Music Speaks

- Hans Christian Anderson

Let's Play Music in the News

WISC 3 News in Madison, WI,  visited Gina Weibel's Let's Play Music studio to check out the best way to teach music, how to keep young children engaged in learning, and the importance of starting music at a young age.

Surprisingly, although the 3-year curriculum is piano-intensive, there are no pianos used in the first year.  Gina says, "We help them experience and internalize the music theory, and when they get on the piano the next year, it all comes together beautifully.  That first year, their little fingers don't quite have the dexterity for piano skills, but their ears are eager for ear-training and their minds easily connect the theory."

Gina says, "You can teach complex things to young kids if you make it fun, give them loads of experience to help them put meaning behind the concepts, and avoid abstractions (like note names and chord symbols) in the beginning."

At the finale of 3 years, each student leaves Let's Play Music with his or her very own piano composition. Gina tells us, "we teach them to understand how to put music together, how to write accompaniments, and how to change the music as well as how to read what they play.  That's empowering....and that makes creating music joyful."

The Let's Play Music total musicianship program is taught by certified teachers around the USA.  Take a moment to find a teacher near you.

Building Optimal Outcomes

Have you read the Let's Play Music vision statement?  To enrich lives, increase confidence, develop talent, enhance intelligence, and bond parent to child, by providing an outstanding music educational experience for children, using premium materials and lessons, taught by superbly trained teachers.

Let's Play Music has a national program designed to bring this vision statement to life with solid results; this optional continuing education program is called BOOST.   BOOST is “Building Optimal Outcomes and Superior Teachers”, and your teacher is likely spending some summer time working on improving herself and her classroom for you!

During her first 3 years of teaching, your teacher is focused on meeting the annual training and rigorous certification requirements accompanying each level of curriculum.  If she demonstrates mastery of the goals and policies each year, she can earn RED level.

As a seasoned teacher of 3 or more years, your teacher will be branching out to participate in continuing education classes each year as well as participating in local music associations, helping students enter composition contests, presenting Let's Play Music at local venues, and increasing her own musical training.  As she meets required goals, she can earn YELLOW level.

After 5 or more years of teaching, your teacher will continue to focus on providing an excellent program for students, reaching out in the community, and improving her skills.  Her teaching will be filmed for critique and the education of newer teachers; her clients will also provide feedback about the quality of the program so she may earn BLUE level.

You'll see your teacher's BOOST status right on her license, as well as on her profile at the corporate website (FIND A TEACHER NEAR YOU).  You know your teacher is busy getting ready to make this next year great for you, so give her a big smile when you see her in a few weeks!

3 FREE classes

Let's Play Music is such an innovative curriculum, I am happy to give you and your 3, 4, or 5 year old child an inside look at what you can expect from each and every class period. At this free 45 minute class, you will observe your child participate in a Let’s Play Music lesson and afterward, ask any questions you may have.

MONDAY 5:00 PM  July 22
TUESDAY 9:00 AM  July 23
THURSDAY 3:00 PM  July 25



Click the button to let me know you're coming!

Muisc can make Beautiful Children

Do I Have to Learn to Read?

Some families starting Let's Play Music class with their preschoolers are refreshed to find out that we teach a bit of improvisation, ear training, and invention... not just the same old stuffy piano lessons.  You may go so far as to ask, is it necessary to learn to READ music to create great music and have fun?

Reading Music : Pop Stars Don’t Read Music

There are urban myths and fantastic tales about guys who ‘just pick up an instrument and play!’ and countless other threads to be found regarding famous musicians who ‘don’t read music’. There’s no doubt that it can be done. Most have simply dedicated their lives to being good at what they do.

 

And the following jazzers are all said to have limited music reading ability; trumpeter Chet Baker, guitarists Wes Montgomery and Joe Pass, and pianist Erroll Garner. They all played wonderfully yet each struggled with (music) reading during their lives and some (admittedly sadly) never mastered the skill of note and rhythm reading. Some of these stories are exaggerated. Erroll Garner may not have been able to sight read Chopin Ballades, but he could certainly explain the theory behind the chords and melodies.

Reading Music : Learn the Language

The bottom line is that some folks are gifted with great ears, musical minds, and the dogged determination to play their instrument at a very high level. Eventually they learn the ‘language’ and are able to ‘converse’ with fellow musicians to make great art.

Taking a shortcut to learning music is like trying to learn a language but never developing the skills to read or write, or building a house using only a screwdriver. The more knowledge you gain and the more tools you acquire, the more you can do with your instrument. This makes learning more fun and far less frustrating, especially for mortals like you and I.

With the correct approach there is no doubt that anyone and everyone can learn musical concepts and become musically ‘literate’. With that in mind, the question ‘Do I need to know how to read music?’ might be addressed in true Socratic fashion by any potential teacher like so; ‘How do you propose I teach you music?’.

 

Let's Play Music is a wonderfully balanced program focusing on whole musicianship- yes, we will teach students to read and play the sheet music, but also understand how to change it and stylize it and compose something new when they choose!

Excerpts taken from original post here.

Short Film: Music History

How did music begin? No one knows...
It was Pythagoras who discovered that 2 notes make harmony nicely when the wavelength of one is an exact multiple of the other.  Yay, Pythagoras!

Enjoy this cute film with your kiddo and learn a little about music history:

Invent your own Hand-Clapping

Ever have a bunch of kids together during the summer and need something fun to do?  Here's my next idea: have each pair of 2 or 4 kids (or kid with adult) invent their own 8-count hand-clapping pattern and practice it.  Then, choose some upbeat music and show it off (with some skipping around on the chorus.)

I think I may pull this out with my primary music class at church, or perhaps if we have some spare time in Let's Play Music class this fall.  Hand clapping games are very popular with Four White Horses, a song we did in Sound Beginnings music class for toddlers last fall, so if you know that one, you really must play some hand-clapping with your child.

Drum Circle Power

If you live close, there is a drum circle coming up at Middleton Public Library.  After learning a bit about the way community drumming impacts our mind and spirit, I'm looking forward to attending and participating with my family.  Here is a clip with an easy rhythm game you could play with kids (and buckets or percussion instruments).

Drumming has positive affects on the body and mind, and then there's the community-building power of drumming together... I'm looking forward to it!

Have an ipad? Practice Piano!

An iPad app I Endorse!

If your child is techno-savvy and loves playing games on the iPad then you will love that JoyTunes has partnered with Let's Play Music to provide a FUN new way to practice! 

At the core of both Let's Play Music and JoyTunes lies the belief that learning music needs to be FUN. JoyTunes transforms musical skills into engaging and fun experiences – games activated by playing your actual acoustic piano (or keyboard). The piano app, "Piano Dust Buster", encourages kids to engage with music and practice, while using the app on a real piano/keyboard (no wires or adapters needed)! 

A Let's Play Music song pack has been added to the app for your child to enjoy some of our favorite songs from the Let's Play Music curriculum. With this app as a fun new twist on practicing, your child will be eager to get on the piano this summer and you will be thrilled to hear the beautiful melodies ringing out as they do!

To get the app, search "Piano Dust Buster" in the app store. Then come back and comment on which song is your child's favorite!

YOU CAN GET A FREE SONG PACK HERE:
1) Download, for free, Piano Dust Buster in the app store (either on your iPad or iPhone). 
2) In the main menu click on the ? right hand corner  
3) click on MTNA (maybe...someone tell me if this works!)
4)  Type in the promo code: MTB69Z58
5) Redeem your free song pack and start playing!  

Vocal Warm-Ups

I'm getting ready to sing a solo in church here in the next week or two, so I thought I'd share with all of you some extra singing education.  Here's a nice vocal warm-up video (well, longer than the attention span of my Let's Play Music students), but if you sing along you may just improve your singing voice, singing confidence, and perhaps even discover the secret purpose behind the swooping and vocal channeling games we do in class!  (remember the Halloween Owls and Ghosts?)

I love that Let's Play Music lessons can help preschoolers sing on pitch and learn to control the voice (the first instrument!)

FREE TUITION! T-shirt contest

Traveling T-shirt Contest!

Do you have big traveling plans this summer? Are you an artistic and/or creative photographer? Do you own a Let's Play Music t-shirt? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then get ready to enter our Facebook contest!

Simply bring your LPM t-shirt with you when you travel and then take a snapshot of you (or family member) wearing it there! The farther you travel, the better your chances are of winning! The LPM shirt that makes it the farthest distance (from your home) will win a month of FREE tuition!

Or, if you do not have big travel plans but are creative, enter the contest by submitting your most creative photo of yourself (or family member) wearing your Let's Play Music shirt! The most artistic/creative LPM-shirt photo will also win FREE tuition for a month!

If you do not have a Let's Play Music shirt yet, grab one HERE then snap away and enter the contest!

Click HERE to get to the Facebook page and upload your pic (don't worry, there is no third-party host this time!).

Official Rules:

*Contest runs from July 12, 2013 through August 31st, 11:59pm MST.

*Winners will be announced on September 1st.

*Winner will be most creative/artistic photo (What kind of buzz will your picture generate?) 

   as well as farthest distance traveled from home.

*Prizes are one month free tuition for each the most creative and farthest traveled photos.

*Please indicate how far your shirt has traveled from your home when you post the picture.

We can't wait to see your creative and distant photographs! Good luck!!

Soul to the Universe

FREE CLASSES: THURSDAY and FRIDAY

FREE TRIAL CLASSES

Thursday  JULY 11  4:00-4:45 PM

Friday JULY 12  4:00-4:45 PM

If you've been waiting for a chance to see Let's Play Music class live and in person, you have 2 chances this week!  Please drop me an email and let me know you're coming.  We have some coming next week, too, so email me and weigh in on when we should hold it.  Preschool music and piano lessons have never been so great!

Don't Let Them Lose The Art

Hi folks!  It's registration time.  I know your child is already an artist and musician, and I'm here to nurture that gem and help it stick around!  Parents attend music class with children every other week...because we want to keep YOU young, too.  Register above.

Honor the Children

After returning from the recent Let's Play Music convention, my friend and fellow teacher Trina Harding shares this guest post explaining some of the gems that we are bringing home to our students.

At the LPM symposium in early June, I was lucky enough to attend two days of classes and talks designed to help us as teachers improve the quality of instruction in our individual studios. We talked about classroom management, better ways to utilize Echo Ed and Edna, ways to help our parents help their children, and the incredible development of a child's brain. We heard from Shawni Pothier of the blog “71 Toes”, and Keri Maughan, a Love and Logic® coach, and we discussed the book The Child Whisperer by Carol Tuttle. It was a full and enriching weekend to be sure!

There was so much valuable information presented that it's difficult to summarize, but here are a few ideas that made an especially strong impression on me and that I think could be useful to almost any teacher or parent.

• Arguing with children is like fighting fire with gasoline. Instead of battling back, we can turn an argument around and move forward by engaging the thinking, rather than the emotional part of a child's brain.
  
  
• Kids will do things for a teacher they love that they won't do for others. They absolutely need to know their teacher loves them.
  
  
• The 5 to 1 ratio. For every negative thing a child hears, they need to hear five positive statements in order for the positive (rather than the negative) to stick.
  
  
• It's vital that we "honor" our children. Honoring them means that we hear them, respect them, and we never embarrass or humiliate them.
  
  
• As parents, we're trying to teach our children so much of the time, that we often neglect to praise them and let them know the manythings they're doing we'll.
  
  
• In any relationship (particularly with children), if we focus on the 10% that needs improvement, the need for improvement grows. If we focus on what's working, "what's working" grows.
  
  
• The 3 W's for re-invigorating the brain (great for helping kids with homework). 1) Walking-moves blood to the brain, 2) Water-can increase brain activity by 67%, 3) Watermelon (any fruit)-the fructose improves brain activity.
  
  
• Sight-reading, while playing the piano with both hands shows the highest level of brain activity. It engages all areas of the brain.
  
  

I know that I came away from Symposium full of ideas to implement in my Let's Play Music studio, tools for improving my parenting, and a determination to be a better teacher. I truly do love my wonderful students, and I want to make sure they feel that love. I want my fabulous parents to leave each parent week feeling confident in their ability to help their child at home, and feeling that their parent/child bond is being strengthened throughout this program. And I want to do my part in helping these delightful little brains become even more incredible. I'm honored to have the chance.

Trina Harding is beginning her third year of teaching Let's Play Music. She is a vocal performer, mother to four sons and a daughter, and is always on the hunt for the perfect chocolate cake. This Summer, she's donning a Nun's Habit in a local production of "The Sound of Music."

Summer Fun: Bucket Drumming

A few summers ago my sons took some bucket drumming classes, and I think it's time to rekindle the games!  They didn't get quite as good as this video, but bucket drumming is an easy way to keep the rhythm skills honed during summer.




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* Find FREE buckets, or use a mop bucket or bowl or ask at the grocery store bakery if they have old empty buckets that frosting came in to donate to you.
* Play a rhythm and have the child/ren echo with their drums.
* Find some further teaching ideas here: http://cbutler10.blogspot.com/2013/05/bucket-drumming-101.html
* Make up a routine to perform!

The Power of 3 Chords

I loved this post on chord progressions, originally posted here.

Once you’ve decided that you want to learn to play music, you’re going to be spending quite a bit of time at your instrument, be it keyboard, guitar, or even the tubax… Maybe there’s a particular song you’ve always wanted to learn, and that’s the very reason you started to play music to begin with.

Allow me to let you in on a little secret:
There’s a formula in most pop, alternative, indie, country, hymns, gospel, blues, rock, reggae, insert-genre-of-your-choosing-here.
Once you know the formula you’ll be able to play hundreds — literally hundreds — of songs.

(It’s a little bit magical.)

The 3-chord song

We refer to this as a three-chord song, or “I-IV-V“.

In Let's Play Music, we call the chords RED, YELLOW, and BLUE until year 3.

(Not sure about this “roman numeral” notation, IV, etc.? It’s easy! Read up here)
What this means in the simplest of terms is that you play certain chords in a certain progression and voilà! You will have achieved that familiar sound you hear in so much popular music.
Musicians who play by ear should learn the basic three-chord song structures as soon as possible.
Seriously: think of all the songs you’ve been wanting to learn – and the chances are good that most of them fall into some variation of this three-chord structure.
Whether you’re at the keyboard, playing your horn, or picking up your guitar, you can do this.

So, why should you care about I-IV-V?

Here are a few good reasons:

1. It’s easy to find the chords

In the process of sitting down to work out a song, half of the battle is trying to figure out which chords to use.
When you learn I-IV-V, you will realize that half of the battle is over already! You’re halfway to learning a I-IV-V song once you work out which chords to use, and that’s easy to figure out if you know your basic major scale.
From a major scale, you’ll play the first note’s major chord, then the fourth note’s major chord, and finally the fifth note’s major chord.
In the key of C, it would go like this: C major, F major, G major.
Likewise, a three-chord song in the key of F would contain F major, B♭ major, C major as its I-IV-V progression.

In Let's Play Music piano classes, students can arrange an accompaniment by their second year.

2. It’s easy to figure out what to play

…since there are only three possible choices!
It will just be a matter of which chord comes next and how long you need to stay on it. Figuring that out is just a matter of listening.

• If you want an in-depth example of how to do it, read The Sexy Secret of 1-4-5

However, true to its name, the pattern often follows the order:

I, IV, V

3. You’ll learn songs quickly

You might begin to recognize this progression as the dominant sound of the 1950s. For example:

Richie Valens – La Bamba

Johnny B. Goode

Great Balls of Fire

The more music you listen to, the more you’ll realize how modern pop has roots in this ’50s rock-n-roll sound.
Once you start noticing these common chord turnarounds in songs you’ll continue to pick up on them.
Combine your developing ear with the chops you’re establishing, adding to that your new knowledge of the actual I-IV-V chords, and you will start learning songs very quickly.
The key will be to listen to learn the sound of the progression and listen to a variety of tunes. Don’t just learn three-chord songs – learn the 3-chord progression, and all those songs come for free.

More about this here:

• The 3 Chords Every Musician Should Know
• How to Learn from Thousands of 3-Chord Songs

4. You will be able to play in any musical genre

Literally, any musical genre.
Take, for example, blues.

Eric Clapton – Malted Milk

Try country.

Kenny Rogers – The Gambler

Some swing tunes fit in with I-IV-V.

Brian Setzer Orchestra – Jump, Jive, And Wail

Rock.

Poison – Every Rose Has Its Thorn

Bluegrass… or Punk.

The Avett Brothers – I Killed Sally’s Lover

And Funk.

James Brown – Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag

5. You can sit in with bands easily

If you hope to play with a band at some point – maybe make a little side money from your musical efforts, maybe just to impress your friends at the bar — you’ll be able to sit in with a band and jam with a higher level of confidence and ease once you know the I-IV-V pattern.
You can play and vamp along with a called song, and as long as you know what key it’s in you’ll be able to perform.


Whether you want to play tons of songs or just a few here and there, knowing and mastering this simple formula will save you hours of scratching your head in attempting to solve the mystery of modern day popular music. It’s the easiest way to make fast progress in chord progression ear training and learning to play by ear.
So easy it almost feels like cheating… Help yourself out, and start learning the I-IV-V today!

Let's Play Music is the only early childhood  or preschool piano class that takes advantage of this power.  Our students learn to play this way in addition to reading and playing classically.  Don't short yourself- register your child (age 4 to 6) in a Let's Play Music class.

What's better than Perfect Pitch?

What's more valuable than perfect pitch? The determination to study music theory and learn to hear intervals.

In Let's Play Music, you'll come out singing on pitch with Echo Ed and identifying intervals like a charm. What's better than perfect pitch? A friend like Echo Ed!

Perfect Pitch Doesn't Matter

June 04, 2013  /  Kris Maloy

"I wish I had perfect pitch"

I can’t tell you how many times in my teaching career students have come to me telling me stories of friends that have “perfect pitch.”  They’ll tell me some story of an amazing musical feat and add the disclaimer “but he has perfect pitch.”  “I wish I had it,” I’ll often hear them say.  “Then everything would be so much easier.”

But I’ll tell you a secret: it doesn’t matter.  That’s right—perfect pitch makes absolutely no difference to your skills as a musician.

Why perfect pitch doesn't matter

I often illustrate this point to my students with this example:  I sing for them the Star-Spangled Banner in some key that I pick out of the air, then I ask them to name that song.  Normally, they look at me as if I’m a fool for thinking this is a challenging question, before answering “The Star-Spangled Banner, of course.”  Then I present them with another challenge.  I say “OK, now name THIS song:” Then, choosing a different key, I sing the Star-Spangled Banner again at a different pitch level.  “Now, what song was that?” I ask them.  Even more confused, they answer “Um…The Star-Spangled Banner?...”  “How do you know?” I ask. 

And here’s where their theory about the magic of perfect pitch crumbles.  Because when they think about it, they realize that they recognize this song because of the intervals, the rhythm, and the harmony the melody outlines.  And the point of this illustration is this:  Music is not about the frequency—vibrations per second, or which note is a C or an A—of the notes we hear, it’s about the RELATIONSHIP between the notes we hear.  We recognize any song based on the relationship of the pitch and rhythm to each other, not the frequency of those notes.

What you think of as "perfect pitch" is actually...

In fact, we should really make a distinction between two facets of this idea.  “Perfect pitch” is really a misnomer.  Actually, there are two different phenomena that have to do with hearing pitch perfectly.  The one that people usually refer to when they say “perfect pitch” is more accurately called “absolute pitch,” meaning that a person can hear and recognize frequency as a note name.  And there are people who do hear music in this way.  They can pick out a B-flat or an F-sharp when they hear them, or know an F minor chord when they hear it because they know the frequencies of the notes F, A-flat, and C.

The much more important way to perfect your impression of pitch is a phenomenon called “perfect relative pitch.”  This simply means that given any note, the listener can find an exact interval from it—for instance, being able to sing a perfect 5th or a perfectly in-tune minor triad if given the fundamental note.  Any musician can, and must, work on and perfect this skill.

While it may seem that those with absolute pitch have an easier path in their ear training and their musical skills overall, this is certainly not the case.  In my college years, I had a friend who was an excellent violinist in our orchestra and had absolute pitch.  I remember one concert in which she had an extended violin solo and had worked very hard on it, but to her misfortune, the orchestra had tuned very sharp that night.  As a result, every single note of her solo was flat, and she, along with the audience, cringed through every moment of it.  She knew it was out of tune and sounding dreadful, but because her mind was so attuned to the absolute frequency of notes, she could not play in tune with an orchestra that was playing sharp.  In this case, her supposed gift for absolute pitch worked very much against her.

Absolute Pitch is a disadvantage

Even in a more fixed setting, like in an ear training class, where absolute pitch might seem a tremendous advantage, it can work against those who have it.  Because while it might seem that being able to sing or sight read relying on one’s absolute knowledge of frequency, this can actually be a way to cheat oneself of a true understanding of musical function.  Often, those who have been able to lean on knowledge of frequency find themselves bewildered and lost once music classes progress to the ideas of function and harmonic relationships.  (This is why, in my Ear Training classes—including the Ear Training course in Musivu—I often have students write and read in a different key than I’m playing, or sing in a different key than is written.  This ensures that any students with absolute pitch are understanding function as a product of scale degree and not cheating themselves by relying on frequency.)

 I often find my students mythologizing the idea of “perfect pitch”—believing that the perhaps 3% of the population who have it are immeasurably blessed while they who do not are simply doomed to be second-rate musicians.  And this is simply false.  Those who have absolute pitch simply hear music a bit differently that the rest of us—like myself—who do not.  Listening for scale degree as it relates to the key center, listening for the bass line, listening for the function and quality of the harmony—all the things we work on in the Musivu Ear Training courses—these are the important things, and the areas on which you should spend your time and energy improving.

“Perfect pitch” is not always an advantage, and it’s not always a disadvantage—it’s just different.

What's better than perfect pitch

What to know what’s a hundred times more valuable?  The self-discipline and willingness to work hard to be the musician you want to be.  Knowing a B-flat or an A when you hear one will never compare to the value of that.

Dr. Kris Maloy has written and produced popular music, arranged music for jazz orchestras and small and large ensembles, and had his original compositions performed at many venues including Carnegie Hall.  He has performed as a saxophonist, pianist, and singer, and has taught music at 5 institutions of higher learning in the U.S. as well as many private students.  He is the founder of and instructor at Musivu, the Music Virtual University.