Eighth Notes

Author: admin

30 Jul

Since most of my students are beginners, I am only now beginning to introduce eighth notes. I’m finding it to be harder than I thought. I can’t remember how they were taught to me, but I do remember it took me a while to understand them. Here is a great idea from Susan over at Piano Teacher Resources. She uses a pizza to describe eighth notes to her students.

Have you found any other successful ways to teach about eighth notes?

Filed under: Games, Problems- Help me!

3 Responses for "Eighth Notes"

Susan Paradis July 30th, 2008 at 4:42 am 1
I love your blog! It’s a lot of fun to read. Thanks for the comments on my Rhythm Pizza.

Speaking of eighth notes, I’m working on a post to teach eighth note rhythm dictation the Kodaly way. I want to get it right, so it will take me a little while. I want to explain the process as well as a post a worksheet for students.
Elle July 31st, 2008 at 2:45 pm 2
Here’s what I do:

First I introduce it “at the table” using worksheets I’ve devised to introduce note values from the get go. I do this a few weeks before we attempt it at the piano.

Basically it is a sheet with eigth notes against the quarter note. It’s pretty basic. I’ll have the student clap the eigth notes while I point to the quarter note and then we trade places so that I do the clapping.

We stand up and then do a thigh-slapping exercise. The left hand slaps the left thigh while at the same time the right hand slaps the right thigh twice (the eigth notes).

I will then assign corresponding theory pages that reinforce eigth notes.

When we are ready to work at the piano, we apply the same principals we’ve been using all along. I’ll have the student play the quarter note while I play the eigth note at the same time. We then trade places.

I also introduce counting 1& 2& etc. When we attempt to read eigth notes we count out loud. I agree that it can be tricky at first. One eight year old student was having trouble applying the eigth at the piano last spring and decided to hold off on it. I didn’t want to stress her out. She wasn’t ready. But she did understand the theory of it. Ah, well.
Stengel99 August 1st, 2008 at 9:18 am 3
I do a game with my general music class called Blue Jello (taken from the book Music Mind Games by Michiko Yurko). Students say the word “blue” when they see a quarter note and the word “jello” when they see two eighth notes. So a measure with 2 quarter notes and 4 eighth notes would read as “blue blue jello jello.” My students absolutely LOVE this game. Once these students graduate to band or orchestra, I wean them off this system and teach traditional counting, but this is a great way to start with primary students.