Buying Time

Author: admin

4 Feb

I have a brand new beginner student who needs a little more work than his book provides. The book is ready to move him on to half notes, but he hasn’t even mastered his finger numbers yet. I don’t have a computer program to write music, so I just spent 5 minutes drawing quarter notes with finger numbers on a regular piece of paper for him.

It worked just fine, and he even feels special having a new sheet of “music” from his teacher! He has no idea I’m buying time and holding him back in the book! What are some tricks you have found for buying time before moving on in the lesson books?

Filed under: Teaching Aides, Trial and Error Tips

5 Responses for "Buying Time"

Jonathan Wheeler February 4th, 2009 at 3:56 am 1
I don’t have any tricks, but something that might make things easier for you is this free and open source music notation software lilypond: http://lilypond.org/web/. Could save you time if you need to make a custom lesson and don’t have software.
Amy Chaplin February 6th, 2009 at 6:07 am 2
Check out This website. Phillip Johnson has got tons of innovative ideas and this website has lots of free tools for teaching. It’s awesome! Hope you can get some use out of it. I do.

http://www.practicespot.com/freetools.phtml
melody February 7th, 2009 at 5:32 am 3
You might want to check out Pianimals.com. I recently decided to look into them for a student who needs remedial help. The Pianimals method moves slowly, giving a lot of review of each concept through familiar songs the students will love to play. Book A focuses on finger numbers. Book B teaches key names on the piano keyboard. Book C teaches the staff, using an animal to introduce each staff note. (Later books review guide notes, chords, and G position.) Each book comes with a CD to help students practice.
mary lou February 8th, 2009 at 6:31 pm 4
To help the student learn finger numbers, make finger puppets that each have a smile face and the cordinating finger number. Put them in an envelope. Have the child put them on his fingers each day at home.
mary lou February 8th, 2009 at 6:33 pm 5
Also, have the student play “simon says” with a parent or older child at home – working on finger numbers.