Halloween Week has arrived! And no doubt you’re ready to have a blast with the Halloween Improv Activity we shared two weeks ago and the Halloween Piano Game we shared last week if you haven’t already!
And now… we have one last Halloween printable to make your week complete…
How To Build Terrifying Piano Tunes
Today’s activity is perfect for students who are playing piano pieces in C 5-Finger position. It serves as a wonderful introduction to your students’ first accidental (Eb) and can also be used as a sight-reading exercise.
Oh… and it’s dead simple… excuse the Halloween pun 😉
- To begin, print out the EEEEEEEK! Halloween Printable.
- Next, have your students sight-read each line of music on the printable as written.
- After that, have your students play each line of music again, replacing every “E” with an “Eb” (remind them to look for the ghosts as reminders).
- EEEEEK! It’s become spooky!
- Finally, have your students repeats Steps 1 – 3 using a piece of music from their method books. (Below is an image of a student’s music that has been marked up with “ghostly” reminders.
- Discuss what other changes (besides making it minor) that can be made to music to “spookify” the sound… a change in octave, articulation, pedalling etc? Pick one or two (or all of them!) and have some fun turning a regular o’piece into a Halloween masterpiece!
What “Little Extras” Are Happening In Your Studio This Week?
The Teach Piano Today community would love to know what little extras make their way into your lessons during Halloween Week! If you have an activity that your students adore, please share in the comments below.
Andrea says
October 27, 2015 at 4:46 amThank you for all your amazing ideas! I think if my husband hears, “You won’t believe what I found on the Teach Piano website…those people are SO CREATIVE!” one more time, he might lose it!!
This week I am using your Monster Mash-Up and your Halloween Improv idea with the kids. As well, my students have been composing Halloween songs the past couple of weeks. So as a “treat”, I’ve entered them all into Finale and printed a book of all our own Halloween compositions. I hope they’ll enjoy trying out each other’s creepy songs!
Thanks again for all you do to inspire my teaching!
Katya says
October 28, 2015 at 2:11 amAndrea, thank you for sharing fantastic ideas. I am using them with my students this week. How do you enter the songs into Finale, do you use a digital keyboard or just enter the notes one by one? Thanks!
Jennifer says
October 27, 2015 at 5:00 amGreat idea! And so easy to do! Thanks for all your wonderful ideas!
September says
October 27, 2015 at 5:05 amThank you so much for this! I love it! Halloween is a favorite holiday of mine so we do “Halloween Week” at or studio. That means that all students are invited to come in costume and we just have fun with musical Halloween games and other fun activities. We usually have a few games that include winning some candy and I’m so excited to use this new idea you just shared as well. The students always have a lot of fun and so do I! Thanks again. You’re the best!
Andria says
October 27, 2015 at 6:29 amGreat idea for creating their own spooky songs (and sneaking in some transposing to minor keys). Another variation is to play their regular song with their eyes closed, then move their fingers to A minor and play it with the same fingers. It’s always interesting which children will like the “black keys” and which will like the movement to “new” keys.
M students start doing this each year when school starts in September. Then we all have at least one Halloween song for our Halloween recital. We go to a nursing home, in our costumes, and play our songs for the residents. As the Activities Director said, “You bring little children in cute costumes and play music. What’s not to love?”
Melissa says
October 27, 2015 at 7:24 amLove it! Thank you!
The whole month is a celebration in my studio with a game each week, winning candy, and learning Halloween music. I also do a challenge during the month and this year I made it easy. Anyone who plays a Halloween piece is challenged to come up with a costume that reflects some aspect of their piece. During this Halloween week, students may come in costume, play their piece and be entered to win a drawing for a $15 iTunes gift card. I am also wearing a costume each day and playing a piece that matches the period of dress (Romantic, Baroque, etc) or reflects the character I am dressed as. It has been an awesome month! I will be using this new printable next year for sure. You keep inspiring me to be creative which in turn helps my students. Thank you for all you do!
Andrea says
October 27, 2015 at 11:16 pmWow! That’s really cool Melissa! Kudos to you for going to the effort of all those costumes!
Milla says
October 27, 2015 at 8:31 amSome of my students families don’t recognize Halloween, so I called my piano party “Fall: Tunes in Minor”. Everyone played a piece in minor key and presented an original composition in one. Some came in costumes, and nobody was offended.
Phyllis says
October 27, 2015 at 11:21 amWhat a wonderful idea. My piano families and I don’t do Halloween but we do fun fall things and some scary sounding things. Love the title of your party – great idea!!!!!
Andrea says
October 27, 2015 at 12:05 pmGreat idea Milla!
Roni says
November 24, 2015 at 9:34 amYes, Milla, I teach at a Catholic school, so I asked their guidelines on Halloween. It seems that most families do go trick-or-treating, but as a school, they asked me to avoid ghosts/ witches, and instead just call things “spooky”. (I had just the week before written a song called “Ghosts and Witches”, which I then had to re-write, ho hum…). I loved using the practice template for that week.
Sarah says
October 27, 2015 at 12:36 pmThank you for all your Halloween ideas, here in our school in Australia we are in the final days of recording all the students music for our “Spooky Composition Competition”. The winners will have their music played through the loud speakers at school on Friday. I have used all your spooky tricks and treats and they have been a hit with all the students in particular “Mystery at the Mansion” Game. We even used composition techniques from Ratmaninoff!
It has really helped bring out a lot of creativity from the children. Thanks once again!
Andrea says
October 27, 2015 at 11:15 pmWonderful Sarah! Your studio sounds like so much fun!
Anna says
October 27, 2015 at 9:43 pmA couple of weeks ago I had a student take out “The Haunted House” (Bag o’ Halloween Tricks from PianoBookClub) which she played last year, and after a week to refresh, I had her tweak each part just a bit to create new sound effects for the story. I also whited out the name “Cody Hankins” in the story and I let students fill in the blank w/ a name of someone they know. For example one student read, “My Grandma double-dared me to knock on the door of the Haunted House.” We laughed through the whole song.
Andrea says
October 27, 2015 at 11:15 pmLove this Anna! So happy to hear it’s getting such great use
kathjane says
November 3, 2015 at 2:41 amMy students have loved the dice race with Mystery at Measure Mountain. We’ve also enjoyed learning lots of spooky songs. I put up a pumpkin garland in the music studio and students got to hang their own pumpkins onto it for each spooky piece they learned. They loved to check each week to see what other people had learned and how much further we had to go to fill the whole garland. (I printed little pumpkins from a free colouring website and used opened out paper clips to hook them onto the garland)
Andrea says
November 4, 2015 at 9:46 amSo great to hear! Your studio sounds like so much fun 🙂
Mary says
October 4, 2016 at 6:21 amLove all your wonderful creative ideas for teaching piano. Your ideas have made it much easier to teach rhythm to my students plus many more. The kids are always excited with some of the activities I do with them. This month my students are going to be studying Bach. I have taken Tocatta and Fugue in d minor, the opening them and written it for even my kindergarten students to play. I have ask the parents to find on u tube or Pandora and let the students hear the entire piece. Thanks again!
Andrea says
October 4, 2016 at 8:37 amSounds like great fun Mary! We’re so happy to hear that our blog has brought some excitement into your lessons 🙂