erase markers. As a follow-up step, we could notate this on a full staff. 

Here she is, with her 2-measure composition. 

On other fronts, I thought I'd update you on how our covid policies are working out. So far, everything is going well. I did resort to online lessons for a couple of days while one of my family members had a cold and waited for the results of a test. Thankfully, it was negative. One of my students had the same situation, and returned to in-person lessons after her negative test. I'm lucky to have a great group of families, and we all benefit from the mutual trust that everyone will do the right thing.

I tried out this barrier tape on my piano as a way to cover the finish so that I could wipe it with a clorox wipe. Meh. It did work, but it looks messy because you can't pull out one long strip. It's perforated, and too flimsy to cut the width to the right size. While it didn't hurt the finish doing it one time, I felt that prolonged use might. So, I'm sticking with my original plans as described in this post. 

The masks I sewed for students turned out really cute! You can find the link to the pattern in this post. Several of my students wear them to every lesson. This is the child size on one of my first graders. It's slightly big, but she'll grow!!

I hope you are all faring well during this crazy corona year. My tech skills have improved exponentially, so I guess if I look hard enough, I can find a silver lining! 

Pentatonic Power Part 2

C Major Pentatonic Scale

In my last post, I explained the pentatonic scale and why it's such a useful tool for for helping students learn to make their own music. I'm discovering that lots of folks aren't familiar with this scale and its versatility!

Carl Orff and Zoltan Kodaly both incorporated pentatony (isn't that a fun word?) in their widely-used methods for childhood music education, noting that it was a native tongue for the folk songs children already knew and also that the absence of half-steps made it easier for children to sing in tune. In elementary classrooms today, children often play on Orff instruments which their teachers have prepared ahead of time by removing the 4th and 7th scale degrees to create an instrument that only plays the pentatonic notes. Since the notes of the pentatonic scale will blend with just about any chord progression within the key, children can instantly make music together. Pentatonic improvisation gives students a quick and easy way to exercise their creative muscles with immediate success both at the lesson and at home.

So, how can you put the power of the pentatonic scale to work in your studio? Here are a bunch of ideas, but first, here's a quick explanation of the major and minor pentatonic scales.

For reference:  
The major pentatonic scale corresponds to the major scale degrees 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6.
The minor scale uses the same notes as its relative major. For instance the a minor pentatonic scale is a, c, d, e, g - the same notes as C Major pentatonic, just starting on "la."

The Boring to Beautiful Improv
Play a boring ostinato consisting of a fifth on do and sol (blocked or broken) and have your student help your boring part sound more beautiful by improvising with the notes of a pentatonic scale. The easiest way to do this at first is to play in Gb. The student can use just the black keys, and your ostinato is on Gb and Db. To add some interest, you can shift to an open fifth on la and mi - in Gb this is Eb and Bb.

As students learn their major and minor scales, have them find the pentatonic scale in each key. Repeat the "boring music" exercise in each key to help students become comfortable in each one. This simple improvisation has proven to be one of the best tools for giving reluctant students a fail-proof way to improvise, and also for helping students explore and develop their creative melodic ideas.

Observations from doing this with my own students on a regular basis:

1.  Giving students opportunities at the lesson to improvise validates their creativity, and this means that they are also more likely to improvise at home.

2. Students are becoming more aware of tonality - what key they are playing in and where to find "home base."

3.  Students' improvisations start out sounding very random, but after repeated experiences, they come to realize that using short rhythmic or melodic motives can give their tunes some structure and make them sound more "normal." (As we progress, I'll help them think in terms of melodic motives and structure, but to start, I just want to get them playing!)

4.  Students eventually ask to learn my part and begin to play both hands together, even when I didn't think they'd be ready for the two-handed coordination.

5.  Almost all of my students love doing this. It's especially beneficial when working with a student who is struggling with note-reading. For a few minutes at every lesson, everything he plays is correct.

Graduate to Chord Progressions
Instead of playing an open fifth ostinato underneath the improvised part, use a chord progression. The easiest one is the I-IV-I-V-I primary chord progression we all learn to play in conjunction with scales for exams.

As your students learn these cadence patterns for their exams, they can begin to accompany their pentatonic improvisations themselves. This is a great way for students to make the connection between their scales/cadences and the literature that they play, both of their own invention and that of others.

You could also play those primary chords in the standard 12-bar blues pattern. Again, as students are able, they can learn to accompany their pentatonic melodies themselves and many will eventually ask to do this. In another post, I'll talk about teaching some melodic "licks" that students can use as "vocabulary words" when improvising, but as a starting place, I'd suggest letting students play whatever they want until they grow comfortable.

12-Bar Blues Progression

I    /  /  /	IV  /  /  /	I  /  /  /	I  /  /  /
IV /  /  /	IV  /  /  /	I  /  /  /	I  /  /  /
V  /  /  /	IV  /  /  /	I  /  /  /	I or V

Don't feel limited to primary chords in your accompaniment! You might try this progression which has been used in umpty-gajillion pop songs:

I - V - vi - IV  

or the progression from Pachelbel's Canon in D:

I - V - vi - iii - IV - I - IV - V

Wouldn't it be fun for your students to create their own variations for the Canon in D? Since the pentatonic scale tones will fit with all of the chords, there's no way to mess up! Creating their own set of variations is a great way for them to really understand this well-known piece. 
 

You could also play them a recording of Mozart's 12 Variations on "Ah, vous dirai-je maman," and then have them learn to play the Twinkle Twinkle tune over a primary chord progression. There's the theme. Then use the pentatonic scale to create variations in the RH over the LH progression. (There's a handy lead sheet for Twinkle, Twinkle here.)

Here are some other accompaniment possibilities for pentatonic improvisation.

Use Method Book Pieces

As an accompaniment:

I've been experimenting with having students improvise using the pentatonic scale while I play their method book piece as an accompaniment. Because pentatonic nearly always blends, it often works pretty well. 

  

As a source for a ritornello:

Another option is to take a 4-measure phrase from a method book piece and treat it as a ritornello. Give the student 4 measures to improvise using the pentatonic scale in the key of the piece, then you play the method book phrase in between, and repeat as many times as you like. This is a good, hands-on way to teach ritornello form. 

Use Piano Maestro 

I sat down with Piano Maestro and went through nearly all of the Alfred Premiere Level 1B lesson book, playing the background orchestration on Piano Maestro while I improvised on the pentatonic scale in the key of the piece. Most of the time, it works pretty well! Since you're not playing the written melody, you won't earn any stars, but you will be earning improvisation skill! You can do this in the lesson, and if your students have this app at home, they can practice improvising with a background track at home.

Use Tin Pan Rhythm or Loopy
These ipad apps allow you to either set up a chord progression or record a loop. Your loop might be an ostinato such as the open fifths I described above. With Loopy, you can layer up to 4 parts, I think. This means, you could take an Orff orchestration and record the parts and then improvise over it. With Tin Pan Rhythm, you can set up a chord progression of 4 to 8 chords and then improvise above it. So, you could set it to play the progression for Canon in D and practice your variations!

Use iRealPro
There's a band that lives in this app and plays chord progressions! The app has several charts meant to be used as practice exercises, and you can also go into the forum and find charts for other songs. The blues exercises work well as an accompaniment to pentatonic improvisation. You can also create your own charts.

Use recorded music or music from a streaming service.
This can double as an ear-training and theory activity if you have students who are up to this. Try putting on Adele's Rollin' In The Deep and letting the student explore the piano to figure out that the tonic note is C and the piece is in c minor. The pentatonic scale for c minor will be C - Eb - F - G - Bb - the same notes as the relative Eb major's pentatonic scale:  Eb - F - G - Bb - C. For lower level students, of course, you can just tell them which pentatonic scale to use! Once the student knows which five notes to use, they can improvise their own part along with the song.

For a really fun Christmas activity, use Winter Wonderland / Don't Worry Be Happy by Pentatonix and have students improvise on black keys along with the track. Pentatonix generously recorded this one in Gb just for us! Now, you can explain to students what the name "Pentatonix" refers to! In a future post, I'll list some other songs that work well as a background to pentatonic improvisation and their keys. This is a great way for students to start improvising at home, and it will also serve as a great diagnostic tool for discovering that the student's piano is out of tune. Keep those business cards from your tuner handy to give out!

I hope you'll get creative and start exploring what you can do with the pentatonic scale! You're going to notice it now all the time - the tune for Amazing Grace is completely pentatonic, for instance. My daughter came in humming a song from her middle school's musical and we realized it was a pentatonic tune - which led her to the piano to play around with it and explore variations on the melody! You're going to find yourself taking your recorded music to the piano and trying to improvise along with it all the time! And, if you get excited about it, your students will catch this beneficial virus and do the same!

Giveaway! Piano Boot Camp: Special Ops!

Summer lessons are always a challenge.  We know that summer is an ideal time to boost our students' piano skills when they are not also encumbered with the stress of the school year. But, it becomes so easy for students to have 3-4 lessons, practice only little, and end up having only just avoided losing ground, not really moving forward.

In the past, I've held summer piano camps which were mostly entertainment. We played games which taught a little theory - a very little. We learned a little music - a very little. Last summer, with a studio that was growing out of the elementary years into middle school eye-rolling experts, I decided to do something different. I decided to challenge them.  The result was...

Piano Boot Camp:  Special Ops

Piano Boot Camp:  Special Ops is designed to be a challenging and motivating experience for your 10-15-year-old students. It is an ideal curriculum for a summer camp, but you can adapt the ideas and activities to use any way you like. Special Ops will improve your students’ reading skills, their practicing strategies, their technique, their fluency, their musicianship, and their attitude towards hard work. Hopefully, each student will discover that he or she can accomplish more than he imagined in a short amount of time, and this will spur him on to greater progress in the months and years to come! My boot camp classes met for an hour and a half each day for 5 days, but you can choose how long to make your own classes. Because you have more time with students, you can really dig into technique and artistry issues in depth.  The curriculum contains links to several youtube videos which your students will find inspiring and instructive, as well as many fun activities that are appropriate for your eye-rolling, hard-to-please tweens and young teens!

Special Ops lesson plans include sessions for technique, sight reading, and learning literature along with score study, learning to plan a practice session, setting and evaluating progress toward a goal, and journaling through the practice progress. (The student guide contains a daily journal with questions to guide their thinking.) The classes include a "mental strength" component that addresses procrastination, delayed gratification, persistence, and self-efficacy. There are also fun activities that boost artistry:  for instance, a dramatic monologue that contains musical dynamic signs to help shape verbal inflection.

The “secret mission” of this camp is metacognition. (Great word for impressing parents – wink!) Metacognition is awareness of one's own learning or thinking processes. My goal in Special Ops is to help students learn to plan their goals for practicing and to think about what might be preventing or helping them to achieve their goals whether it is a mental roadblock, procrastination, or a technique problem. Students at the tween+ age are ready to think about their own thinking, and this camp could be a turning point for some of your more reluctant students! By focusing on metacognition, you help them take command of their own learning. 

Student level

Special Ops is appropriate for approximately ages 10-15. Students should be in at least a level 2A method book such as Faber or Alfred Premier, and should know their lines and spaces and basic theory up to that point. You can customize the levels of the literature and exercises to fit your students. Some of my students were in Alfred 2A, while others were playing sonatinas and simple Chopin. You choose the literature.

Setup and Scheduling

The class sessions are designed to work with only one piano and 2-3 students - because I don't have a piano lab or a big space, and I know many of you don't, either! The classes work very well as partner lessons. Grouping students together makes the class more fun and generates more excitement about achieving and doing one’s best.  Students may also do the boot camp one-on-one with the instructor. If you have the equipment and space to accommodate a larger group, that works too! Adapt the material as you need to make it work. 

Special Ops was designed with the intent to meet every day for five consecutive days; however, you are free to schedule students as you need. The most important thing is to keep the momentum high by not letting an entire week pass between meetings.  

Student Commitment 

Boot Camp participants are expected to practice at home between each class session, and to sign a commitment form in the student workbook promising to do so. (A.K.A. commissioning form) There is also a place for the parent to sign. I was surprised to discover that my students were very receptive to the idea of an intense challenge over a short burst of time. When I raised the bar, they stepped up! Boot Camp is meant to be challenging, so don’t underestimate your students! At the end of each day of camp, students receive “sealed orders” for their homework. The homework includes practicing, studying scores, and reflecting in a journal about their work.

How Can I Get It?

Piano Boot Camp:  Special Ops will be available in my Etsy store on Saturday, April 18! It includes a 20+ page teacher's guide and a student booklet that can be reproduced for all of your students. Stay tuned as I'll be posting a teaser every day until then!

Giveaway

Of course, there has to be a giveaway! I'll be giving away a free copy of the Piano Boot Camp: Special Ops teacher guide and student book on Saturday, April 18 at noon (ET).  To enter, please leave a comment below. For extra entries, please share a link to this post on any social media site - your blog, your facebook page, your pinterest page, your twitter page, etc. - and leave a comment telling me that you did so. Every share is an entry! I'll use a random number generator to determine the winner on Saturday! Good luck!  UPDATE:  Giveaway is now closed.

Letting The Agenda Go

Photo by Wel Han Frank Lin

Today, I had the most delightful lesson with the most adorable 6-year-old boy. He's my only "little" this year - actually, my only one in two years now. I remember in former years feeling so pressured to cover so much material in the first lesson because I wanted to be able to send the student home playing the first pieces in the lesson book. And, in order to get to the first pieces in the lesson book, I had to cover the first several pages, teaching how to sit at the piano, how to hold the hands properly, which end of the piano had high sounds and which had low, what a quarter note and a quarter rest were, etc. Then we had to learn how to follow the directions on the page and what all of those words said. I always felt like I was spewing information, not really teaching them to be excited about making music.

Today, I let the agenda go.

We started by reading Mole Music, as recommended by Andrea at Teach Piano Today. I loaned him the book to take home. Next week, I'll use her printables to help him apply the story to his own study of music.

Then, we explored the piano. We opened up the top of my console piano, and I let him stand on the piano bench and peer in. We watched the hammers dance. We learned the names of hammers, strings, dampers, and keys. We explored what the pedals could do.

We talked about high bird sounds and low bullfrog sounds and made up a name for the middle keys. They are the Panda keys. Doesn't make any sense, but does it really have to?

We traced around his hands and learned that "King Thumb is No. 1."  Then we played the worm game. The fingers are worms, and when I call out the worm numbers, they come out of their hole and rest on the keyboard cover. But, birds like to eat worms, so they have to jump back into their hole quickly before my hands (the birds) can grab them. Many giggles. He had a little trouble with fingers 3 and 4. No matter. We focused on fingers 1, 2, and 5. When his fine motor control is a little better, 3 and 4 will come easily enough.

In a few short minutes, he learned how to clap quarters and quarter rests, saying "one" for the quarters and "sh" for the rests. In no time, he could do 4 measures all by himself. Then, we made up our own song using our four-measure rhythm which I had written out on a sheet of paper. He wanted to play clusters of keys on the quarters. No matter. They were on time. His hand position was not correct. There will be time to address that later.

Forty-five minutes went by before we knew it, and I had never cracked one of his books, Yet, not a minute of that lesson was wasted, and not a minute was dry. He went home with permission to create his own music. If my measure of success was to send him home playing a piece in his book, I failed.

I don't think that is my measure of success any more.

Product Review: Tumbling Key Signatures

Sometimes a very simple concept can have a big impact. I think these Tumbling Key Signatures foam dice are a simple but highly useful teaching tool. They're also enticing and fun! Everyone who walks into my studio and sees them on the table wants to pick them up and handle them. I received a set of these from Music Dynamics of Wales, and I'm delighted to review them here.

These are colorful 3 x 3 inch foam dice with key signatures up to 6 sharps and flats on their faces. The foam is nice and solid, not too squishy, but soft enough not to hurt anything even if you're rolling them on your shiny grand piano. The symbols are not stuck on, but seem to be impregnated into the foam. They are very durable and should last through many years of studio use.

The purpose of these fun dice is to teach instant recognition of key signatures. Roll, kick, or toss one of them, and name the key (major or minor) that is face up. If you're tossing, the student names the key signature for the face that his thumb is touching. Lots more fun than flashcards, right? For those students who learn best from tactile manipulation, these are perfect.

Before I could put these to use in my studio, they had to pass through my in-house product review department.

Product specialist, a.k.a. my daughter!

It helps to roll the dice against something that will stop them or in a box of some kind.

Working through the order of sharps:  Fat Cats Go Dancing After Eating Breakfast!

Stamp of approval!

Here are several other ideas:

1.  Teach the order of sharps and flats.
2.  Fill in the blanks of the circle of fifths with the roll of the dice.
3.  Spell or play the major or minor scale.
4.  Play the primary chords in the major or minor key.
5.  Improvise a short piece in the major or minor key.
6.  Transpose a simple piece to the major or minor key.
7.  Review scales for an upcoming exam - roll the dice and play "scale roulette."

Maybe you can think of more uses! Put them to work in the lesson, in the waiting area, or even in a group class. 


You can purchase Tumbling Key Signatures online from How 'Bout It Games for $14.95. They'll also be available at the upcoming National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy (July 28-30) at the Music Educator's Marketplace booth. I highly recommend them!

Product Review: Musical Suites Card Game

The more exposure a student has to a concept, and the more different contexts that exposure entails, the more likely he will remember it well. When that context is a fun card game, learning happens almost without the student realizing it!

As you make your studio plans for the fall, consider adding Musical Suites to your bag of tricks! How 'Bout It Games recently sent me a set of Musical Suites cards to review. They are a hit with my students, and they offer a fun way to reinforce students' understanding of musical terms and symbols.

The deck has 76 cards, arranged in suites of symbols. For instance, there are 3 quarter note cards in red, yellow, and purple; 3 quarter rest cards in red, yellow, and purple, etc. The deck includes note and rest values, dynamics, and tempo words. There are also reference cards which show how to arrange the other cards in ordinal value from least to greatest, a necessary skill for some of the games. The instructions offer several different games that can be played with the deck, including two solitaire games. The cards feel just like a regular deck of playing cards and come in a handy plastic case.

Recently, I invited a couple of my students to try out Musical Suites after their lesson. We played Una Carta which is similar to Uno. Because they were very familiar with Uno, they caught on quickly to the rules. It must have looked fun because when my daughter walked through, she asked to join us, and after the students went home, she said, "Can we play that card game again?"

I'm looking forward to introducing the two solitaire versions to my students. I have several pairs of siblings in my studio. While one sibling has a lesson, the other does theory on the computer, but never for the full 45 minutes. Musical Suites will offer another activity to engage the student while she waits.

Winner!

Even within the lesson, Musical Suites cards provide opportunities for learning. A great tip at the HBI Games website suggests having students pull from the deck all of the dynamics that are used within a piece of music. The student can arrange them in order from quietest to loudest. Besides solidifying knowledge of the terms, this helps the student understand that they need to "leave room" for that pianissimo at the end. The student can practice executing those dynamic levels out of context, and then translate that into performance.

I'll be suggesting to my families that they consider purchasing a set of cards for family game nights at home.  Homeschoolers would also find these to be a great tool! If you'd like a set, you can purchase them at the HBI Games website. They'll also be available at the upcoming National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy (July 28-30) at the Music Educator's Marketplace booth. Hope you'll give them a try!

A Reader Question: Cracking the Notation Code

In a comment on my last post, reader Chris asked this question:

I am a very experienced piano teacher but am having trouble with a student learning to read. He just can't seem to grasp and remember the concept of notes on the staff at all! We keep repeating the same lessons over and over, I think he gets it, then the same thing next week. He is very bright otherwise, is pleasant and polite, but just can't seem to "crack the code". Any thoughts/tips? He is 8 years old, and a new beginner (few months). He was going ok with pre-reading, he understands counting/note values, but now we're starting with G, C, and F, and he seems to have no memory from week to week, or even through the course of the lesson. He tries to practice at home but is stumped when he looks at the book, and no one at home is musical.

First, Chris, I apologize that it has taken so long to get back to my blog and to your question!

Maybe some readers will be able to add to my thoughts. I noticed that you said he was 8 years old. Several of my students as well as my daughter are also that age. My experience has been that they display a very wide range of development. They can seem deficient in an area, and then suddenly have dramatic cognitive "growth spurts." In fact, I had a student this year who was having similar problems to what you describe. She was super with rhythm and had a fantastic ear, but she seemed to have a mental block about reading notes on the staff. She was clearly very bright, so I decided to just stay the course, capitalizing on her strengths, trying to chip away at her weaknesses as positively as possible. Rather than hurry her along, I found another method book at the same level and began working out of both methods so that we could slow down. In the past two months, she has dramatically turned a corner. Suddenly, she's reading like a champ! In a very short time, she caught up with my other 8 year old students. I hope that since you posted your question, something similar has happened for you!

If not though, it helps to find every way possible to reinforce the concept of notes on the staff apart from just working in the method book. If you've been teaching for a while, you probably have some games and tricks for this. I enjoy using a big vinyl floor staff. We put a sticky note on a line or space, then run to the piano to play it. This is a great way to reinforce those three "guide notes" you mentioned, the Bass F, Middle C, and Treble G. I also enjoy using a magnetic staff board. One thing that I've learned is that students don't always automatically transfer what they learn from these activities to playing a piece of music. I often have to work at helping them make the connection. When starting a new piece, we might have a "G Search," for instance. I also sometimes show them the score for a piece of music that is much too difficult for them to play and let them search for all of the guide note Gs. It's very motivating when they realize that they can find something they know and understand in that scary-looking page full of notes!

I hope these ideas are at least a little helpful! Do any readers have any other ideas?

Teaching Students To Draw A Keyboard

I have a confession to make. I started college having never heard the word "interval," at least as it relates to music. My teachers had completely ignored music theory beyond teaching me to interpret the symbols and signs found in my literature. As a college freshman, I had to learn many things from scratch - intervals, key signatures, spellings of chords, etc. I found it very helpful to practice intentionally visualizing the keyboard while not actually looking at it. Learning to draw a keyboard on paper was a huge help. Now, I teach my students how to draw one - for fun, to help them visualize the position of the keys and to visualize chords and intervals, and to check their answers on theory tests. (For instance, if the theory test asks students to identify notes written on the staff as half-steps or whole-steps, the student can draw a small keyboard in the margin of the paper and check their answers.)

From some of the comments I received in my email about this post where I showed my students using my homemade keyboard floor mat, I realized that several folks found the idea of drawing the keyboard a little daunting. Believe me, straight lines are the limit of my artistic ability! Once you see how simple it is, you'll wonder why you've never done it before. Here's my quick and dirty method:

Start with the black keys and draw the two and three black key groups. You can make your keyboard as long as you need by adding more black key groups. Be sure to leave some space between each group.
Next, draw a straight line down from the middle of each black key so that the black keys look like big, rectangular lollipops. Then, draw a straight line between each black key group.

Now, all you need is a line across the top and bottom. Congratulations! You can draw a keyboard!

Click here to learn how to make your own giant keyboard floor mat using a bed sheet and a jumbo marker.

Intervals - Outdoors!

The weather was so beautiful that we just couldn't stay inside! After my students had performance class indoors on the real piano, we took the digital piano outside for some fun interval activities!

Several years ago, I drew a large piano keyboard onto a bed sheet. Today, I spread it out over the front walk. I marked off a C major scale on the sheet by placing green index cards on each note of the scale. I stood one student on C and instructed another to stand a 2nd higher, then we did the same to demonstrate a 3rd, a 4th, and so on. As we did this, we sang the intervals 1-2-1, 1-3-1, 1-4-1, etc. I'm big on singing! In order to recognize an interval aurally, students need to be able to audiate it - to hear it in their head without having it played first. Singing helps.

After reviewing the basics, we learned that intervals can have "flavors." Since this was an introduction to this concept for all of my students, I limited today's lesson to major, perfect, and minor. We placed cards on the notes of a D Major scale (one everybody knew and one which would fit on my short keyboard) and sang through the major and perfect intervals again. (Hey, intervals can use black keys!) They learned that intervals are major or perfect when they stay within the key signature of the lower note. Then, we changed the major third from D to F# to a minor one - D to F-natural. We learned that if we make a major interval a half-step smaller, it becomes minor. We did this with all of the major intervals, making major 2nds, 6ths, and 7ths minor and singing them in major and minor to show the difference. The success of this activity was heavily dependent on students' understanding of half and whole steps and their solid knowledge of at least a few key signatures and corresponding scales. We had done many, many activities with those concepts prior to today. As a younger teacher, I made the mistake of thinking I could just mention a few times what a half or whole step was and that students would remember. Some do, but I've discovered that most of them need LOTS of opportunities to apply that knowledge and reinforce their understanding before there's a foundation firm enough to build on.

Next, I had them pair off, and each group drew a card from a stack of index cards on which I had written instructions. For my two really young ones, the instructions simply gave numerical intervals - 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc. They were instructed to always make their first note C so that the intervals would all come out major or perfect. For all the others, the instructions indicated "D and up a minor 3rd," or "F and up a perfect 4th" or something similar. (No diminished or augmented intervals.) The pair had to place cards on the big keyboard to show the interval, explain their answer, and then play it on the digital piano. Everyone did very well! I had also intended to have the students place magnets on my magnetic staff board to show the intervals in notation, but we were having so much fun with the bed sheet keyboard and our singing that I forgot! I'll have to be sure and follow up next week by emphasizing intervals on the staff in our lessons. Afterwards, we did some ear-training drills. I played intervals and they called out the answers. I was impressed at how well everyone did!

We all enjoyed our outdoor interval class!