Plug In to the Power of Chords!

Creating Complete Musicians
In the Let's Play Music method, we begin our piano playing by learning the primary chords.   Musicians know these as the I, IV and V chords.  But in Let's Play Music, we color code them and call them Red, Blue and Yellow chords.  We start from the very beginning teaching our students to hear, recognize by ear, sing and play chords for several reasons.  The overarching reason is that our goal for our students is total musicianship, and a total, complete musician will be able to use chords and chord theory to improvise, transpose, and compose music.  Starting early with chords trains our students' ears, hands, and eyes to hear, play and recognize chord notation until chords become second nature.  Chords are the building blocks of music, and having both the theory knowledge and a developed ear gives students an innate sense of how each chord functions, and how they come together to create beautiful music.

Starting Out:  Training Ears and Eyes

Before we even touch the keyboards, we spend a year with 4- and 5-year-old students (our "first years") training their ears to hear these chords, recognize which chord sounds right with a given melody, and notice patterns and chord progressions.  We play chords on the autoharp while reading color-coded chord maps, and we sing broken chords using solfege ("do-re-mi" syllables) learning to recognize the three "pieces" that make up each chord. 

At the Keyboard:  Training Fingers
Have you noticed that we love to come at chords from every angle?  As we begin our second year of Let's Play Music, we take our chord knowledge to the keyboards, and begin by learning to play the "Red Chord" (C Major chord) on the piano.  We learn to recognize the notation, and to use correct fingering to play the notes.  We learn how to make that chord minor by changing the middle note - now we can play Halloween songs!  Then we add the Yellow Chord, and then the Blue - we learn to recognize chord notation whether it's "stacked up" in block form or broken in pieces.

We continue to discuss the three pieces that make up each chord so that we can recognize each chord no matter which of its "pieces" is on top or bottom.  But during the second year, we use the regular cadence positions for each chord and talk about chords in terms of "shape" a lot too:  "snowman shape" for the root-position Red Chord C-E-G; "top-heavy" shape for the Blue Chord C-F-A (3rd on top, 4th on bottom); and "bottom heavy" shape for the Yellow Chord B-D-G (3rd on bottom, 4th on top).

At Home:  Helping Chord Theory Stick 
It's perfectly okay that some of these concepts may take a little longer to sink in.  That is why repetition is so important. Using this same language at home and asking leading questions will help your children know what to look for when identifying chords.  "What note is on bottom of that chord?  Is it a middle C or not?"  "Does that chord have a 3rd on top or a 3rd on bottom?  Is it top-heavy or bottom-heavy?"  "Both intervals are 3rds?  So the whole thing is stacked up nice and neat in snowman shape?  So what color is it then?"  Lots of leading questions will help you to know what they know, and help them to cement the concepts they are still learning. 


Knowing Chords = Knowing Music
Once your child has learned just three primary chords, suddenly the possibilities of songs they can play has become endless!  Did you know that 90% of the music we hear and listen to is made up of these three chords?  By playing a chord accompaniment and singing along with a melody, we are creating music that sounds much fuller than just a one-note melody line.  Plus, once we learn to play chords with our left hand (also during the second year) we are already able to play a melody with a chord accompaniment AND sing along!  Not bad for just a few months of piano instruction!  However, their real ability and total musicianship goes much deeper than what you are seeing or hearing on the surface!

In the third year of Let's Play Music, we add to our chord knowledge by learning F Major, G Major, C minor and A minor cadence chords.  We teach our students (now about 7 years old) to distinguish between root position and inverted chords, to find the root of a given chord, to take a given chord through all its inversions, to name all the triads in the key of C, and other chord theory.  We also teach students in both second and third years to play and improvise "stylized" chords:  marching chords, broken chords, even "calypso style" rhythmic broken chords.  

We are giving them all the tools they need to improvise, compose and create anything they want to musically!  This - the ability to take music in any direction, to create with it, use it at will, really own it - is the essence of why we sue a chord approach in Let's Play Music, and why it works to create total musicians!

For more resources on chords, check out these Making Musicians posts:
Learning Chords:  Fingering and Muscle Memory
Block, Broken, Marching:  Love those Chords!

Teaching In-Tune Singing

Many of the activities in Let's Play Music and Sound Beginnings are meant to teach children to match pitch and sing in tune.  Singing in tune is a foundational skill for complete musicianship, and one that can bring enjoyment for a lifetime.  This skill usually develops naturally in children, but occasionally there are kids who struggle to match pitch, to enhance their vocal range, and to carry a tune.  What then?

In my experience, it is often boys who take more time to learn to sing in tune, and I have a couple of my own children who have had a hard time with this as well.  Their instinct as boys is sometimes to sing it lower than the "mommy model" that sounds higher than they think their range should be.  I've noticed with one of my sons, that he does better when he's not on the spot (like in the shower and he thinks no one is listening) or when he's being silly (singing opera or silly camp songs in a boisterous voice).  When he overthinks it, trying to get it right, that's when it goes downhill.  The main thing he needs is confidence that he's doing fine, and then he does fine.  I honestly feel like his dad and I may have spent too much time pointing out the times when his singing was off in a somewhat misguided effort to help him get it right, and that backfired.  The more often you can just spend happy time singing together, the better.  

Carpools and road trips are great 'captive audience' moments to sing silly songs, improvise questions and answers, or  practice harmony!

Rather than drawing attention or focusing on sounds that are a little off, there are ways of helping them sing in tune that are less harmful:

• Spend just a second (meaning one or two attempts) asking, "Hmm...did what you just sang match what I just sang?" then sing again and let your child self-correct to match you.
• Audibly "scoot" your voice to match his pitch, then re-sing in the range that he chose, and may be more comfortable with.  Once he can carry a tune in that range, you can adjust and try starting higher.
• Vocal play and "sirens" will help break children out of a narrow range and get them using their head voices.  Repeat nursery rhymes using both low and high, silly voices.  Make sounds like a ghost, an owl, a fire truck, etc.  Have a quick conversation using "Mickey Mouse" voices!  Then come back to what you were singing and see if their range is less restricted.
• Sing in an opera voice!  Or use an echo mic and be a rock star!  You'll be amazed by how adding a silly element - especially if it encourages loud, full-voice, confident singing will get them singing in tune.

Any time you are doing these kinds of activities, you will not want to spend too much time or focus on correcting mistakes.  Give it a try (maybe two, but probably not more!) then move on with what you were doing, whether or not they are singing exactly in tune.

Another of my sons gravitates towards singing harmony, and has a hard time singing melody along with other voices.  Probably partly because of the same idea that masculine voices should be lower.  Or maybe even because his smart little brain is searching for a better challenge than just "singing it straight."  Sometimes we just want them to know how to sing it the way we think it should sound!  BUT singing harmony is also an awesome skill to have, so another tactic to promote in-tune singing would be to teach the lower harmony on a few songs.  

For Red and Blue semesters, try singing "Mi-Re-Do" along with the entire Three Blind Mice song, or "Sol-Sol-Do-Do" along with all of Scotland's Burning.  You can also do "Do-Sol-Do" during Are You Sleeping?.  These short, repeated melodies are called ostinato and are a great way to promote early harmony skills.  They give kids a short, simple melody to learn while at the same time providing an extra challenge by having them sing against another melody.  All of these songs mentioned here can also be sung in a round, as well as El Gallo from Blue semester.  Try these too!

For Green and Yellow semesters, start with Solfege Seafriends.  (Is your child's favorite the Alligator or the Whale?  Maybe see if he wants to try one of the higher friends once he has a lower one figured out.)  Also try the lower harmony "Oh Sally's" on Pick a Bale of Cotton.  We don't work on those in class really at all, but they are fun to pick out by listening to the CD.  Again, this is better if it's something you casually point out while listening to the song, "Do you hear the lower part they're singing on 'Oh, Sally'?...I wonder if we could sing those same notes and make harmony...Let's try it!"  (Or you sing higher while your child sings lower, then it's more of an individual challenge instead of always following mom's lead - appeal to his independent nature.)  Some other rounds from this year are Horsey, Horsey and Row, Row, Row Your Boat, or you can sing the "down, down, down" ostinato with Snowflakes are Falling or "tick-tock" with Hickory Dickory Dock.

In Orange semester, we introduce Echo Edison, who asks musical questions and gets improvised musical answers in return.  You could expand on this idea with your children by having them sing you a question (or you sing them one) - the only rule here is that question melodies go up at the end, and answers come down, or if you're ready for a bigger challenge, have your melodies end on Do.  Sometimes on the way home from school, I ask my kids how their day was and have them tell me three things about their day.  Adding the singing element makes it silly and fun, and with improvised melodies you can't get it wrong!  Another fun tradition is to sing "Do is home," when you pull into your driveway, then run in and check it on the piano.  Singing together is so much fun!

In any semester, you can go back and review solfege hand signs, which help give physical placement to pitch and aid in in-tune singing.  We focus on learning hand signs during the first year, then in second and third years we use them mostly with our melodic cadence patterns.  If your child is rusty, re-learning the major scale of hand signs would be great as long as you are able to make it fun and keep them on board.  Remember all the "solfege high-fives"?  That's a great place to start.  Sing the Do-Re-Mi song and see if you can get fast enough on hand signs to do the "do-mi-mi" part with hand signs - kids usually love a good challenge like this when you're going back to review something that's already been taught.  

I just want to emphasize once more that with all of these tricks and activities, you do not want to make it feel like, "We are going to really WORK HARD on this stuff until you can match pitch and sing in tune!" or give your child the idea that he's just not getting it.  Rather, try for playful singing time that is FUN, spontaneous, natural (not forced) and make it a game as often as possible.  Then you will have some good strategies to build his confidence, have him enjoy singing, and feel good about the attempts he makes.  In the end, it is more important to have a kid that loves to sing than to have a child who can sing in tune, but who chooses not to.  Hopefully these ideas will help you to continue making music with your family in a natural, positive, ongoing way!  

Making Music Together Produces Happier Kids

Music listening and singing are two of the best ways to encourage your young child's growth not only as a musician, but as a well-rounded, happy kid.  A musical environment paves the way for more musicality as well as cognitive growth.  And research shows that singing is linked to both physiological and psychological changes that make people feel happy.

Playing and singing with a teddy bear friend

From experience with my own children, I have found that the more often we listen to music, and especially if we sing, do actions, or dance along, I will find other "musical moments" happening spontaneously.  Maybe I will notice my children singing to themselves as they play, or maybe they will want to perform a song, dance or rhyme for the family. Maybe they will make up their own words to familiar songs, or make up their own songs all together. I LOVE catching them in the act of making music! 

Singing on the deck/"stage"

Besides being fun and creative right here and now, these moments are laying the foundation for musicianship skills like performance, improvisation and composition. Not to mention building confidence and simple, pure enjoyment of music!  Read more about creating a "rich sensory environment" by giving your kids more chances to experience music on kidshealth.org or pbskids.org

Singing on the bus during a school field trip

Beyond enjoyment, music can actually produce physiological changes in our brains that help us feel good.  The act of singing releases endorphins, the brain's "feel good" chemicals.  Physical things that happen when we sing, like deep breathing, can have some of the same effects as aerobic exercise: more oxygen in the blood for better circulation, stress reduction, and improved mood.  Read more about music and mood at healthychildren.org.

Singing improves our mood - even on long hikes!

Singing has also been shown to reduce anxiety and depression and promote psychological health. Studies have shown that choral singers rate their life satisfaction higher than average, even when problems they face are more substantial.  While soloists, such as karaoke singers, report increased confidence, choral singers rate even higher on life satisfaction, most likely because of the social aspects of choral singing - the support system that comes with belonging to and being needed by a group.  And since that group most likely meets regularly, there is a built-in time and place where the focus is primarily on learning new music, making harmony, getting a rhythm just right, etc.  So during this time, worries tend to fade to the background, or even melt away.

Singing in a group with friends at a Let's Play Music recital

So there is a lot of science to support what I have already come to intuitively understand for myself and my family:  making music a part of our every day by listening, singing, playing instruments, clapping, moving and dancing helps us relax, unwind, destress, and get happy!  All this while at the same time improving our skills and progressing towards musical goals.  It's a big, smiley win-win!

P.S.  If music time at your house is no longer feeling like play, and NOT producing smiles and relaxation, but tears and frustration, read this post to help you re-evaluate and find ways to get the happy back.

Six Secrets to Eliminate Practice Struggles, or "The Practical Practice of Practicing Piano"

Let's be honest.  There is only one way to learn to play an instrument, and that is practice.  And not unlike my gross overuse of that under-appreciated word in the title of this post, I have found that what we think of as 'practice' could maybe use some expansion.  Perhaps as we change how we think about practice, maybe we can change how we talk about it, too.  And maybe, just maybe, we can help the practicers in our family adjust their little attitudes as well.

As busy parents of busy kids, with over-crowded calendars, the most challenging part of practice for me is not fitting it in (I have that part planned and back-up planned, and maybe you do too!), but having patience for a pace other than my own "let's-get-this-done-right-now-while-I-have-this-one-opportunity-and-you-better-sit-down-and-pay-attention-and-stay-on-task-and-finish-this-fast" frame of mind.  Is it any wonder that my kids avoid me when I call them to the piano with that attitude?  So instead of thinking of how I can help my kid 'get this over with,' or even how I can help her have 'a good experience at the keyboard,' maybe I first need to think about how to make practice more fun for me!  Because for some reason we are so much more transparent to our children than we would like to admit.

Here's a little list of quick tips I use with my own kids:

• Secret #1:  Instead of saying, "Time to practice," I try to use cheerful words like, "Let's play piano - I am excited to hear what you learned in class this week!"

• Secret #2:  If my kids are involved in something (whether a coloring page or Lego project, or more likely a TV show or a video game...again with the honesty), I try to give them advance notice.  I get way better results when I say, "As soon as you finish that episode of Strawberry Shortcake, I need you to come play piano with me," than when I interrupt them with, "It's time to practice right now, and I never said you could watch that show anyway."

• Secret #3:  Start with something that gets you (the parent) out of hyper-hurry mode and tuned into your child.  Maybe a favorite interactive song from class like How to Skip, Rig-a-Jig-Jig, I'm An Indian, or Shake My Sillies Out.  Dance, do the actions, giggle and connect before sitting down at the piano.

  

  Shakin' our sillies out!

  
• Secret #4:  Ask your child about favorites from the list of assignments, and plan to start and end with something they love to play.  Make the music its own reward.  Some days they think they have zero songs they like - it doesn't hurt to go back to a previous semester.  Even pull out the old tone bells.  Just getting them in piano-playing mode is really the trick.  Once they are playing something...anything!...they like, they begin to remember that they actually do enjoy this.  (Never try to get them to admit it, though!)

• Secret #5:  If your kid is laying on the bench in tears because they "hate practicing," just know that we have ALL been there.  Empathize with them.  Understand that sometimes piano can be hard, and sometimes it can also be amazing!  Let them know that it really is worth it, even if it doesn't feel that way right now (for either of you).  Offer to come back later and let them choose a better time, then set a timer or alarm and stick to it.  (Sometimes I even offer to let them stay up a few minutes after bedtime, but usually not in the midst of a tantrum).

• Secret #6:  If by chance they happen to wander past and sit down at the piano, notice it and praise whatever they are doing well, whether it's posture, hand position, finding middle C, etc.  Even if they are just goofing around, just make some observations..."Oh, you played those notes so staccato!"  "I think I heard a butterfly rhythm in there - did you hear that?"  Then let them tell you what they like about what they are doing!  When they find intrinsic reasons to value playing, no matter how small, these little discoveries about enjoying piano can eventually grow into a lifetime of musical enrichment.

So there is my quick compilation of the day-in and day-out secrets to setting the stage for successful practice sessions.  

For more on how to show your child you value their efforts on their instrument, you may also enjoy this post on Teaching Piano Today.  Some of the ideas are more geared toward private piano students, but there are plenty of useful and fun ways to show your kids that you're excited about what they are doing.

Best. Activity. Ever.

It's time to get your kids registered not only for school, but for extra-curricular activities!  Did you know that learning music is probably the most holistic activity you can get them into?  Learning piano is the "total brain workout!"  Kids who take music lessons have more interconnected brains and excel in all kinds of ways:  cognitively, emotionally, socially, and more.  And the younger they start, the more benefits you can expect.  Check out this cool "This is Your Brain on Piano" infographic to learn more. 

Let's Play Music is the premier program for teaching music to young children.  Our exciting curriculum teaches advanced musical skills to young children using age-appropriate methods.  Music educators have long taught that the young child learns best through play, experience and discovery.  As musical concepts and skills are presented in a playful, joyful setting, children absorb knowledge and ability.

This is your last chance of the summer to attend a special sneak preview Sample Class.  There you can observe your child participating in class and ask any questions you may have.  I am positive that your experience will be enlightening, refreshing and FUN!

RSVP here for a Let's Play Music sample class (ages 4 - 6).

RSVP here for a Sound Beginnings sample class (ages 2 - 4 and younger siblings).

Let's Play Music Recital 2014

Our Let's Play Music students did an AWESOME job at the recital this year!  Thanks for singing your hearts out, knowing your parts and playing them so well!  Hope you all have a terrific summer - I already can't wait for next year.

Sound Beginnings Recital 2014

Congratulations to my youngest group of students for doing an excellent job at the recital!  They were so brave to perform for an audience and they all sang so well.  These kiddos always make me smile!

Hope you all have a great summer - I'll miss you!