Why Music Flashcards Are Important-- A Letter to Parents

     As teachers, we want our students to learn how to read sheet music easily and fluently.  Some students catch on quickly, but others struggle with note reading.  I often feel like I spend way too much time in a lesson just figuring out the notes, and I know we could be focusing on so much more if only the student would practice notes at home.  Likewise, the parent would get SO much more for their money if the student would practice notes at home.

      For most students, I send home flashcards along with the letter below.  My flashcards are customized to include clues from the "Freddie the Frog" book series as well as clues like "Every Good Boy Does Fine."

     I created this letter with an introduction to help parents understand WHY reading notes easily and fluently is important.   Feel free to use the letter below for your studio and change it to whatever fits your needs!

Important New Piano Material Information

What makes people enjoy reading books as a hobby? In elementary school, you learned your letters and what sounds they make. At first, you had to piece together this information by sounding out words letter by letter. The more you practiced this by reading simple books, the more you started to memorize the letters, sounds, and combinations that formed words. Years later, you don't have to consciously think about the individual letters that form words at all-- you just sit down and read quickly and efficiently. If reading continued to be a process of deciphering each letter and sounding out each word, it would be a very tedious job to read hundreds of pages and no adults would ever take up reading as a hobby!

Reading music is exactly the same. I think the thing that makes music FUN and makes playing piano an enjoyable hobby for me is that I know the notes on the staff just as well as English letters in a book. I can sit down with new music that I've never seen before and quickly figure out how to play it without translating each note into a letter and then that letter onto the keyboard. Without developing this skill of fluent note reading, playing the piano is likely to become too tedious and the student will want to give up playing. Learning and memorization come to humans through repetition. Some students are able to memorize the notes just through the repetition of songs, but most students need a little more practice. Just as your child might have learned their addition and subtraction facts through flashcards, I feel that this is also one of the most effective way to reinforce music notes on the staff.

When you start off learning addition and subtraction facts, it's common to use your fingers to help you out. There's no harm in this at first-- it gives you a way to figure out the solution-- then eventually you need your fingers less and less because you start to memorize them. The same applies to music notes-- students have learned numerous ways to help figure out note names (such as phrases like “Every Good Boy Does Fine,” the spaces spelling the word FACE, and even reading the “Freddie the Frog” books), but in the end we want to have them memorized and not need to use the “tricks” to figure out each note.

Please note the flashcards that have been sent home with your child. I have designed flashcards that incorporate the different “tricks” on the answer side to use at first if the student is still getting stuck on particular notes. The end goal is for the student to name the correct letter of the note immediately upon seeing it. I've found that during lessons with many students we are sometimes spending more time than what's necessary figuring out individual notes instead of getting to the other important lesson topics. Working with your child a few times a week on memorizing the notes will provide a better value for your money for each lesson.

I am asking only $3 for each set of flashcards to help cover materials/supplies. The set includes all notes on the staff. However, beginners will not need to learn all of these right away, so I made a list that corresponds with the Faber books to tell you which flashcards to pull out and use according to where they are in their lesson book.

Thanks for your dedication to helping your child, and hopefully this will make piano even more enjoyable than it already is for your child!

Sincerely,

Courtney

October Piano Lesson Props

I found these mini candy corn erasers in the dollar section at Target. (By the way, have you tried the Cartwheel app when you're shopping at Target??  I got these for $0.90 instead of $1 because of the 10% off coupon in the Cartwheel app!!!) 

I left some blank.  With these, I play games like a "following directions" game that includes intervals and direction and note names. 

For example, I would say, "Start with a candy corn on a D. Put the next one a skip higher. Put the next one on an A. Then go a 5th higher. Then a step lower. Then a 4th higher. Then a skip higher. End with a G."

With a handful of other erasers, I used a black permanent marker to write a number on each one.  

With these, I play a game where the student marks off the song on the piano with the order of the notes that fall in the song.  For example, below are the first 10 notes of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" on the piano.  One student described this game as, "Someone who doesn't know how to play piano could follow this like instructions on which key to press... like a connect the dots page but on piano!"

Can you guess which song these 10 notes belong to?

If you guessed Beethoven's 9th Symphony, you'd be correct!

One more handful of erasers I saved to write letters from the music alphabet on each one.  These are great for students that just started lessons that are practicing labeling the letters of the keys!

Target often has great seasonal erasers! You could do a variety of eraser props to help those students that are visual learners and benefit from seeing keys marked off on the piano!

The Tempo Truck Challenge

I paid $3.20 for this fun addition to my studio game collection!   I bought 2 sets of transportation erasers and 1 cute storage bag (actually a makeup bag from the beauty isle)  at the Dollar Tree all for $1 each. 

I took a black permanent marker and wrote various tempos on the back of each eraser ranging from 60-200.  

To challenge students with a particular piece, they can draw 3 tempo trucks out of the bag randomly and then attempt to play the piece at those 3 different tempos! 

Make Any Book Page Into a Dry Erase Page

Turn pages from a lesson book temporarily into a dry erase worksheet! This is a great way to let students practice naming notes or discover patterns in the music without permanently marking up the page!!  Also would work great for when a student forgets their book at home and you don't want to mark up a borrowed book.

Simply take a clear sheet protector that you would use in a binder (such as the ones here)  and cut the 1 edge off with the holes (the left side in the picture above). Leave the other 2 sealed sides in tact.

Slide it over the top of a page and start writing with a dry erase marker!  

For me, I hate to have a ton of permanent "clutter" on the page. I love that after the kids mark up the music a lot, we can remove it and still see the notes clearly.  

Below is an example of a student that kept having a really hard time remembering to switch hands when playing this song. We marked all of the right hand notes in pink and left hand notes in green and played through the music a few times before removing the dry erase marker sheet and playing the music normally. Also great for labeling letters of notes, patterns, and the form of the piece!

Homemade Guitar/Banjo

Here's a homemade craft I made with my Preschool Music Class.  This can be turned into a good lesson about the physics of sound and experimenting with different pitches.

Materials:
rubber bands
plastic disposable bowls  (like the ones found here)
wide tape (clear packing tape, duct tape, etc.)
strip of cardstock for faux guitar/banjo neck

I used 2 semi-sturdy plastic bowls made by Solo brand. I doubled up on them to make it a little more sturdy and withstand the pressure of the rubber bands. If you are using strong rubber bands or more than 5 rubber bands, you may want to triple stack the bowls.

I secured the rubber bands with a strip of tape so they would not fly off.  I also taped on the faux guitar neck onto the back of the bowl..