Have you ever tried teaching musical terms needed for most piano lessons only to find you get nowhere very quickly?

There are just some instances where it seems that no matter what you do, it is impossible to get good retention ready for those upcoming exams or tests and no matter how many times you tell some students, they just won’t remember!

If this is happening in your music lessons don’t worry! You certainly are not alone and all music educators experience this no matter how long it is they’ve been teaching for.

You can understand why some students just can’t remember. To most, music is a whole new language. Imagine going to a new country with no prior experience in the language. It would be pretty overwhelming and would take a long time with loads of repetition before you understand what is being said. To speak the language would require the ability to understand it first. You would constantly practice it,the language would be around you all the time, you would make loads of mistakes at first and then after lots of immersion and practice, you would be able to speak it!

It really is no different to learning the musical language and the great news is that you can help your students overcome the difficulties in learning it simply by immersing them in it, repeating the same information in different ways and simply by having fun!

This is a easy flashcard game that I’ve used over my years of teaching designed for music teachers with beginning exam level piano students and best used for small groups or one on one tutorials. If you want to make the game longer, just add or reduce the number of cards you play with. Feel free to adapt it to the needs and abilities of your own students and if you have any ideas, feedback and success stories, I’d love to hear from you so please leave comment in the box provided below.

“Musical Term Mix Up”

Object: Player with with most matches wins

Preparation: Place Musical Term Flashcards along one row Face down. Mix up the coresponding definitions and place them in a parallel row face down.

Directions:
Each player has a turn to match a musical term card with its value its corresponding definition. Play continues until all the matches are won.

In case you need some ideas to get started with, here are eight easy and general piano musical terms and their definitions:

Allegro – Fast
Presto – Very Fast
Moderato- At a moderate speed
Rallentando (rall.)- Gradually Becoming Slower
A Tempo- Return to former speed
Allargando-becoming broader
Vivace-lively, spirited
Sempre-Always

If you’re looking for some other ideas to put on your flashcards, check out http://www.musical-clipart.com