Teaching our beginners new notes is so important, but also so challenging. If they’re brand new then they might still be learning to read a fingering chart and maybe they’re still learning which colored in circles mean which finger get pressed down. It’s hard. So keep reading and I’m going to tell you my no frills tips for making sure students know their notes and fingerings.
Focus on the New Note for a Long Time
When I introduce a new note we focus on just getting the fingering correct for a very long time. I’ll have students hold up their instruments so I can scan the room and check for correctness and I’ll also walk around the room to check slide lengths and make sure the percussionists aren’t just guessing.
Then I have students play the new note while either reading rhythm flashcards or echoing rhythms that I am performing. We will spend a lot of time on just this new note and practice making it more automatic. It is tedious, but they don’t struggle with this for longer than a day or two because we are focusing on making the neural pathways in the brain.
I’ll also specifically tell students to take their fingers off the instrument or to take a talk break or something to distract them so that they have to place their fingers in the correct place again. This helps build a lot of muscle memory without putting it into musical context yet.
Put the New Note In Context
This is where you start having students practice playing short musical examples to practice their new note with familiar notes. In any musical examples you choose you should only use familiar notes and rhythms except for your new note.
There are tons of ways to do this and I take this step before I let students play the new note drills in the method book. I find that many of those drills add too many notes all at once and are just a bit too complicated for students who already struggle to read.
In order to set students up for success I create examples with simple rhythms that add one note at a time until students have four or five notes surrounding the new note and can play most known rhythms in the same excerpt. Again, this is a slow process, but their learning is so deep once we get through the process.
Make Assignments About the New Note
I was required at my old school to have bellwork for students everyday and I needed to put one of the bell work assignments in as a grade everyday. Because of this, I created a set of bell work to help my students engage with the new material in different ways and to make sure I had some grades in for admin.
This bell work is a half sheet only and students are asked to write in the new note on the staff, identify the note when given choices, and to fill in a blank fingering chart diagram with the fingering of the brand new note.
If you are interested in this bell work and want to check it out more then you can look at it in my Tpt shop here.
Have Students Perform the New Note Often
This tip literally can’t be done without tip one and two, but I’m going to say it again: Repetition, especially correct repetition, is the key to mastering the basic skills you are teaching your students.
Gamify
So far I’ve only told you really “boring” things to do to help your students learn new notes. Gamifying your instruction helps to add some fun and to help the kids “eat their veggies” when learning hard things. Don’t do it everyday or they will get bored and whine about playing games (and yes, this can happen. I have a few coworkers that use the games so often that kids complain when I decide to do it too).
I could go on forever and ever about how to gamify your instruction, but that’ll have to wait for a different post. For now I’m leaving links to GemKit, Blooket, collaborative sticker murals, and Class Craft.
You can also convert board games into learning games. I love using task cards in conjunction with Jenga (students have to answer the question correctly in order to have their turn). The sky’s the limit with gamification and if you want more ideas you can check out my Pinterest account for ideas and I have a few games in my Tpt store as well.
Displaced Pedagogy 