When teaching young piano students to read music, you’re actually teaching them two skills 1) how to recognize notes on the staff at sight and 2) how to determine the relationships between notes. Most teachers have many tools and tricks to help students note-read. But finding strategies to help develop kids’ intervallic reading can be a little more challenging.
So, in today’s post, we’re sharing an easy activity that you can use with your students if you want to develop their abilities to identify stepping, skipping, leaping and repeating notes.
It’s Time To Doodle Up Some Score Skeletons
As soon as your beginning piano students move out of “stepping only” patterns and begin encountering music that incorporates repeated notes, skipping notes and leaping notes, pull out a piece of paper and some pencil crayons and create my “Score Skeleton”. This simple doodle activity will reinforce their understanding of the relationships between the notes in their music
To get started with a Score Skeleton do the following:
Step 1 – Draw The Backbone
Draw a long horizontal line across a piece of paper. This line represents the first line in your student’s music.
Step 2 – Create The Grid
Create a “grid” by drawing vertical lines that intersect the horizontal line, making one vertical line for every note found (in the first line) of the treble clef of your student’s piece. If your student’s piece has 13 notes in the first line, you will draw 13 vertical lines. You will end up with something that looks like this:
Step 3 – Color The Relationships
Give your student four different colored pencil crayons and ask him to carefully inspect his music. Ask, “What is happening between the first two notes in your piece? Is there a repeated note, a step, a skip or a leap?” Once he has decided on his answer, ask him to do one of the following:
a) If it is a repeated note, draw a circle that encompasses both “note lines”
b) If it is a step, draw a line to connect both “note lines”.
c) If it is a skip, draw a curved line to connect both “note lines”.
d) If it is a leap (anything larger than a skip) draw a dashed, curved line to connect both “note lines”.
Step 4 – Repeat Step 3
Repeat Step 4 with each consecutive note in the first line of your student’s piece. You’ll end up with something that looks like this ( below is a “Score Skeleton” of the first line of Mary Had a Little Lamb). Note: To keep things looking tidy and organized, use a different color for each of the four options mentioned in Step 4.
Step 5 – Talk Through The Score Skeleton
Using the newly-created Score Skeleton, “talk through” the piece with your student. For example, in Mary Had A Little Lamb you would say “Start on E, step, step, step, step, repeat, repeat, step, repeat, repeat, step, skip, repeat.”
Step 6 – Match With The Music
Compare the newly-created Score Skeleton to the piano piece. Discuss patterns that are evident. Repeat Steps 1 through 5 if desired (or needed) for the rest of the treble clef and then the bass clef line. You can also choose to add a rhythmic element by having your student add circles to the bottom of the note lines (see below) and then clapping or tapping the rhythm while you “talk through” the piece.
Why Score Skeletons Work And When To Use Them
Score Skeletons work for several reasons:
1) They get your students thinking about the intervallic relationships between the notes on the page and encourage them to use the correct language to identify the relationships.
2) They turn patterns that exist in your students’ music into a pictorial tool that makes the patterns easy to visually identify and remember.
3) The process of creating a Score Skeleton with your students gives you insights into what your students do and do not easily understand, allowing for a moments of focused teaching.
4) Creating a Score Skeleton away from your students’ music (instead of “on their page”) keeps a clean page so that students can focus on their music and not on markings that have been made on their music.
Now That They Can See It… They Should Hear It Too!
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Marilyn says
Great activity! A parent texted me that her daughter broke her arm last week and should she come for her lesson this week. This is a perfect activity to use. Thank hank you got great ideas…
Andrea says
Hi Marilyn! This post might also help in this “one arm” situation too! https://www.teachpianotoday.com/2016/02/07/what-to-do-when-a-piano-student-breaks-sprains-twists-or-burns-a-hand/
Lesia says
I have been doing something similar for a long time with my students, without the horizontal line. We draw floating dots for quarter notes, flat ovals for half notes, and two vertical lines connected for 8th notes. This way the student actually draws the shape of the melody. For skips we add curving arrows up or down between notes. Repeated notes take care of themselves, and longer notes are drawn as the actual note value. Color can be added for different things.
Petrina says
I like your model, Lesia. How do you differentiate between the flat ovals for half notes vs whole notes?
Linda Kirkconnell says
I love this idea, Andrea, and can’t wait to implement it. Thank you!
Andrea says
You’re welcome Linda! Would love to hear how it works for you 🙂
Joanna says
Dear Andrea,thank you for your very inspiring ideas! You can be proud beacuse of export many of them to far Poland 🙂 I would to ask you,are you planning to create new Composer Trading Cards? My students miss them so much…
Patsy Mitchell says
Love this idea! Here’s something for the steps…if the note steps up, draw the line to connect on top, and if the note steps down, draw the line to connect on the bottom. This would add another visual aspect to step-ups and step-downs.
Andrea says
Hi Joanna – thanks for reading from Poland! We have released quite a few Composer Trading Cards… here’s the last two sets so you can be sure you have them all. We absolutely plan on releasing more 🙂
https://www.teachpianotoday.com/2016/10/13/snap-the-composer-a-printable-game-for-music-history-fun/
AND
https://www.teachpianotoday.com/2017/02/06/3-unique-ways-to-use-our-composer-trading-cards-and-another-set/
Joanna says
Thanks a lot,i’m looking forward to the new one 🙂 Greetings!
Esther says
Just used this today with a student that has a lot of trouble, thanks for the idea.
Linda Hyland says
Creative idea and yet so simple. I think most times when you have to write something down it makes much more sense than listening only. One thing I do notice is that the first note sort of confuses students because they want to call it something–like a step, skip, etc. I always have to emphasize that the first note is just the starting point. It happens when I teach major scales and say, “W-W-H-W-W-W-H. They want to point to the first note and say “Whole”. Usually I just have them say the real letter name of the 1st note and go on from there. I guess I’d do the same with this exercise. ..”E-step-step-step…,etc”. Thanks again for a great idea! 🙂
Jennifer says
This is a great idea. I use colored candy or cereal to show the relationship of steps and skips and repeats on the music staff with the keys, but this is a whole new era. I’m excited to try it too!
Andrea says
Hope it works well for you Jennifer 🙂