Learning Style

Students are not only influenced by the modality that serves them best, but whether or not they are the type of person who needs to se the bg picture, or simply what's next. This is a main topic I address with my students from the beginning.

Let's Check Your Style:

If I gave you a piece of paper and pencil and asked you to tell me how to get to your house, what would go down on the paper? If you drew a map, I would consider you a 'big picture' or global worldview. If you wrote, 'go to the corner and make a right', you would be a sequential person who wants to know only what is necessary for the moment. Can you see how this would influence your style of teaching?

Just imagine a group lesson where the kids beg their parents to let them attend and don't want to leave after three hours. It's doable. Have lots of structured games where learning is sequentially presented and reinforced with fun!

This doesn't remove the need for excellent teaching, it simply gives the excellent teacher and parent-teacher tools for ensuring that all the information is presented and no blanks exist in the knowledge base.

Spitcato card game. Beginner and advanced.

Piano large teacher bits and card game E Book

Large Bits and small cards for finger positions.

Reading music workbooks.

Musical terms card game E -book. Board games such as this musical terms game and tic tac toe for music symbols and violin finger positions are effective ways to teach difficult concepts in fun ways.

Flip charts are very effective in teaching note values. eBooks with flip book patterns give you multiple opportunities to create and recreate flip charts for your own needs.

E Books on each of the Books in the Suzuki Literature, Reading Music from start to finish workbooks, large teacher bits. All available upon request.

I'll make this quick and painless. Let's talk about that part of the lesson none of us likes to talk about... scales. To make it short, this book teaches scales through a fun tune that progresses through various major and minor keys. That's it. It works.

Maybe Beethoven meant to give a 'little shot in the arm' during the war with his 5th Symphony when V was coded into 'da da da dah' and maybe he didn't, whatever... it was a great idea. Here is a game of Morse code for musicians. It's not wimpy it's war. Two teams, maybe even three, writing their codes and decoding them for points. Teams try to decode the longs and shorts, and even the quarter notes verses the eighth notes. This is the only war I know of where it ends in a win-win situation. Everybody gets something out of it.

Is 'filet mignon' just a Gavotte by Puccini? If words are merely symbols of concepts, then these words will begin to bring 'music to our ears'. Notation Babble for cello, violin, piano or viola: A game to match the musical words with the matching letter words.

Homework - fill in the notes with the colors for each note or the name. Colors are more effective. Homework pages are available with each workbook

Composer Cards