Some software that I LOVE

September 21, 2010 Jennifer Boster

So I need to tell you about some awesome piano/music software that I just bought.

I currently have a little student who is preschool-aged (not to mention an almost-3 son who LOVES learning about music and piano with his mommy). Because of Janina’s recommendation, I decided to buy Pianomouse Goes to Preschool. And let me tell you, I absolutely LOVE this software! You should go buy it. Seriously.

This software is published by Pianomouse (and I just discovered that if you go to their website, pianomouse.com, they are currently updating their software and creating a new product line for 2011 – can’t wait!) and it is made for children ages 3 through 5.

Some things I love about this software:

The characters are fun, and they fully narrate the entire game
Colorful illustrations and fun music
It is simple to use, even for young children (my almost 3-year-old loves it)
Teaches recognition of the musical alphabet, musical symbols, notes, musical instruments, and composers, as well as how many beats each note gets – can you imagine teaching a 5-year-old who already knew all of these things? I think it is great.
I think my favorite part of this is Khachaturian’s Keyboard – it teaches keyboard topography and includes finding high and low notes, finding groups of three black keys and two black keys, and finding groups of high black keys and low black keys.
I love that my son can already distinguish between the different types of notes and can even pick out a half note without seeing another picture of one, and that he is saying things like “treble clef” 🙂

Children select games from the interactive menu screen. As you move your mouse over each picture, the names of each game are narrated by the fun characters.

The software consists of twelve different games, some of which have a couple of different levels –

Gone Fishing

The Apple Note Farm

Musical ABCs
Khachaturian’s Keyboard

BOUNCE!
Pianomouse Coloring Book
Clara in the Concert Hall
Meet a Famous Composer
Pianomouse Concentration
Instrument Parade

Puccini’s Musical Hopscotch
Pianomouse’s Music Workshop

I think that this software is an excellent addition to any music class or studio that involves young children. It helps give them a great foundation for their continued music and piano study.

Technology and Theory

April 30, 2010 Jennifer Boster

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Jenny Bay, what an awesome post! I completely agreed with everything you said! I just came back from a workshop devoted entirely to using technology in the studio to teach theory – so I thought I’d share what I learned!

The presenter had a very extensive computer lab (which I hope to one day attain!), and he went through each of the programs that he uses for his students, the pro’s and con’s, and which ones he felt were “absolute musts” for the studio:

1. Space Flight Music Notes Flash Cards. This one is AWESOME! I just downloaded it yesterday, actually, and the best part is – it only costs $5! Yes! If you go to ShareSoftware24.com and type in “Space Flight Music Notes Flash Cards”, the program will come up. Best of all, you can download the treble clef FOR FREE! If you want the full range (treble and bass clef), that’s when you pay the $5. It is TOTALLY worth it – the presenter was saying how his students absolutely LOVE this game, and they WANT to play it, even when they don’t need to! It works just like music note flash cards – except MUCH more fun. There’s a little space ship that zaps alien enemies, and if you get the correct note, your space ship will zap the enemy – but if you get enough notes wrong, the alien enemies will eventually overtake your ship! I’m addicted to it already! And the best part is – THE STUDENT IS LEARNING THE NOTES!

*Addendum: Since I made this post, the cost for Space Flight music note flashcards has gone up! It’s now $9.95, and unfortunately, there seems to no longer be a free download option for treble clef only. Thanks for the update, Malinda! It’s still TOTALLY worth it, though.

2. Alright, enough on Space Flight Music Notes. The presenter’s next favorite was MIDIsaurus. I’m sure most of us have heard of this one. The reason our presenter loved it so much was because there are a TON of different activities and exercises to teach each of the components of theory. Also, as a teacher, you can go in and tailor a course of theory lesson plans for EACH of your students – so it’s tailored to what THEY need. Also, just like Space Flight, this one is A LOT of fun for the students – he’s never had ANY student complain about these. He showed us a demo, and I can’t wait to buy it!

You DON’T need a MIDIkeyboard for it (like I thought) – you can do it with just a computer. The only “downside” is that now you have to download MIDIsaurus, and each year, the download expires (it’s on a timer), so you have to purchase the update – which costs $80 per year. But! If you do a computer lab fee, that should cover it. (Because I’m in Idaho, I’m charging $2.00 per month for the lab fee – that’s 50 cents a lesson! Totally affordable, and so far, no parents have complained).

The age range for MIDIsaurus is 4-11, and it’s published by Town4Kids.

3. So what do to with the students who are too old for hatching dinosaur eggs and alien space ships? Use Practica Musica! This one is GREAT for high school and college students because there aren’t any of the “cutesy” little things – but it still can start at the very first level of theory. This program also has excellent rhythm and pitch-and-rhythm exercises, too. It has a one-time cost of $89.99 and it’s published by Ars Nova.

4. Another one that the presenter loved was Pianomouse Preschool. He didn’t get to do a demo on this one, but I’m excited to purchase it when I have preschool-aged students. It’s published by Pianomouse, and it’s for ages 3-6. It costs $19.49 (not bad!)

Here are some other ones that the presenter thought were good, as well as others that he had some reservations about:

MusicAce Maestro, published by Harmonic Vision. This one comes in 2 volumes, and it costs $109.95 total. What he didn’t love about this one is that their order of lessons can be a little…unusual, so as a teacher, he’s found himself having to rearrange the lesson order (which can take a LOT of time). Also, he didn’t like their rhythm exercises because there’s a delay – which can be very confusing, and not effective, in teaching a student rhythm!I was going to buy this program, but now that I went to the workshop, I’ve decided to buy some other programs first.

Theory Games, published by Alfred. This one is for ages 6 and up and costs $18.95. He did say that his students tend to get bored with this one, mainly because it’s the same set of games over and over again – at each level, the games stay the same, it just gets a little harder. It’d make more sense to save up and buy the MIDIsaurus, since there are a LOT more games available and greater depth of coverage.

Children’s Music Journey, published by Adventus, and made for ages 4-10. It costs $66.45. Unfortunately, we didn’t go over this one in the workshop, but the presenter said he loved it, and that he’d consider this one to be one of his staples for the studio.

I hope that was helpful! The presenter went over some other technology-based music tools for the studio, but those weren’t so much for Theory (maybe we’ll have another post on those!) I know now that I want to buy MIDIsaurus and Practica Musica (as well as those Space Flight flash cards I already bought!) to get a good coverage of all the levels and ages for my studio. I’m also very excited to start my computer lab, so I can have the students come 20 minutes early, do their theory on a FUN program, and then we can devote the entire 30 or 45 minutes of our one-on-one lesson time to just technique and repertoire! I’m so excited!

Theory Issues………and lots of LINKS!!

April 29, 2010 Jennifer Boster

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Music theory is SUPER important to the beginning piano student. However, I think that sometimes it is easy to slack off and either 1) not leave enough time for it, or forget about it entirely, or 2) make it the most boring part of the lesson.

I’d like to briefly address these two problems with theory in our lessons (at least in my experience – I know a lot of you already are great at teaching theory in a fun, exciting way! Share your secrets with us!;)):

1) Forgetting to do theory, or not leaving enough time for it

Sometimes it can be so hard to find the time to open up that theory book during the lesson. I truly hope that as teachers we don’t really forget to teach theory (because honestly, how could you? As I mentioned in an earlier post, there should be a technique reason and a theory reason for everything you teach.) – but it truly can be a challenge to fit everything your student needs to know to be a well-rounded musician into one weekly half-hour lesson.

A few options (just off the top of my head) to help remedy this:

-set up a computer in your studio and purchase some fun music theory software for your students to use for 15-20 minutes prior to their lesson. Definitely would help fit more into the lesson!

-assign your student to use some online theory resources at home – there really are a ton of great ones available

-do theory FIRST at the lesson, even if it’s just for a few minutes. That way you’ll keep right on track!

-whether you have the time to go over theory a lot or not, make sure the student always has some type of theory assignment to work on each week

-address the NEXT issue (theory is boring) and you won’t WANT to leave it out of the lesson because it is the best part of the lesson!…..

2) Theory is boring

Well then something has got to change! I am just as guilty at this as the next person. It’s so easy to just open up that theory book, see which concept should be taught next, go over the page with the student (in a non-exciting way) and assign them the page to do at home. Sure this works, they usually get the concepts alright. But seriously, it can be very boring. And non-memorable. And did I mention boring?

I am not pretending to be some super resource for theory games – because honestly, I could use just as many ideas as the next teacher! My list of “theory games” would be rather short…and maybe a little boring….here is one idea (hey at least it’s something!)….

-flashcard games: actually this would probably be my one fun game that really sticks out in my mind as something that the students get into and enjoy, and that is really helpful. It is nothing too fancy, but we make it fun by using a stopwatch. I time the student to see how long it takes to go through the stack and name and play each note on the cards. I think it is helpful to have the student first name the note without looking at the keyboard (to avoid counting up keys and other shortcuts, to make sure they really know the note by sight), then turn to the keyboard and play the key in the correct octave. Any flashcards that the student does not get right, I put in a separate stack and we go through those again at the end. We count up how many cards they got right on the first try, and see how long it took. The students love trying to beat their time each week, and get really into it. It’s great to make them go for speed because it forces them to name the notes as quickly as possible.

Ok, enough of my ideas (or lack thereof)…..let’s turn to some AWESOME online resources! And please, if you know of other great resources, we’d love to hear about them to add to the list!

Online Theory Trainers, Games, and Quizzes

Free online music theory drills & theory concepts to explore

http://www.emusictheory.com/practice.html

Online piano games

http://www.flashmusicgames.com/index_piano.html

Music information, quizzes and games

http://www.musictechteacher.com/musicquizzes.htm

46 online music theory lessons

http://www.8notes.com/theory/

theory lessons, trainers, staff paper generator

www.musictheory.net

Ear training

http://www.good-ear.com/

Printable Worksheets & Tools

free tools, worksheets, sightreading genie, dictionary of terms, infinite supply of manuscript paper, rhythm machine, articles, music crosswords and games
www.practicespot.com

AWESOME website with free printable worksheets, fun composer bios/crossword puzzles, etc.

http://www.makingmusicfun.net/

lots of free printable worksheets!
http://colorinmypiano.com/
free downloadable resources
http://musicmotivationblog.com/music-motivation%C2%AE-free-downloadable-pdf-resources/

fun & creative printable worksheets and certificates, teaching ideas
http://www.insidemusicteaching.com/index.html

Ideas for Lessons

Music Education Lesson Plans: Music Theory

http://musiced.about.com/od/lessonsandtips/a/musictheory.htm

resources for music educators, lots of fun game ideas
http://rebeccawmusic.blogspot.com/

creative, practical and up-to-date resources for the independent music teacher

http://musicmattersblog.com/

a blog about teaching piano lessons

http://notesofjoy.wordpress.com/

teaching resources, games, activities, ideas
http://susanparadis.wordpress.com/

wonderful ideas for lessons!

http://lowepianostudio.blogspot.com/
more fun ideas
http://heidispianonotes.blogspot.com/
some great games!
http://jenspianostudio.wordpress.com/

Theory Software

Piano & Music Theory Software Reviews

http://pianoeducation.org/pnosoftr.html

Review of Alfred’s Theory Games

http://pianoeducation.org/pnoatgr.html

Other

Have fun with music composition!

http://www.creatingmusic.com/

Jazz fun!

http://pbskids.org/jazz/

Teaching Beginning Theory

April 26, 2010 Jennifer Boster

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Ah, music theory…most of us are music nerds and we love it! We get excited about things like secondary dominants and diminished seventh chords. But why do so many of our students hate it? I suppose it is because it feels like the boring “work” part of music. But to not teach theory to our beginning students would be like a kindergarten teacher teaching her students to read the letters in the alphabet, without teaching them to write them. I would like to talk briefly about several ways in which theory can be taught so that it becomes an integral part of each student’s study, and not a separate activity, hated and often “forgotten.”

Theory Worksheets

Okay, so these are important. If you have your students using a method, there are theory pages each week that support the concepts in the lesson book. Have your students get in the habit of doing these from the very beginning. Review them in the lesson, and talk about how they apply to the piece they learned. These pages don’t take long, and if you don’t act like they’re boring, young students will usually do them quite enthusiastically.

Theory Games

This is like the fun version of theory worksheets, and it’s worth taking 5 minutes in the lesson to have some fun with theory. A group class is another great opportunity for theory games. I’m not going to try to give examples, because there are so many more creative teachers than I, and great resources on the internet.

Theory Lab

Many teachers incorporate some kind of computer lab into their music studio. This lab can include fun theory computer games as well as ear training tapes, CDs, and videos that can all reinforce theory concepts.

Technique

Here’s a place where we don’t always think about applying theory, but most technique exercises are theory-based. Five finger scales teach the theory concepts of whole steps, half steps, major and minor scales and chords, and key signatures. Other technique exercises teach intervals, major and minor chords, primary triads, inversions, etc. Talk about these concepts when you teach the exercises, and often later on as well. Students won’t remember or understand everything at first, but the more you talk about it, the more it will begin to make sense, and what they are doing in their written work will have a tactile and visual application.

Applied Theory

Speaking of application, if theory is ever to have any real impact on a student’s piano study, it must be constantly and thoroughly applied to the music they are playing! For instance, the most basic theory concepts a beginning student must learn are note names, intervals, and rhythm (note values). It goes without saying that you won’t just send a student home with a worksheet on these concepts, and never talk about them in the lesson. You will be constantly asking, “how many counts does this note get?” or “what is the interval between these two notes?” So from the very beginning of a piano student’s study, you are helping them apply the theory to the music. As soon as chords are introduced into the students’ pieces, you can talk about how triads are the basis of our harmonic system. Soon enough you will be able to use terms like “V7 chord,” “dissonance,” and “leading tone.” I used to be afraid to use words I thought a beginning student might not understand, until I realized that they won’t ever learn them unless I use them! And every concept must be taught again and again for them to really learn it. Even very young students can hear dissonance and resolution, so give them the words to describe it. The more you talk about how and why music works the way it does, the faster their skills in reading, memorizing, and interpreting music will develop. And they’ll enjoy it more along the way.