“Criticism is something we can avoid easily by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.” – Aristotle
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Jun
02
Summer is a time when all my piano kids just want to have fun. I’d also like to make use of all the extra free time they have to push them a little harder. So I’m trying out an incentive program this summer called “Muench Moola”. I’ve made my money.
Muench moolaView more presentations from Brenda Muench.And here are the ways my students can earn some Moola:How to Earn Muench Moolas
1 moola
- For SHARING one fact about your composer (limited to 1 per lesson)
- For LISTENING to a classical music selection via radio, TV, iPod, CD, etc, and verified by filling out a simple note signed by parent.
- For PLAYING an Original Piece (not written) with a title.
- For NAMING flats or sharps in order
- For LEARNING a one-octave scale in one key using correct fingering.
- For every 10 minutes of PRACTICE over 100 minutes each week.
5 moolas
- For each PRACTICE week recorded on the bmuench.musicteachershelper.com that totals 100 minutes
- For presenting a private home CONCERT of 5 learned pieces for family/friends. Student must list each piece played, date & time of Concert, and audience members present (with initials from each).
10 moolas
- For COMPOSING an Original Piece written out on staff paper
with correct rhythm, dynamics, and a Title.
- For BEATING your teacher in a music game.
- For MEMORIZING a piece and playing it artistically.
- For any “out of studio/home”: PERFORMANCE before a public audience (church, school, club, etc.) Student must record the title of selection, where played, and date, and the initials of 3 persons who heard the performance.
20 moolas
- For ATTENDING a professional music concert (church, school, or Community). A program, ticket stub, or note must be signed by Parent or other verifying adult.
50 moolas
- For ATTENDING a professional Classical music concert performance (Symphony, Choir, Chamber Ensemble, etc.) A program/ticket stub must be signed by parent or other verifying adult.
ADDITIONAL BUCKS may be given by the teacher for exceptional work.
Ways to Spend Your Muench Moolas
20 moolas: Various Items/ Regular size Candy Bars
250 moolas: $5.00 Gift Card
500 moolas: $10.00 Gift Card
I’m also using a card system that I read about in my lovely Google Reader on Laura Lowe’s blog, The Piano Studio.
Here are the piano cards I choose to make. I’m hoping that using these cards will help motivate my students to be more accountable to all facets of their piano playing.
Category: cool ideas from other blogs
Tags: Brenda D Muench, Laura Lowe, piano, piano lessons One Comment
Apr
09
For the first time in quite a few years I am teaching 1st grade music in the afternoon again. I still have one section of first that meets in the morning though. I knew when I looked at the schedule over the summer that I would have a huge difference in classroom behavior with my 10 a.m. class and my 1:30 classes. Unfortunately I was still unprepared for exactly how ACTIVE tired 1st graders need to be! So frustration ensued for both me and the kids as I tried to find something, anything really that would help them learn music and stay focused.
Sometime around January I hit on it! (Yes it took me half the year to find something that worked)
BOOMWHACKER MYSTERIES!!!
My first graders LOOOOOOVE the BoomWhackers and they behave well with them because they don’t want to lose their turn to play. I focus on mastering basic rhythms in first grade. So BoomWhackers work nicely and I get a little iconic note reading worked on as well.
What is a BoomWhacker Mystery? Well, it’s a bit of Name That Tune and ear training with a little story telling worked in.
What I did:
1. Prepping the song for the SMARTboard. I created a square and a rectangle (twice as big as the square) and saved them in the “My Content” gallery in Notebook. Then I took the song Mary Had a Little Lamb and notated the first half of it iconically using my square and rectangle color coded to match the BoomWhackers.
2. Prepping the students. The next week I told the kids that I was getting these mysterious emails from the “BoomWhacker Master” challenging me to figure out a song on the Boomwhackers. All I had was the colored squares and I couldn’t quite figure out how to use Boomwhackers with that. I couldn’t play all the BoomWhackers on my own anyway. What I really needed I told them was some other people to help me out. The excitement in the room was palpable! The kids couldn’t wait to get started.
3. Figuring out the song. I would pull the Notebook file up and we discussed whether we needed the big or little red BoomWhacker to play this. So we talked a bit about high/low on the BoomWhackers and in the icons. We also had to figure out why some shapes where squares and others were rectangles. Each student would then get a BoomWhacker. I had like colors sit together. We would play the song through once and see if we could figure out what song it was. Some classes got it right away. If not, we would rotate to the next color of BoomWhacker and play it again. (This kept the kids who played the less frequently used pitches from complaining and made it more interesting to play the song repeatedly.) I served as the “conductor” and pointed at the the icons on the board to keep us all together and in rhythm. All classes figured out the song by the time each child had played all the colors.
4. Figuring out the end of the song. Now here’s the real kicker! Once the kids knew what the song was they quickly figured out that the whole song was not there. Luckily the “BoomWhacker Master” had given us a few extra icons to use so we could finish out the song. I was concerned my kids would not be able to maintain the focus to figure out the rest of the piece but for the most part they were so invested by this point that they kept working till we got it done. We would sing the song and listen carefully to decide if the next note was moving up, down or repeated to narrow down our choices. Then we would try our test note on the BoomWhackers to see if it sounded right.
5. Proving we had it to the BoomWhacker Master. I told the kids the email I got from the BoomWhacker Master stipulated that we had to prove somehow that we knew the song and could play it correctly. So we decided to make a video and post it on our school’s Schooltube.com page. I let the kids be the “conductor” for the video. Of course once we got the video posted we had to watch all the other first graders to see if they figured it out as well.
All of this took about 3 or 4 music classes. And as soon as we had gotten our congratulatory email from the BoomWhacker Master the kids wanted to know if I had gotten another one!
Feb
26
Here’s the link to the page we covered in our session.
I hope you found something you can use.
Feb
22
Carol Broos and myself will be presenting on Thursday at ICE 2010. Here’s the link to the presentation wiki:
Category: presentations
Tags: Brenda Muench, carol broos, ICE 2010, ICE2010, voicethread Leave a Comment
Feb
19
Here we go! It’s gonna be random.
Audacity just rocks!
Exhibit A: I was sitting in a session about using a playful approach to teach kindergarten and I was frantically scribbling down all kinds of notes to refer to for later use. I was becoming more and more overwhelmed as I tried to process everything a record notes that I could make sense of later. Then the clouds opened, a ray of light shone on my head, angels sang and I had a thought! I opened Audacity and began recording. Viola! I can now make notes of the things that are visual that won’t be caught in my audio recording. Now I didn’t do this for every presentation I attended but for this one it was so valuable!
Exhibit B: Matthew D Thilbeault from the University of Illinois shows us how he is using the “spectrum view” in Audacity as a ready made listening map. I’ve always used the waveform view to record and edit. I never saw much value in the using spectrum view. But Matthew showed us the spectrum view for a heavy metal song and the things I HEARD after I SAW this view were amazing!!! If I had a middle school or high school general music class I would definitely be using this in class tomorrow. I teach elementary and I’m going to have to think about it but I’m still going to find a way to use this in my room.
Plurk is a life saver. I used Plurk to keep all my notes to the sessions neat and organized and easy to find!
Using Blogs in Band by Kyle Freesen
Simple and Inexpensive Tech for Music Educators
The General Music Classroom Goes Digital
Playful Approach to Teaching Preschool and Kindergarten Music
We attempted our first Tweetup this year. It’s a good idea. There are about 10 people in my own PLN that are music teachers in Illinois but the execution of the Tweetup needs refining for next year. I like the idea of having it during the Opening Gala in the Exhibit Hall but next year we need to make ourselves more findable. Perhaps a set of balloons to get above everyone’s heads will help? Those of you who tried to find us and couldn’t please offer any suggestions you might have.
Category: Uncategorized, music
Tags: audacity, carol broos, IMEA 2010, IMEA conference, Kyle Freesen, Matthew D. Thilbeault, MENC, plurk Leave a Comment
Category: Uncategorized
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Jan
28
Thanks for stopping by my blog! If you are looking for the link list for my IMEA presentation you can find it here.
Here’s the IMEA 2010 handout too
My slides can be found at Slideshare:
Imea 2010 Getty Webby with It
View more presentations from Brenda Muench.
Nov
17
I have a piano student who is a Freshman in high school this year. She’s been playing piano for at least 5 years now. Rebekah has a real love of music. She’s developing an ear for classical and jazz but I worried that perhaps she was becoming too attached to the written notes. I needed to push her use her ear as well as her eye. So we began working on simple hymns for church. I showed her how to read the guitar chords in the music and taught her some basic patterns to create simple accompaniments to the melody line. This was becoming a great project to review the grand cadence, transposing and key signatures! So we decide to take 3 songs and make an arrangement to play for church. It went really well! So we decided to do another one. But this time I felt Rebekah was struggling with the process of blending the pieces together. So I post Rebekah’s initial work on her medley on Youtube and ask for help:
I threw the video link out on Twitter and wonder of wonders the fabulous Mark Brymer contacts me and says he’d like to Skype with Rebekah! Mark and I tweet back and forth to set up the time and date. When the big day arrived Rebekah and I were so excited!
Our Skype with Mark Brymer Begins:
The 2nd part of our Skype conversation with Mark:
Mark did such a great job of helping to push us over our mental block! I had covered the circle of 5ths with Rebekah when we learned the scales but I had failed to label it as the “Circle of 5ths” for her. And I hadn’t thought to use this concept with her for composing. I already know that our next medley won’t be one where all 3 pieces are in the same key that way she can make some practical use of this new (to her) concept.
Rebekah’s Revised Version:
Even 5 years ago I didn’t have the knowledge to pull something like this together. But now because of things like Skype, Twitter, and my wonderful PLN, students like Rebekah will be blessed with authentic learning experiences! Wow! Amazing!
Category: learning, music
Tags: Mark Brymer, piano, piano lessons, Rebekah, Skype, Twitter Leave a Comment
Category: video
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