Archive for category Reviews of teaching materials
Review #2-How Sweet the Sound
Posted by Wendy in New Music, Reviews of teaching materials on January 27th, 2010
If you have never checked out Susan Paradis’ website, Piano Teacher Resources, you must check it out. Many of the games that my students play each week are from Susan’s site! Especially useful to me have been her ideas and worksheets for games, steps and skips, and theory.
Yesterday, Susan published a review of my new book How Sweet the Sound. You can read the review here. Thank you Susan for taking the time to play through and review the pieces. I really appreciate it!
New Review of How Sweet the Sound
Posted by Wendy in New Music, Reviews of teaching materials on January 26th, 2010
Natalie, over on Music Matters Blog, has posted a review of How Sweet the Sound, my newest collection of sacred arrangements. She begins by talking about her performance of the first piece at her local music teachers’ meeting:
I had recently received Wendy Stevens’ newest book, How Sweet the Sound, and fell in love with the first arrangement – Day of Arising. It’s a gorgeous setting that just makes the piano sing
She then details several high points of many of the pieces and makes this statement:
Each of the other intermediate/late-intermediate arrangements are also enjoyable, offering the fresh, vibrant, elements that players of Wendy’s music have come to expect and love.
You can see a PDF sample and audio samples on the previous blog post. Prima Music has just notified me that they will be stocking this book. You can also order directly from the composecreate site:
How Sweet the Sound
10 arrangements for solo piano
Late Intermediate, 48 pages
$17.50
Published by Augsburg Fortress
Review of Irish Celebration
Posted by Wendy in Music for Teaching, New Music, Piano Teaching, Reviews of teaching materials on January 13th, 2010
Don’t forget to enter the Irish Celebration giveaway. You have until Friday, January 15th at noon to enter by commenting, blogging, or tweeting about the piece. Enter by leaving a comment on this post: Irish Celebration Giveaway.
Susan Paradis has posted a very thorough review of Irish Celebration on her useful piano blog. Thank you Susan for your kind words and thorough review!
Splash Cats
Posted by Wendy in Reviews of teaching materials on January 4th, 2010
Solo Time Music Games is a company making and selling music games that I have recently discovered. Solo Time sells music games for elementary and early intermediate students covering a wide variety of concepts. Their motto, “Putting the flash back in flashcards” is aptly chosen as their games are very colorful and attractive to young students.
Lois, one of the creators sent me one of her games to review called Splash Cats. This game is for beginning students and drills the concepts of white key note names and notes on the treble and bass staff from Bass G to the Treble G space. Students are given beach ball flashcards with pictures of notes (on the keyboard or staff) and asked to “Throw the ball into the right bucket…Don’t get wet!” Students then place the flashcard into the correct bucket.
I had this game sitting out to play with a young student when my son, not a piano student, asked to play it. You could tell he was just drawn to the cute blue cats on the board as well as the colorful beachballs. I told him the answers to the flashcards so that he could put them in the appropriate bucket and he had a blast!
Then, I gave it to one of my young students to play and she enjoyed it as well. It definitely helped reinforce note names and white keys names.
I also thought that several other games looked extremely interesting on the SoloTime site. Here are some that I would encourage you to check out:
Burger intervals (differentiating between Major, minor, and perfect intervals on the staff)
Pyramid triads (very creative game for reinforcing the look of root position, 1st inversion, and 2nd inversion triads)
Three’s a Triad (for building triads)
Music for Young Children teachers may be interested to know that each game has a code on it that tell you with which levels of MYC curriculum these games work. For example, the Splash Cats game has SS1, SS2, SB1, and MB1 on it (and on the website).
There are many more interesting looking games and I would encourage you to check them out. Lois is wonderful about responding to any questions I had so I’m sure she would be happy to talk with you about any of the games.
Keyboard Puzzle
Posted by Wendy in Piano Teaching, Reviews of teaching materials on December 3rd, 2009
I was teaching a young student the other day and remembered that I had a great little game for teaching the white keys. These Keyboard Puzzle Flashcards are shaped such that they only fit on the correct key. I gave the students 7 D pieces and asked him to place the pieces on all the D’s. Then, I did the same for the C’s and the E’s. He then asked if he could do the rest of the letters even though we had not gone over these yet. He really enjoyed the activity and it reinforced the idea that every key has a specific name and “shape” in the topography of the piano.
I got these flashcards from Flo at Pianimals. If you are not familiar with it, Pianimals is an early level curriculum that teaches the students to read music by finger number initially. Although that might seem “dangerous” to some teachers, I have found that it is quite effective in reinforcing finger numbers in students at the early levels. The pieces are all familiar folk songs and children get very excited that they are able to play songs that they know even at the first lesson. Books B and C move on to teach the student how to read music, so it is not a “read by finger only” approach. I’ve had good success with several students in this program (especially students who might need to move more slowly than others).
Flo has graciously posted the pdf of this puzzle on the free section of their website. She says to feel free to take advantage of this free resource for young students!
