As a thank you to all of you Music Mind Games enthusiasts, I am sending some holiday cheer in the form of 10% off all our items. That means 10% off Puppy Packets, Panda 1 Packs, Musopoly, the Music Mind Games book, blue jello word cards and all the individual items like grand staff cards, rhythm playing cards and blue jello cards. This special will last for one week only: December 15 - 20, 2009* so teachers, put your favorite items on your wish list, give a nudge to your Secret Santa or simply reward yourself with a well-deserved gift. Tell your parents about this opportunity to enrich their children's lives with a Puppy Packet or Musopoly game that will last for years and be entertaining as well.  

We are usually able to provide same day shipping depending on the time of day your order is received. Once your order leaves us, it's up to the carrier to get it to you in a timely manner. Of course, we always provide you with tracking numbers so you can trace your order. Please note that this offer does not apply to orders placed prior to December 15th or purchase orders.

*Specifically: December 15 at 5:00 AM (Eastern Standard Time) through December 21 at 5:00 AM (Eastern Standard Time)

January 30: Student Workshop - Denver, Colorado
March 26-28: Unit 1 Overview - Flagstaff, Arizona
June 21-25: Unit 2 - Holstebro, Denmark
July 7-16: International Music Mind Games Teacher Trainer Retreat
July 26-30: Student Workshop - Honolulu, Hawaii

Details are available at Upcoming Workshops. There are more workshops in the planning stages. Information will be posted when available.

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. 

From an earlier newsletter:

If you want to relate "Daily Do" to the staff, that's easy! Here's what students of Patty Ladpli in Wisconsin did:
 

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. (Note: This photo was taken before I got the idea to use magic notes in do re mi rainbow colors when writing on staff slates.)