My students are all motivated by garbage! Well, my music theory game Garbage Monsters that is.
I love music studio competitions and have always found them to be highly motivating amongst my students. At the start of last term I pinned up a leaderboard for Garbage Monsters in my studio and made sure I had plenty of those mini post-it notes (post-its are so useful for teaching, don’t you think?).
As a teacher the drag and drop notes are incredible! I love how I can tailor it to the range of notes a beginner knows, or focus on a particular set of notes that are recent and relevant.
Music Teacher
There hasn’t been any prizes on offer but that hasn’t dampened enthusiasm. Students come through the door and immediately check to see if they have kept their position on the leaderboard, or if their post-it has moved. They play for the honour of winning!
The current winner is on the opposite side of the world, in New Zealand, so my students are determined to help the UK top the leaderboard!
Whilst great fun, the serious aim has been to improve note recognition and reading. For each question I drag five notes that the student knows into position on the stave and either ask them to name or play the notes. Sometimes I let students drag the notes and I sometimes ask them to spell musical words like ‘CAFE’ or ‘ADDED’, for example, to mix things up.
Garbage Monsters has also been really useful for interval reading and moving my piano players into different five finger positions, getting them comfortable with steps, skips and bigger leaps.
Find out more about how to access Garbage Monsters in the Beginner Reader pack here and check out my leaderboard on my Facebook page below.
Let me know if you have any questions.
