July Music Lesson Resource
TWO VERSIONS of… Name That Song!
Think: Pyramid meets Taboo meets Charades meets Music
Table of Contents:
What’s Included
Set Up
Aural Skills only Version- How it Works
Sight Reading/Aural Skills Version- How it Works
What theory concepts does this support?
A Personal Note
Link to PDF
What’s Included:
A deck of cards with a short melody of “mainstream” songs of varying difficulty (of course some may disagree because complexity is all relative), indicated by the color of its border (Green: “easy” 5 points, Yellow: “medium” 10 points, Red: “hard” 15 points).
There are 12 cards with short melodies: 6 in treble clef, and 6 in bass clef of the same tune!
Answer sheets included for both treble and bass clef cards
There are also 12 cards with blank treble and bass clef staves for you to write in your own melodies that you and your student may be working on!
The provided melodies are as follows:
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
Mary Had a Little Lamb
You Are My Sunshine
Old McDonald
Baby Shark
Let it Go
Expansion packs to come!
Set Up:
Cut out each card. Place each card decal back-to-back with each playing card inside a laminator sheet. I recommend this over printing double sided, as the two separate sheets makes the cards thicker, and avoids the issue of seeing the answer through the card. Cut out your laminated cards (round the edges if they’re too sharp), and play away!
If you are using the blank cards, use a fine tip dry erase marker on the laminated cards in order to reuse them! When turn taking, this will also be a great experience for your student to practice writing in notation on the staff!
Sight Reading/Aural Skills Version- How it Works:
Take turns picking a card from the deck
The player with the card sight reads the melody on piano. The same player then guesses the name of the song they just played. Bump up the challenge by giving a limit of 3- meaning the player only gets 3 guesses and/or 3 chances to play the melody.
The player with the most points wins.
Aural Skills only Version (for those who find sight reading easy)- How it Works:
Take turns picking a card from the deck.
The player with the card plays the presented melody for the other player to listen to and guess the name of the tune. Bump up the challenge by giving a limit of 3- meaning the player only gets 3 guesses and/or 3 chances to hear the melody.
The player with the most points wins
What theory concepts does this support?
As stated above, the two different versions are supporting both sight reading skills, as well as aural skills.
When I first introduced the idea of “sightreading” in this game, I was met with fear-filled eyes and lots of self-doubt. I primarily use My Piano Adventures in my lessons, which I love, but my students are very used to having “tips” written out on the top of the page, or having the fingering already written in. We were able to talk through how to navigate playing a piece “from scratch.” We talked through “what’s the lowest note you see in the whole piece? Let’s put our 1 finger there for now, though we may have to stretch or move our hand later!” We talked through, “what can we look for? Skips? Steps? Repeat notes?” We talked through, “it probably won’t come out completely right- and that’s okay! That’s sight reading. We’re just taking our first bite of the meal to get a little taste.” Of course, these are skills some of my students and I talk about all the time in their books, but again, having it in “game form” I strongly believe makes for a more thorough understanding. My students tend to be more outgoing and independent in their processing of concepts when we put them into games.
The same goes for aural skills. I always like to give a “why.” Why are we doing this? I explained how ear training happens all the time in our practice- like when you are playing your repertoire and something didn’t sound quite right? That’s aural skills! It sounded a bit too high, maybe we should try that note again down a step? That’s aural skills! Rather than relying on a teacher to tell them if they played it correctly, my students are excited by the fact that they are consciously working on skills that will help them be able to pick up on these things independently.
A Personal Note:
Anyone else here seriously struggle with ear training? To be perfectly honest, ear training is the bane of my existence. Auditory processing has always been a point of frustration for me personally. This game has actually opened up some great opportunities for connection. I think it’s so important for us to share things that are difficult for us teachers with our students. When I first introduced ear training to one of my students, they exhibited a lot of anxiety. I was able to connect with them, and share that I feel the same way. It does not make you “less” in any way, and also you are not alone. I think when we constantly show our students how things “should” sound or “should” go, it can be so intimidating and disencouraging. When I told this student how I feel really overwhelmed and confused with ear training, that first allowed the student to take a breath, and perhaps feel a bit seen. We were able to talk about what our respective experiences are when we try to process what we hear. I was also able to share some tips that have (somewhat?) helped me over the years. Most importantly, I think sharing our personal areas of difficulty beautifully shows that there is always something more to learn, OR that we all have different strengths, and that is OKAY!
Mikaila Vieyra, LPMT, MT-BC