Music Mind Games

Music Mind Games is a curriculum of more than 200 cooperative games for teaching music theory and reading, created and developed by Michiko Yurko. Used in music studios and classrooms around the world, Music Mind Games makes music theory easy to understand and most of all, it is really fun. Students learn sophisticated concepts involving rhythm, dictation, note reading, and sight singing in the form of imaginative games. Thanks to a nurturing teaching philosophy, sequential pedagogical concepts, clever materials and mind-stimulating games, students grow to love and be excited about music theory.

The essence of the Music Mind Games method is detailed in the 230-page book of the same name first published by Warner Bros. Publications and now published by Alfred Publishing Co., Inc. It explains the teaching philosophy and details games for students ages two through adult. Six new Power Point Presentations make it easy to understand the philosophy and scope of Music Mind Games. A revision of the book is in progress and available after 2006. The popular boxed game Musopoly is available in music stores and online.

Michiko's current project is to revise the Music Mind Games Materials and make them available online at this web site. Please visit the EStore pages to see what is currently available.

Music Mind Games is useful in private music lessons, small weekly or semi-monthly theory classes, public and private school music programs, workshops, summer camps, church choirs and home schooling. These concepts have an immediate impact for students of all instruments whether they play only a few games or are taught the entire scope of the nine-year curriculum. The book is an invaluable tool for music educators and detailed enough for nonmusic-readers to understand. Since teachers and parents are often so good at improvising, it is also possible to use the materials without playing games to help theory concepts be clearer.

The variety of games makes repetitive learning appealing so memories can become sharp and dependable.

"It is as though Michiko has stepped into the minds of children to understand what appeals to their way of learning while maintaining a firm grasp of what it takes to become a literate musician."

While in most situations the games are played with children, even adults and senior citizens will find it fun and much easier to learn more about music theory with these materials.

The materials are used to help students learn:

• the musical alphabet and intervals (e.g. seconds, thirds, fifths)
• solfege
• how to place clefs correctly on the staff
• note names on the staff using various clefs (treble, bass, alto and tenor)
• melodic and harmonic dictation
• a fun vocabulary to make it easier to understand rhythms
• the values of basic notes and rests and their relationship to each other
• to keep a steady beat when reading rhythms
• to recognize and read note groupings
• fun Blue Jello hand signs to help understand rhythms easier and improve memory and comprehension of how notes and rests are drawn
• to sight-sing with Curwen hand signs
• to arrange notes and rests into measures in various time signatures
• to clap simple and complicated rhythms
• the meanings of musical signs, symbols and terms
• key signatures
• scales
• triads
• chords
• the relationship between the staff and various instruments

Music Mind Games teacher training workshops are available for teachers who want more detail and the chance to work directly with Michiko to play games from the book and learn newer games and recent innovations.