This lab sheet accompanies Piano Inspires KIDS, a magazine published by The Francis Clark Center. Printed quarterly, each issue will contain feature articles on musicians, composers, musical styles, music in the news, practice tips, new music, theory lessons, creative activities, games and puzzles, and student submissions.
At the time of this post, individual subscriptions are $29.99/year or $14.99 for a single issue. Group subscriptions of 5 or more copies are available at $24.99 (per copy) per year. (International subscriptions are also available.)
Students will be encouraged to discern between duple vs. triple meters and major vs. minor tonalities, learn to harmonize using chords, play in a variety of keys, use several accompaniment patterns, and more.
The format encourages the development of audiation, improvisation, and creativity skills by presenting multi-level steps/variations on playing each tune. Each song includes its own checklist so students can use and build on these sheets year after year as their skills progress.
This 34-page DIGITAL download includes:
(1) How to Use This Book – Explanations include details from this post along with a few more in-depth details.
(2) 8 Pieces – Two pages per piece as described above.
(3) Notation Appendix – Lead-sheet style notation of each piece intended as a reference for teachers who are more comfortable notation handy.
(4) BONUS Step-by-Step Teaching Tips – A few more step-by-step teaching tips to help walk you through the process.
*NOTE: This book is a 34-page DIGITAL DOWNLOAD sold only as a studio license which means teachers can purchase one copy and print it for as many of their students as needed. (It is not sold as a hard-copy book.)
This resource was phenomenal for my teen student who needed to improve their non-reading aural skills. She had a strong grasp of tonic, dominant, and sub dominant chords already but this excellent resource gave her the structure she needed to exercise those skills within familiar tunes. Would love to see more products like this using other ear tunes!! Excellent for students using traditional piano methods as well as music learning theory piano students. Highly recommended and worth every penny. Please make more!
~Sarah Sevedge
If you would like to write a testimonial of how this product has been useful for you and your students, click here.
A sequenced set of custom links to use with the Note Rush app.
This product resulted from wanting to give all my students well-sequenced, note-naming assignments to do at home each week that focused on small groups of notes at a time with lots of repetitions.
Rather than creating these assignments manually for every student every week, I sat down and designed an entire, well-sequenced set all at once.
Teachers will find it especially useful when using it in conjunction with any online assignment tool.
I’ve been meaning to thank you for your Note Rush Sequenced assignment series. THEY ARE SO HELPFUL! I use the app more and more efficiently and a couple of my littles really like it. I also think you have sets in there I wouldn’t have thought of – there are so many! I have a couple of reluctant readers who can handle three notes, then six, etc., so the small groups in micro-progression work really well.
~Janna Williamson
If you would like to write a testimonial of how this product has been useful for you and your students, click here.
3 student pages: Melody (previewed above), Harmony, and Get Creative
A create variations tracker: A checklist for students to keep track of different creative combinations they’ve used (such as waltz bass, what keys they’ve transposed to, creating an introduction/ending, etc.)
3 teacher pages: Suggested teaching tips for approaching each area including a “bonus” page with some extra MLT-inspired activities if you would like to take the audiation-based instruction a little further.
2 notated pages: One with the melody only and one that includes chord root harmony. These are included as a reference for your convenience, but I would strongly encourage teachers to consider not giving students the notation.
Thank you for your weekly Friday Finds. They are so fun to read! Thank you also for creating cool Music Labs and your Happy Birthday product. I think I’ve just purchased all your lab products that I didn’t have!
Please continue to create these really neat products to help us as teachers be effective with our students. I currently have lab time for 2nd-6th graders and your products work well for them.
-Cheryl Leigh Stringfield
If you would like to write a testimonial of how this product has been useful for you and your students, click here.
Bring a smile to your student’s faces while introducing them to all kinds of music this holiday season!
This 9-page guide accompanies the (free) Christmas Videos series published here on Piano Pantry. There are 25 videos and around 90 minutes of listening for you and your students to enjoy!
Use it as part of an in-studio off-bench music lab time, as a digital assignment for individual students, or during group class activities.
My students have really enjoyed listening to the Halloween Lab videos. They were really wowed by the glass harp and the Harry Potter theme piece!!! It was fun to hear the reactions of a 7-year-old boy watching the Harry Potter theme yesterday. He normally gets fidgety watching a video but he absolutely loved it!!! Thank you for choosing a video with a male pianist, too. I’m hoping he’s inspired for years to come.
-Cheryl Leigh Stringfield
If you would like to write a testimonial of how this product has been useful for you and your students, click here.
Bring a smile to your student’s faces while introducing them to all kinds of fun “spooky” classical music.
This 4-page guide accompanies the (free) Halloween Videos series published here on Piano Pantry. There are 13 videos and over 60 minutes of listening for you and your students to enjoy!
Use it as part of an in-studio off-bench music lab time, as a digital assignment for individual students, or during group class activities.
My students have really enjoyed listening to the Halloween Lab videos. They were really wowed by the glass harp and the Harry Potter theme piece!!! It was fun to hear the reactions of a 7-year-old boy watching the Harry Potter theme yesterday. He normally gets fidgety watching a video but he absolutely loved it!!! Thank you for choosing a video with a male pianist, too. I’m hoping he’s inspired for years to come.
-Cheryl Leigh Stringfield
If you want to write a testimonial of how this product has been useful for you and your students, click here.
Inspire your students with this series of 60 videos organized into eight “theme” sets such as classical music fun, musical humor, and music history mashups.
Five pages long, this lab guide accompanies the (free) Fun Music Videos series published here on Piano Pantry.
