Staff Wars!

This week the majority of my lessons played a game for a few minutes at the beginning of their small group lesson called, "Staff Wars." It was a game that helped to work on note-reading, which is an area that everyone can improve upon. Learning how to read music and how to play a new instrument is the same as learning a new language. With only one lesson each week, the skills needed to improve do not get honed as much as is necessary to improve quickly. So if students are able to, playing fun games like "Staff Wars" would be a great way to get in some extra practice. In fact, if the bandlings play a music game like this or any of the others I have written about in the past, they can count 15 minutes of it as practice on their practice records.

Staff Wars is a free game, but it does need to be downloaded by an adult before you can play it on your computer. Click HERE for the link to the page where this is possible. Just click on the disk with the downward-facing arrow to get to the download page. There are many other cool games that you can download from this page! Some do cost money, but there are others that are FREE!

When you've downloaded it, here is what the game looks like:

You have to "select your mission" which means to select which clef you read music from. Trombones and Baritones read bass clef (on the right) and everyone else reads treble clef (on the left). After you've selected which clef you read, you will see this:

After you press "Start," notes will start flying (slowly at first) across the screen and you have to click which letter name it is. Even if there are some notes that your child has not learned how to play, they can still figure out which letter name it is if they remember the mnemonic devices we learned. For Bass Clef readers (trombones and baritones):

 

 

But for Treble Clef note-readers:

I hope your bandling has fun playing this game and any other you find! If you find any other games that they like, please let me know, I'm always looking for new ways to impart the important things I teach. Have a great week!


Amanda Storer
678-6726
astorer@nsd2.com
www.mrsstorersbands.weebly.com