Use Fresh Produce to Produce Strong Rhythm Readers
You must admit, reading from the grand staff is difficult and as you may know it's not easy to teach either! The process of reading the "map for music" involves many steps including these four:
Identification of the pitch name.
Determining the location of that pitch on the keyboard.
Recognizing the duration or how long the pitch will be played.
Where that pitch is located within a measure.
Watch the video below to see how I specifically focus on the last two of the four steps. I'm using PRODUCE to PRODUCE strong rhythm readers. Here's a link to the video.
Get your Rhythm Produce Here
In a recent webinar called Lock in Rhythm Unlock Creativity, I shared teaching tips to encourage rhythm comprehension. From my own experience as a pianist, when you build strong rhythm reading skills, the pitch reading skills fall into place. Because of this, I'm passionate about giving my students a strong rhythmic foundation.
To build strong rhythm readers it helps to relate the note values to everyday items and to make the learning fun! I believe a focus on counting out loud comes too early in music study. Instead, we should sing and use words and phrases to develop rhythmic understanding first. That's when produce comes in handy! Soon budding musicians will see the purpose and will default to counting aloud as a helpful tool, not a teacher-imposed duty.
Rhythm Webinar with pics
I highly recommend purchasing the replay of our most recent 88 Creative Keys webinar and you'll get 16 dynamic and student-approved tips about teaching rhythm and so much more. For $49 you'll receive a two-hour webinar and handouts jam-packed with oodles of ideas from me and jazz guru and improvisation teacher, Bradley Sowash.
In addition, you'll get a copy of Rhythm Produce(the cards featured in the video), a game called Hand Pick a Pair and two grids to help thoroughly explain polyrhythms. This systematic approach to rhythm using produce is a $10 value, but you'll get it free with the webinar.
Purchase the webinar replay by clicking on the beet below.
Or, Get your Rhythm Produce here
If you just can't swing the webinar now, I've made a Rhythm Produce available at the Piano Teacher Planning Center. Stop by the store and check out Bucket Drumming for Piano Teachers and Rhythm Make it Count--both dynamic resources to reinforce rhythm skills.
Rhythm Produce will help readers at any level to easily recognize subdivisions of a beat. I know because I'm using them myself with students and it works!
Purchase your Rhythm Produce by clicking on the beet below.
Need some reassurance about your investment?
Here's what fellow teachers are saying about Rhythm Produce:
strawberry
“I have to say, this really helped me with creatively naming rhythmic patterns. When you have a theme (fruits and vegetables) to start with, it makes it much easier to come up with new mnemonics. I was looking at the piece “Predator” by Daniel McFarlane, and came up with “Watermelon slices, and watermelon juice” for the first part of the LH section.”
-Rosemarie
I really got so much out of yesterday’s webinar. The cups and “corn on the cob” saved the day for one student.
–Tami
Here’s a clever way to use Rhythm Produce in a group
The plan so far for my upcoming group lesson is to first teach some key rhythms using the rhythm produce cards. Then review using the Hand Pick a Pair game and/or then reinforce the same rhythms later in the lesson using the Heads Up App. This will hopefully be a great lead-in to having them create their own 4-measure rhythm (written on dry-erase paper cards that will fit into a hanging word chart) that they will teach us using rhythm cups. We’ll put our rhythms together for a group composition and play the whole thing, record it and take a picture of the final product for a take home. I’ll let you know how it turns out. The debut will be October 11th.
Thanks again for sharing your creativity. You and Bradley Sowash are huge encouragements to me as I strive to stay fresh and focussed as a teacher!
-Laurie
Why make your students count aloud with resentment when they can fortify their skills with Rhythm Produce?
