Simpedia

Andrea B., Canada

I am a pretty new teacher, but nobody has responded to your second 
question yet, so I am going to speak up because it raises a question 
for me. I only have the students bring their playlists to class, I 
have all of the other books we need in a file box by my piano, in well 
labeled folders, so I can pull them out as needed. I guess I just 
assumed students didn’t bring their books to class, should I be doing 
it differently?

As for your first question, I am definitely still figuring it all out 
myself, but I thought I would share something from a terrific meeting 
with Neil and Robin. They said, no matter how many streams you have 
going, covering about three in a lesson is about right. It might be 
more or less than that once in a while. They said, once you start the 
Accompaniment program, it needs to be addressed every lesson. But 
Robin says, once her students are through Accomp. 1, they don’t do 
much accompaniment throughout the year, but hit it big from January to 
March and then have an accompaniment workshop sometime in March, which 
is basically a chance for the students to play with a band. As for the 
other streams, once you start an arrangement, it needs to be addressed 
every week. But then after it’s finished, do another stream the next 
week. So maybe one week you are doing accomp. and an arrangement. The 
next week you are doing accomp. and assigning a composition project. 
Probably in between those weeks you could even do accomp. and follow 
up with the arrangement and that would be it. (Of course, always 
keeping with the Foundation material — well actually some weeks I 
have found that reviewing Foundation material and working hard on an 
arrangement has been what I needed to do). Their explanation was very 
helpful for me, hopefully I am expressing it well. Others I’m sure 
have more to add or can correct me if I’ve missed something. But 
basically, the message I heard was take it slow, take only a few 
projects at a time, and keep rotating through the streams.

Sheri R., California

If you haven’t started your students with the Playlist and Notesbook (the two original books are combined into one), it’s a great way to improve the right book/s coming to class, alleviate the need for digging through multiple books in class, and have fewer books left behind.  (The consensus about this book goes way beyond the convenience of keeping track of one book rather than two–we’re just adding to the conversation here about keeping track of books.)

Our students only bring one book to class–the Playlist and Notesbook!   Once Accompaniment starts that book is brought just one week when they add the I, IV, and V for transposing purposes.  Then it’s back to one book again.  When reading rhythm starts they bring just one extra book, perhaps two if they are using the Read ‘n’ Play workbook.  So our L1 – 9 students in general need to keep track of two or three books at most.  Everything else is strictly for home use.  It works great!

Marg G., Australia

To address the 2nd issue Cathy raised.   If they are rummaging during class they will be rummaging at home.  A very simple thing I do is put a Colored page Tab on the top of each book and color them in the order of:

F1    Red

F2    Orange

F3    Yellow

F4    Green

F5    Blue        etc…

This is the order of the Rainbow so is easy to remember which is which just by lining the books up and looking at the top of the pile.  The colors stand out well and the students get used to it quite quickly.   I start this as soon as I issue F2.

These tabs are readily available at many stationery and office suppliers.  I use the heavy duty ones as they are stronger although their colors are more limited so I then have to move on to the “not so tough” ones”.

This is the physical, practical side of things rather than the “managing the streams” aspect.