Michiko's Blog

Fiskars 12-Inch Surecut Deluxe Paper Trimmer

Available at Amazon.com 

Please watch my video with tips for cutting the cards found the real rhythm cards page. 

You may ask, "Why do I need to cut my own cards?" Because there are so many different lengths of cards, having the cards precut was going to be cost prohibitive. I also decided against preforated lines to separate the cards since the edges would be bumpy and smooth edges are important when writing rhythms. 

However, it is easy to cut the cards. Only short, straight lines are needed and the cards are clearly marked. I suggest using a high-quality paper cutter to prepare your cards. I do not recommend you use sissors or a guillotine style paper cutter as both will yeild unsatisfactory results (I've tried). I recommend using this inexpensive (less than $25), yet high-quality Fiskars cutter that is available worldwide. You can see it on my video. It is a great cutter for this and many other projects. 

P.S. I do not recommend laminating your cards. Besides not being green (so much plastic), laminating will add a glare to the cards, make them too stiff and add edges so the cards may not meet together properly. The binder pockets were not designed to accommodate thicker, laminated cards. The cards are specially coated to provide durability and just enough weight to make them easy to use.

My tip this month is to learn "Daily Do" and teach it to your students if you haven't done so already. "Daily Do" (Handbook page 29) helps students sing triads, scales and intervals on pitch, sight-sing their pieces in solfege, learn the sequence of the keyboard, understand the relationship of major and minor scales and prepare for scale and key signature studies. A teacher in Prince Georges County, Maryland, who has just completed Unit 1, told me that all the students in her combined school choirs have learned "Daily Do". As a warm-up at a concert this month, 545 students sang "Daily Do" together. Wow!

Here's my response to a teacher in New York who emailed me asking about the choice of the do re mi colors.

The colors are simply the colors of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, red. It's good to use the do re mi cards to play games so students can experience the colors. Once the students have learned to sing "Daily Do" and are ready to relate the pitches to the keyboard it's time to use magic notes to write out the do re mi rainbow colors. Each student has a handful of magic notes and a paper piano (Panda 1 Pack). Classroom students can easily share materials. Rather than merely telling them the colors, I ask them these questions so they can discover the color sequence themselves and thus remember it more easily. The first time we use a C major scale. Try this with your materials and you'll see how logical it is.

1.   Q: What are the primary colors? A: Red, yellow, blue. We place red, yellow, and blue magic notes on the major triad keys, C E G.

2.   Let's figure out the color for D. Q: What color is formed by combining red and yellow? The students hold up the red and yellow magic notes to see for themselves. A: Orange. We put an orange magic note on D.

3.   Let's figure out the color for F. Q: What color is formed by combining yellow and blue? The students hold up the yellow and blue magic notes to see for themselves. A: Green. We put a green magic note on F.

4.   We put another red magic note on high C.

5.   Q: What color is formed by combining blue and red? The students hold up the two magic notes to see for themselves. A: Purple (violet). We put a purple magic note on B.

6.   Q: What color is formed by combining blue and purple? The students hold up the blue and purple magic notes to see for themselves. A: Indigo (I may need to help them with this color name). Since the magic notes don’t come in indigo we stack two magic notes together (blue on top of purple, or two blues, or blue on top of pink) to create the color indigo on A.

7.   Ta da! The major scale in do re mi rainbow colors.

The above photo shows my student singing “Daily Do” and pointing to the magic notes. The magic notes on her paper piano show the eight tones of the major scale. When she sings the minor section she will push up the lower LA and TI that are waiting in the margin and pull the upper TI and DO into the margin. Her magic notes will then form the minor scale. 

The workshop teachers photographed in the preceding article are using do re mi rainbow colors to take melodic dictation on staff slates. They are using do re mi cards as a reference.

I'm happy to say that I’ve finally learned the color sequence for rainbows which are now even more beautiful to me. 

Many Music Mind Games games can be adapted for other study areas. Recently two of my students and their moms played Game 18-8: Suspense - Rhythm (page 309 of Music Mind Games) using grand staff cards in place of rhythm playing cards. Since these girls are strong readers and know their notes well, they decided to also identify each card with the do re mi name as well as the letter name. We chose the G major scale and using "moveable do", G was do, A was re, B was mi and so on. We also used the terms "tonic, subdominant and dominant" to identify do, fa and so notes. We found ourselves really thinking as we moved through all the octaves of the grand staff. Scoring was one magic note for do, two for re, and so on which related to the steps of the scale. We had such fun expanding our minds. See a short video of this game.

This game also works well for string students to identify open strings. Use two sets of grand staff cards, e.g. blue for violinists and green for cellists. Play game normally with the goal is to get open string note cards. Scoring is 0 magic note for open strings, 1 for first finger notes and so on. Thanks to Music Mind Games teacher, Sue Bakshi in Philadelphia for this great idea.

This is one of my favorite games since it accomplishes so much so easily. Students learn left to right direction of notes, the difference between lines and spaces, intervals, how notes are spaced on the staff and practice sight-singing with solfege and Curwen hand signs. I tell students that this game is based on stories of a young Johann Sebastian Bach. “Loving music and learning from his musical family, he copied music, even in the moonlight on the roof outside his window. We can learn from copying music, too."

A complete explanation of the game comes with the melodic bingo cards. The game also uses staff slates. Both materials are included the Panda 1 Pack. A new idea I've used in the workshops here in Aalborg is to place the do re mi cards alongside the other materials and to use the do re mi rainbow colors to write the patterns with magic notes. This makes the intervals and scale tones easier to identify and it's so much more fun for the students.

This game is ideal for pre-readers as well as those who are already reading music.

Patty Ladpli in Wisconsin wrote:

David, Naomi, and Sofia (ages 5 and 6) had such fun writing "Daily Do" on seven staff slates which turned out to be, "the longest song we've ever written."  They even ran out of carpet before getting to the end. They have been regularly singing the "Daily Do" at the beginning of group class since September and just recently got to the end. All I did was start the first few notes, and AWAY THEY WENT! With very little parent or teacher help, they were able to sing and write the entire song in small sections.

Patty Ladpli teaches Suzuki piano, cello and theory in her home studio in Madison, Wisconsin and took Unit 1 in 2006 and Unit 2 in 2007.

Hi Michiko, My students put a twist on "Danish Zoo" using tempo cards at a sleepover party I hosted for them. The first round they made an octopus and started drawing the cards - we all ended up with fistfulls of cards at the end. It was just the way the cards were stacked. The second round, they made a crime scene design. (rather crazy, don't you think?) Co-incidence or not, we played out all the cards.This is the set-up picture. Leslie Katz 

Leslie plays in the Los Angeles Opera with Placido Domingo and has a private Suzuki violin studio in Sherman Oaks, CA. Her oldest of three children has a Puppy Packet and is sharing Music Mind Games with her pals in the music department at UC Santa Barbara.

Elizabeth Cunha uses Music Mind Games in her classroom at Stone Ridge School in Bethesda, Maryland with great success. "My students are learning their rhythms, musical symbols and taking dictation so easily now." Recently Freddie* and I visited two of Elizabeth's classes when they were having Blue Jello Parties. The girls brought in various foods to represent the blue jello words. Elizabeth asked them each to collect four beats of foods on their plates. Before they ate, each girl was asked to say her rhythms. What a clever way to bring blue jello words alive for classes or recital receptions. At the bottom of the newsletter is a free download of ideas from Elizabeth.

*Freddie is my dog. Have you seen him on some of the cards to help you know which is the bottom? The girls in Elizabeth's class were very excited to see Freddie and started screaming when Freddie poked his nose in the doorway. "He's a lot bigger than he is on the cards," I heard one girl tell another.

Leslie Katz has an independent studio in Sherman Oaks, California. After her recent concert, Leslie wrote me, "We had some nibbles after the concert. Look in the picture and see what my students were doing with the blue jello word cards. They are labeling the food! It helped that I had celery, pineapple, purple cookies, and macadamia nuts among the dishes."