Develop Attention Span of Your Child With Music. Part 12.

Working on Student's Hand-Eye Coordination

Our initial goal is to learn to see at least one note, one corresponding key, and to press the key.

Let’s pose the following tasks to the student’s attention:

• to see the note of the right hand;
• to find the corresponding key;
• to press the key.

To See the Note

Open the Ode to Joy piece in the Gentle Piano Module.

The amount of times it takes to focus on note Mi varies depending on a student's age and level of development.

The student already knows that Mi is a Mirror.

We can show Mi on the screen so that the student knew where to look.  However, it is better not to do it and let him find it on his own.

The student's attention has three main objectives:

1. To decide on which flower to focus the eye.
2. To decide which flower belongs to the right hand.
3. To decide which image represents the ''mirror'' (Mishka, or Bear – in the Russian Version of SoftMozart).

If the student’s attention still needs improvement, you can help him by partially covering the screen to direct the energy of focus towards a single note.

Teaching a Student to Perceive Characteristics of Each Note

Besides having a name, each notes has a unique position on the music staff. Both of these variables are equally important for the student's attention.  It will be fairly easy to develop the skill of reading lines and spaces with the help of audo memory and vision if attention is first directed towards identifying the name of the note on the music staff and then towards its position,

In order to facilitate this type of activity:

We work on the skill of identifying notes on and between the lines.  Contrasting color helps the student's attention sort this information quickly.

We develop this idea with the help of the following concept: notes on the lines are "girls," and notes between the lines are "boys."

With the help of the cards, we teach students to discern regular notes on the lines and between the lines.  First, one by one; and then, two at a time.

The skill of quick visual line and space orientation is developed through the Fruit Lines Module.

The next stage is the Gentle Piano Module.  We can learn to play simple piano pieces on visual presentation levels 2, 4, 5, and 6.

 

The final stage is transition to paper music sheets.

 

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