Hi, after reading the good review of the Little Musician. I am intending to get it
I have few questions if anyone could help me …
how should i label my keyboard so that can be in line with the teaching? Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So , La , Ti , Do? Or C,D,E,F,G,A,B,C or 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,1 or just put the color codes of LMs notes?
Any sites that can print about the solfege, notes, chords etc… so that i can show side by side which musical symbols shows Do/C ? (Symbols? did i put it correctly… pardon me if not… i do not have musical background)
Probably the best way to label keys would be using the colours - that way you can teach do-re-mi and A B C without changing stickers. I would have thought 123 would be confusing, since he is learning to call the notes by their names, but I’m no expert!
A google search for ‘free music flashcards’ will probably lead you to the materials you want.
I would code them by colour AND do re me. Don’t be worried about changing them to abc later. To be honest my kids have no problem learning piano using both do re me and CDE format. It’s me that struggles! lol I learn in just Do RE ME, they learn in both.
The benefits of adding in the do re me are the direct link to the note sound and note name. It will help your child when they can hear the note they want ( as perfect pitch develops) but can’t yet name it. Creating tunes of their own :yes:
Plus later if you decide to add in softmozart the transition will be so smooth.
Anyway I suggest avoiding introducing CDE format until the kids have some perfect pitch. As do re me is much more condusive to developing perfect pitch AND the ability to sing in tune.
Thinking it through to get from DO RE ME FA SO LA TI to C D E F G A B C is only 7 connections the kids need to remember. Pretty simple stuff for our kids :biggrin:
oh ya… i have put the white Do Re Mi stickers starting from the middle C… (Do to Do - 8 keys only) , will change into coloured ones after i got the coloured ones.
My keyboard has 36 white keys, do i need to label all the keys?
After i put the stickers , i showed her LMs Trial again… and she pressed Do Mi So La Ti Do when it appears and after the lesson she keeps pressing Do Mi So, La Ti Do and sing along … i casually asked her the color for Do Mi and So and she told me correctly! (i checked back the system) lol … I am quite surprised as i myself can’t remember as i didn’t pay attention to the colours but she does.
When we teach the under 5 age group soft Mozart we don’t put all the sticker on as it is a bit overwhelming for them. Perhaps start with less, the middle octave is the most commonly played ( the middle C on your keyboard is the start of the middle octave). It doesn’t take long before they can handle the whole lot covered. And then it’s not that long after that when they don’t need stickers at all :biggrin:
I agree, train only one octave until they are at least relatively familiar. Over time, introduce the concept of the repeating pattern, but let their ears get used to one octave first.
I have the note names in a pdf file, which I can email you if you pm me your address. It was simply made in a word table so feel free to make your own.
For the piano keys, I simply printed off several versions of a keyboard clipart file like this one: http://www.clker.com/clipart-4477.html and coloured it in with felt pens.
Thanks - you’ve inspired me to write the next post that I’ve been planning for two weeks now :rolleyes: It is always nice to know that people actually read and enjoy
I really love the notice board. It is something I had been thinking about for a while but your blog has inspired me to actually do it. And I especially like the idea of including phases of the moon.
I actually looked for your blog to see how you guys are getting on with Saxon K…
don’t forget that just printing off stuff like THIS http://www.mypianoriffs.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/C-Major-Scale-1.png can be great for coloring (although I have no idea if this particular image will print big enough, you get the picture though). Print off piano coloring pages too if you are teaching piano. Doesn’t really require any prep work!
Also, talk about where the notes are if you want to. Now there are more than one location for the notes, but a lot of the initial notes just use the middle C octave (I think that’s what it’s called anyway!) I wrote about this before. We would say things like:
Do is down below (down below the staff)
Re is snug like a bug (an adaptation from Suzie’s Piano dvd, sitting snugly under the staff)
Mi is #1! (A cheerleading song from Suzie’s Piano as well, although they say E)
Fa is First Space (Fall is also on the RooFFFF, Hope he doeen’t FFFAAlll off)
So is Second Line, (So is also up in space above the Roof)
Silly little phrases to trigger their memory until they just remember without them. If they didn’t know, I could give them a hint rather than just tell them. We don’t have them for every single one, but the ones we did do helped.
