Give your students bragging rights when it comes to scales! The better a student knows their scales, and the more difficult scales they know, the better they will do at this game. In Scaleverse, they quickly learn that picking C major is not the best choice…because all the other players will know it well too. … Read more
This is tense, nail-biting card game in which players have to find and “KERSPLAT!” as many rhythm errors as they can. The rhythms include time signatures that intermediate students need to get familiar with, as well as some triplets and duplets. How to Play Divide the deck between the two players. On the count of … Read more
Do you ever wonder what your students are actually doing in their practice at home? Do you wish they would mix it up a bit? Enter: Practice Hero! These game boards are designed to be used over a week of practice to make practice time more engaging, and also more efficient as students will be … Read more
Students do not need to know about the composers before playing this game, they will learn some fun details through game play. The composers included here skew towards those relevant to pianists. There will always be compromises when choosing for a set like this but I have tried to include a range and to represent … Read more
This improvisation activity is great way to get your students improvising outside of the normal scales or patterns, but still with some helpful structure. Students draw notes and music terms at random and must use this to form the basis of their new improvisation. Sometimes the notes will clash, sometimes they’ll go beautifully together, either … Read more
In Cadence Chaos, students work to identify cadences both visually and aurally. The game includes audio samples and there’s some note name review thrown in for good measure. This is a truly enriching game for intermediate students. How to Play Place a game counter for each player on the red “Start Here” space. Place the … Read more
This is a game which requires intense concentration from your late intermediate students. They will need to work carefully to place appropriate note values in tricky time signatures to win each round. This is a more difficult version of the game Rhythm Skirmish. If you want to go a bit easier on your students and … Read more
Do your students struggle with connecting the dots between key signatures, chords and relative keys? Or even just need practice with faster recall? Keyed UP is the perfect antidote. In this card game (loosely based off the game Rummy) students work to collect matching sets of tonic chords and key signatures. The better they know … Read more
This is a simple template in Google Docs that you can use as the basis for your own assignment sheets if you want to give digital assignments a try. Google Docs is particularly useful because it can be shared and updated by parents and teachers. *Please note that this link will open in Google Docs. … Read more
Buddy piano lessons are my name for when students’ lessons overlap for some portion of their lesson time. E.g. Student A comes for 40 minutes, then student A & B have 20 minutes together, then student B stays for 40 minutes. This cheatsheet is designed to help you lesson plan for that overlapping, buddy or … Read more