Time For More Music Outside Supplements
Found in: Reading
Mary R., Michigan
I have always taught Time for Music straight thru before looking for outside source material. Currently I have a group of three adult students struggling mightily with the more “difficult” songs (anything not in C) and becoming very discouraged. This made me wonder if some of you take little breaks from TFMM to have classes work on simple outside pieces—or teach a TFMM like Sleepless and then find some other simple pieces in the same key while the class has that key in their heads and fingers.
Any suggestions for making TFMM a more self-affirming experience, especially for adult students, would be most appreciated.
Laurie Richards, Nebraska
I used to go straight through the TFMM book too, but now I introduce some outside material to ease more into some of the more challenging TFMM pieces.
I have to share a specific piece that is great for beginning readers. It’s a sheet music piece called “Dream Echoes” by E.L. Lancaster. It is a very simple piece, very patterny like earlier Simply Music pieces, but they discover that through reading it. It’s beautiful, doesn’t sound like a beginning piece, is easy to learn and remember, and students really love it. I’ve decided to make it a permanent piece during the reading program. It’s also a great one for introducing a few simple dynamic markings because of the way the piece is written (with the “echoes”).
I also have lots of other books of simpler music from my traditional teaching days that I source from. I just look around at the music store for stuff that looks good.
Shelly E., Utah
Also, adding to Laurie’s post ….some of the music by Robert Vandall is very pattern based and his music is very very appealing. I also like “Shooting the Rapids” by Bennett which is very pattern based and it really gets the fingers moving which adults like. Lets see, oh, “Ancient Temple” by Lynn F. Olson (Olsen?) is very pattern based but this one is more simple and is made up entirely of 5ths. I’ll post more as I think of them. You’d think that 17 years of teaching traditional I could think of more right now.
Karen G., Tennessee
Once my students get past the first few songs in TFMM I tell them to start looking for/bringing in songs that they want to learn to play. That is very motivating for them to be able to play music they want to play, songs they are familiar with or songs they have ‘always wanted to play’.
I have a few books I have picked up with Easy Piano arrangements they can pick from if they don’t have anything in particular they are interested in. Usually the degree of difficulty is no more than what they have been playing, but even if it is a little more difficult, we just take our time, breaking it down working through a measure at a time.
I can’t tell you what this has done to enhance my ability to see patterns, etc. I still don’t always see them right off, but generally the longer I am looking at a piece, the easier it is for me to find them.