Corkybird Enterprizes
Creative Designs for Music Education
FOUNDATIONS FOR READING:
Fluency in music reading depends on the player’s ability to see and interpret shapes. Even a three-year-old child can look at a group of notes, or pennies or magnets and identify what the shape or direction of the line is.
Using one of the following aids, we can start reading and singing shapes — either repeated notes or up and down a scale. At every stage I ask the pupil to sing or play shapes I have drawn and also to draw shapes that I sing or play. Invariably, the child also wants to be the composer and write pieces for me to play. All of these activities make music reading more natural and more fun!!
Use colored beads to reinforce the shape of the line:
Add a horizon line to establish a frame of reference:
A Magnet Board is one of the most popular and useful reading tools I have discovered:
Fluency in music reading depends on the player’s ability to see and interpret shapes. Even a three-year-old child can look at a group of notes, or pennies or magnets and identify what the shape or direction of the line is.
Using one of the following aids, we can start reading and singing shapes — either repeated notes or up and down a scale. At every stage I ask the pupil to sing or play shapes I have drawn and also to draw shapes that I sing or play. Invariably, the child also wants to be the composer and write pieces for me to play. All of these activities make music reading more natural and more fun!!
Use colored beads to reinforce the shape of the line:
Add a horizon line to establish a frame of reference:
A Magnet Board is one of the most popular and useful reading tools I have discovered:
HIGHER-LOWER-SAME
Once the pupil has established a reliable, natural posture at the instrument and can play first position scales, we move on to a drill called HIGHER-LOWER-SAME. The pupil starts on the tonic note and follows instructions to go up or down a step or to repeat the same note. When he or she can do this easily, we do the drill using the Magnet Board. It is useful to analyze the shape of the line before playing by pointing to each note and saying whether it is higher, lower or the same as the note before. Again, the pupils are asked both to sing and play examples I compose and to notate examples that I play to them:
PREPARATION FOR STEPS AND SKIPS:
Once we have mastered the previous stage we add skips. Instructions now include “Step up”, “Skip up”, “Step down”, “Skip down” and “Same.” And the examples might look like this:
Once the pupil has established a reliable, natural posture at the instrument and can play first position scales, we move on to a drill called HIGHER-LOWER-SAME. The pupil starts on the tonic note and follows instructions to go up or down a step or to repeat the same note. When he or she can do this easily, we do the drill using the Magnet Board. It is useful to analyze the shape of the line before playing by pointing to each note and saying whether it is higher, lower or the same as the note before. Again, the pupils are asked both to sing and play examples I compose and to notate examples that I play to them:
PREPARATION FOR STEPS AND SKIPS:
Once we have mastered the previous stage we add skips. Instructions now include “Step up”, “Skip up”, “Step down”, “Skip down” and “Same.” And the examples might look like this:
Once we have covered the
preparatory steps for reading, we are ready for Steps and Skips.
The collection contains 130 short reading exercises. Each group of 10 uses a limited range, set of note values, and combination of steps, skips and leaps, as described on the contents page below. There are links to some sample PDFs.
Sample of page 1
Sample of Page 11
Sample of Page 23
"Have cello, will travel..."
