Post date: Jan 24, 2015 8:31:58 PM
One of the concepts that is difficult for students to grasp in beginning band classes is 'what is a key signature'. During the process of learning to play a musical instrument students are tasked with so many different skills at one time that often one or two slip through the cracks. Key signatures or what notes to play sharp or flat students understand in that in all beginning band books start with accidentals next to the note. How ever move this to the beginning of the staff before the time signature and young beginning musicians will ignore the key signature. Tell them to look at the key signature to make sure they play the correct number of sharps, flats or naturals and you get blank stares back.
With the easy of making a video these days a visual representation for students to review any time to check where is the key signature. This was created and shown to a group of beginning band 6th grade students and one said oh I get it know I have been so confused.
I'm going to keep experimenting with short videos like this using student parts as the model. In class I have used my iPad to show my score on the screen and found that can be confusing due to all the parts being in a score and that gets overwhelming to students. It does not take long to make a quick video like this so I can create one for each instrument and upload them to my YouTube channel. My school has unblocked YouTube so they can watch them in class.
I used Explain Everything to create this video. I have been using this app since first hearing about it at CUE Rockstar on the USS Hornet. I have the full version and like using it.