Christmas Lead Sheets For Teens

I have a studio full of teenagers so for a piano teacher that means I don't hear "Jingle Bells" 15 times every day in December. Believe me, there have been years when that was the case! With older students I enjoy taking the opportunity to teach them how to read lead sheets at Christmas time. We keep it quite simple, but with some flowing left hand patterns they can easily have a number of carols prepared that sound sophisticated and polished.

 

 

 

 Typically, our "go-to" left hand pattern is this one (sometimes with some variations or simplifications):

 

 

Often we'll add some decorations in the right hand, like arpeggios and mordents. The end product sounds more difficult than it is (but we like to keep that a secret). Most importantly, the students develop confidence and comfort reading simple lead sheets.

I have put together a little collection of six traditional carols in lead sheet format. I put them all in C Major or a minor so I could play them on my harp too. Just click the link below to download the pdf from my dropbox. You can print any pages you like or save the whole pdf on your iPad (I just email the file to myself and click "open in iBook"). 

Christmas Carol Lead Sheet Collection

1. Angels We Have Heard On High
2. The First Noel
3. O Christmas Tree
4. O Come All Ye Faithful
5. Silent Night
6. We Three Kings

Season's Greetings everyone!

 

Good Puppy Game

Good Puppy Game

Last week our local Registered Music Teachers group got together for a meeting and we took some time to share some fun game ideas. I created a new little game called Good Puppy and brought along all the supplies we needed so everyone could go home with a new activity to play with their beginner students.

First, you'll need to print the game board. I just sent my file off to Staples and had them print in full color on 100 lb. card stock for less than $1

 

 

Then you'll need to print the question cards. You can print these in black and white on single-sided card stock paper. Each of the three sheets has 12 question cards, just cut them apart along the dotted lines.

 

So how do you play?

I use this game with private students, I love that we can play in less than 5 minutes. Your student will need a game piece for moving around the board, and a die to shake. I made a puppy game piece from some cute buttons I found at Michael's. You could use a regular die, or make one with different note values on each side.

Place the three sets of cards next to the corresponding dog houses. The goal is to land in every dog house and complete each set of questions. I let my students travel in either direction so they are quicker to arrive at their dog houses. Don't forget to let your student put a treat in the dog dish each time he or she completes a set of cards. I have a little stash of Smarties left over from Halloween for treats. 

I made two levels of question cards for you. Level 1 includes: white key names; notes from Bass C to Treble G; intervals 3rd, 2nd, repeat. Level 2 includes: white and black key names; notes from Low G to High F; intervals up to a 6th.

You can download and print the files from the following links:

Good Puppy Gameboard - Print this page in full color on heavy card stock paper. You may wish to have your board laminated.

Good Puppy Cards - Level 1 - Print these three pages in black and white on single sided card stock paper. Cut along the dotted lines to make three sets of 12 cards.

Good Puppy Cards - Level 2 - Print these three pages in black and white on single sided card stock paper. Cut along the dotted lines to make three sets of 12 cards.

Practicing with iSpud

I have two or three students playing good old "March of the Goblins" by Boris Berlin this month. We have marched around the room, made up silly words and discovered all the repeating patterns. Now we are left with that tricky spot (you know the one, you can see it circled in orange on my student's page).

 

 The other day my student came and played her goblins, which is going very well (except for the tricky spot). So I pulled out my iPad and opened up iSpud, which is just like Mr. Potato Head. We agreed that every time she played the problem section she would add an item to Mr. Potato's head. The first few repetitions weren't perfect, but by number 5 she was sounding great. As you can see there is a good collection of mouths, eyeballs, feet and so on. Of course in my mind, that translates to about 10 repetitions... yay.

Just a spoonful of sugar, right? This is a handy and effective little app for encouraging the kind of repetitions required to smooth out a trouble spot. iSpud is a free app for iPhone or iPad. You can also upgrade if you want to and get additional costume themes. Happy practicing!

Kit Kat Rhythms

Just when you think note values are crystal clear, a 12-year old will come into your studio and tell you that a dotted half note gets 2 1/2 beats. Doh! I just know I can't be the only one.
 
So I have made an effort to clear up that little problem with my Kit Kat rhythm visuals. I am certainly not the first to use chocolate to help with rhythm concepts, so please remind me if I should give credit to someone out there.

I use these pages on my iPad by creating a custom workbook using the Noteshelf app. You can download my five images by clicking here on my Dropbox link.

Before you know it you will have a collection of handy booklets that you can use over and over again to present and reinforce important concepts.

With this set of images, you can help students visualize how the dot affects various note values. Each page has written drills that can easily be done on the iPad with a stylus. The last two pages include rhythms to clap and count, one set with dotted quarters and another set with dotted eighths.

Have fun and happy teaching.

Mmm... Cookie Rhythms

How many times have I drawn pretend cookies and pizzas to help students visualize note values? Many students need a little extra help understanding how sixteenth notes, eighth notes and quarter notes are related and we have taken many imaginary trips to Tim Horton's to visualize cookies broken into halves and quarters.

If you read yesterday's post, perhaps your interest is piqued for trying out the Noteshelf appfor iPad. I have been having the best time creating background images and building workbooks that I can use over and over again with my students on the iPad.

Today I'd like to share my collection of images that I use when working on eighth and sixteenth note rhythms. Just click here to open my zipped file from Dropbox, the folder contain 5 images which you can save and sync to your iPad. You might want to watch my video tutorial to learn how to create a booklet with custom background images using Noteshelf. I just takes a little practice. By the way, when you download these images they should be rotated so the bar is at the bottom, that way they will fill the page properly in Noteshelf.

Good luck everyone. As Stephen said last week, "the iPad makes everything fun".