composing
Why Improvise and Compose
How would you explain to 12-14 year old kids why learning to improvise and compose songs is part of the simply music program? How does it help them learn to play songs, if that is their goal? Do you have the Tune Toolkit Program? The…
- Last updated 1 year ago
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Defining Generative
Since my email last night regarding the “Swim Coach” reference to teaching students who play better than you do, I’ve had a couple of emails asking about what exactly “Self-Generating” or “generative” teaching or learning is. What it means, in a nutshell, is the ability…
- Last updated 3 years ago
- arrangements, comp, comp & improv, comp and improv, comp/improv, composing, composition, compositions, developing generative skills, generative, generative learning, generative students, generative tools, identifying patterns, improv, improvisation, improvising, patterns, Robin Keehn, self generating, self generative, self-generate, self-generation
Notating Compositions
I’m having my students compose and notate a piece. Of course notating rhythm is a challenge for some, but a wonderful way to have them ‘self generate’ as best they can. We do a ‘back in forth’ where I help them tweak it so it…
- Last updated 3 years ago
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Remembering Compositions
Below is an email from a parent. Any advice on strategies I could suggest? This student has been with me for about 6 months. He is in first grade and is moving through Foundation pieces at a just-under-average pace. I have noticed memory is an…
- Last updated 2 years ago
- #ttci, 3:1 2:1 1:1 ratio learning paces, 50 lessons per year, a year of lessons, audio recording, Audio recordings, benefits of improv, breadth vs depth, C&I, comp, comp & improv, comp and improv, comp/improv, composing, composition, composition skills, compositions, creative projects, creativity, depth vs. breadth in knowledge, developing creativity, diagram, diagrams, improv, improv at lessons, improv for beginners, improving teaching, improvisation, improvising, Laurie Richards, learning pace, lessons per year, Neil Moore, Neil's Responses (YouTube Videos), normal progress, pace, pace of learning, pace of teaching, progress, rate of learning, rate of progress, record students, recording, recording comp and improv, recording pieces, recording students, remember, remembering, remembering compositions, remembering patterns, resistance to c&i, resistant students, simplified melody, simplify this, slow pace, slow progress, speed of learning, speed of progress, student composition, student processing and resisting approach, student progress, student recordings, student reluctant to improv, students progressing differently, students speed of progress, taking videos, toolkit, Tune Toolkit, Tune Toolkit Teaching Techniques, video, video recording students, writing compositions
Improv vs. Comp in Tune Toolkit
When you teach projects from Tune Toolkit, are you assigning them as improv projects or composition projects? Do you have the students come back and play something or report on what they did? How do you keep accountability that they are trying the projects? In…
- Last updated 4 years ago
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Resistance Writing Lyrics
One of my farthest-along students is pushing back on writing lyrics because she doesn’t want to sing. I assigned composition two weeks in a row–make up a song. Then I assigned to make up words for the song. Mom texted me today (their lesson is…
- Last updated 4 years ago
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Starting Tune Toolkit with Advanced Student
Mark S. Meritt, any suggestions for starting Tune Toolkit with a student in level 7? Is there a way to accelerate through each project without impeding the layering process? I’ve been through the program a few times with other students but this particular student is…
- Last updated 4 years ago
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3-Note Improv
Is the idea with the 3-note comp/improv exercise that the students are to play three consecutive white notes in the RH or can they be any three notes, black or white? I get them to pick any 3 white notes without telling them about the…
- Last updated 4 years ago
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Assignments for Month-Long Break
Would it work, when there is a month-long break from teaching, to suggest that dedicated students (at the appropriate level) work through Tune Toolkit and The Chord Drill on their own? I have the vaguest recollection from the training on those that “students can work…
- Last updated 4 years ago
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Beginning lessons with improvisation
I recently heard someone mention a SM requirement that students begin every practice with improv. Is that official? Something that many teachers do? I’d love to hear more about this–where it appears in the training, and even if it doesn’t, how people who use this…
- Last updated 6 years ago
- composing, improvisation, improvising, playlist management, Robin Keehn