Right Brain Music focuses on the right brain learner. As stated on their website, “The right brain learner is a more “hands on” learner that enjoys projects and discussions. The right brain learner also requires more interaction time with a teacher or adult and responds well to more one-on-one time when working on his schoolwork… The right brain learner responds well to colors, humor, pictures, and stores all of this information in their long-term memory.” You can read more about the Right Brain Philosophy here.
Keeping this in mind, Right Brain Music came up with reading materials that incorporated humor, vibrant colors and pictures. What is unique about this program is the way the note characters are introduced. Each note has a character that represents their place on the staff. On the back of the flashcards there is a short story like description of that character to help students not only remember where they belong on the staff but to create a connection with that character.
This summer was the perfect opportunity to use the Right Brain Music materials with some of my students. I decided to focus my efforts on a particular class that consisted of 4 students between the ages 5-7. In this particular class I focused on notes that were in the middle C position. I showed them the flashcards and read the character description in the back. They were instantly mesmerized. After I introduced these characters with the flashcards, one of my more creative students wanted to make up stories with the characters. I thought that was great, so each of them took turns creating stories about some of the characters on the flashcards. Shortly after we played the memory game. One set of cards shows just the character picture (no staff), another set is just the note on that staff. Students are to match these two cards together. They enjoyed this game.
There were a couple characters that seemed to really stand out for my students because they were really silly. The picture of treble G had a Grandpa that had extremely long ear hair. Ewww! The hair of course represents the G line it sits on. Another characters my boys in particular seemed to enjoy was the Burping Bride who represented Bass B (in middle C position). This of course gave them a good excuse to practice burping. Oh boy!
The next day I decided I would “quiz” them in a game I had planned and used the flashcards to see how much they remembered. I was particularly impressed after showing Bass F to a student who was answering (and did get it correct), another student piped up and said “that is Francesco Fairy because she gets stuck and can’t float all the way to the top.” This particular student is a very active student and sometimes it is hard to know how much she is taking in. After using the materials, I had a better understanding of her learning style as she is definitely a right brain learner.
While not all our students are going to be right brain learners, I think you will find that quite a few of them are. Right Brain Music proved to be a valuable tool in teaching notes on the staff especially for our right brain students in the studio.
In addition to the memory game, Right Brain Music has other materials that support the flashcards. You can find out more about those here.
Right Brain Music has kindly offered to giveaway a set of flashcards to one lucky reader of this blog! To enter please comment on ways that you have found helped either your right brain learners or your left brain learners in your studio.
Deadline to enter is by 10:00pm MST this Thursday, June 14th. (*Winner MUST respond within 72 hours of announcement or another winner will be chosen*) The winner will be announced on this blog and on the FPSResources Facebook page by Friday, June 15th.
Disclaimer: I received Right Brain Music materials in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way. All opinions I have expressed are my own.
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26 Responses
I’m always adding visuals and movement. Marching the beat, making up dance moves for intervals, and painting a picture. Ie. Imagine that each key is a house and we are going trick or treating to each house. Don’t miss any (for five finger scales). So, pick me pick me! For more resources I can use. Thanks
I love using visual cues! Please enter me in this contest. I base my teaching in my studio on making sure I address as many types of learning styles as possible for every student. :o)
When I start to teach notation, I ask the students to make up their own sentences for the lines and spaces. I find that students who are creative can quickly identify with their own mnemonic devices, and those who have difficulty with being creative use the standard FACE etc. This helps me to identify RB vs LB students, and allows those more creative kids to take ownership of their own learning.
To engage the right brain, I use a lot of hands on activities. For music reading, I use a lot of color. I also encourage students to improvise. The left brain students often don’t want to do that.