Lesson 1-
This lesson is the first in a series of lessons called "S-Cubed" that "Music in the Middle with Mr. D" is offering for your upper elementary and middle school music students that will help you teach your children how to sight-sing 2 part music with syncopated rhythms and skips as wide as an octave in 27 weeks if you see your students daily.
It is the perfect game for the first weeks of school! It will help you establish a positive relationship with your students. It will help them focus, and it will teach them valuable skills for sight singing that are critical to the S-Cubed method of Sight Singing!
In this lesson, you will learn about the "FUN" part of the method! You will learn the rules and philosophies associated with the game "Forbidden Pattern" that will reflect your approach throughout your teaching of the entire method. It is presented in a PowerPoint that includes YouTube links to Mr. D actually teaching the method to real students. It also includes YouTube links of Mr. D explaining the rules of the game.
This game is the hook for your young singers. They love playing this game because they want to beat the teacher!
In Lesson 2 of S-Cubed, you will take two important steps on the journey to Successful Sight Singing for Upper Elementary and Middle School students: Learning to recognize and perform half steps successfully with your voice and your hands, and learning to "Follow the Hand" while recognizing and correctly singing repeated pitches and stepwise pitches.
In Lesson 3 of S-Cubed for your middle school choir: Successful Sight Singing for Middle School Teachers, we focus on the development of the ear. Having a good ear that is able to hear the differences between "sharp", "flat" and "in tune" singing impacts all areas of our Choral Programs, so this lesson is great for teachers who haven't already done Lesson 1 and Lesson 2 of this method.
This lesson contains specific descriptions of five listening exercises that will help your students in the development of their ears. It also contains numerous direct links to teaching tips for those five links as well as actual teaching examples of Mr D teaching the lessons to his own students.
This is a critical three-day, 15-minute lesson in the S-Cubed process because these are the first times that the students will actually read and sing pitch off of a page of music. When they are successful, you (and THEY) will want to celebrate!
In this PowerPoint presentation, you will receive video links that include guided practice information on how to deliver the information to your children. You will get three sight-singing examples to use with them. You will learn about two new techniques in the process called "Varied but comfortable DO", and "Silent Signing", and you will continue playing the games and doing the exercises you learned in Lessons 1-3. You will also get 2 YouTube links of me actually teaching my beginners this year (2013-2014). You will hear them celebrate as they are successfully reading, signing and singing the pitch off the page.
In Lesson 5, we are continuing to methodically build our student's ability to read stepwise pitch in S-Cubed: Successful Sight Singing Course for Middle School Teachers and Students!
This PowerPoint Presentation includes 27 slides. In it, I will guide the teacher through the process step by step. You will get several written/oral warm-ups, sight singing examples, teaching tips as well as many YouTube examples of me actually teaching my beginners and giving personal instruction to you. The videos are designed to help you see how I help my beginning children learn what to "see" on the page of music so they can flawlessly interpret pitch.
Also included in this lesson is a new Ear Training Exercise called "Score the Scale" that is sure to motivate your children to learn to listen better and better as they become smarter musicians through S-Cubed.
You will continue to receive tips on how to properly use Forbidden Pattern and Follow the Hand to keep your students excited about these activities! You will end the unit with a written Assessment designed to make sure your students are all catching onto the material before moving on to Lesson 6.
Lesson 5 will last about 10 minutes per day for about 4 days, depending on the level you teach.
In this PowerPoint Presentation, you will learn about another important layer in the S-Cubed process that will help your singers become stronger and more independent Sight Singers.
In Lesson 6, you will be guided through how to use what Mr D calls "Chaos" during your Sight Singing lessons. You will learn what Chaos is (as if middle school teachers don't already know!) and how to apply it to your daily sight-singing ritual. The new layer will help your students work at their own pace and gradually improve as the process continues. In this lesson, you will also receive 4 more Sight Singing examples, numerous teaching tips (video tips as well as written tips) on how to use Chaos effectively, and several YouTube clips of Mr D teaching the process to his own beginners (2013-2014 school year) so you can see the process in action.
You will also continue using the teaching techniques that we learned about in Lessons 1-5. However, this lesson is also good as a "stand-alone" lesson for teachers who have a good method in place for teaching pitch and rhythm, but who are looking for another way to help improve some of the weaker Sight Singers. The independent component of Chaos is the part that helps all levels to improve and work at their own pace.
Most importantly, using Chaos in your lessons helps you rely less and less on that soprano who has been taking private lessons for 8 of her 11 years on the planet! ....and we want all of them to become better Sight Singers anyway...that is a big part of the S-Cubed philosophy!
Try CHAOS today in your classroom and watch how quickly the structured use of it will help your singers become great readers!
In this 50-page PowerPoint presentation, Mr. D sets up his approach to the early days of teaching rhythm to our beginning sight singers. Mr D shares pages of teaching tips that will help you guide your students as they learn to properly FEEL and EXPERIENCE meter. In addition, you will get two days of lessons that are 10-15 minutes long, 2 sets of rhythm exercises, and 2 Sight Singing examples as well as YouTube links of Mr D teaching his own beginning students in September 2013.
We also introduce SKIPS of the arpeggio in this lesson!
Because S-Cubed is a method AND a philosophy, Mr. D gives some tips on how to make sure you continue to reflect the FUN and competitive nature of the game that is so key to keeping our students excited and enjoying the daily Sight Singing rituals. We want to motivate them to "Beat the Page!"
Lesson 7 should be quickly followed by Lesson 8 in the coming days because the two are directly linked as we begin our focus on Meter and Rhythm.
Step by Step, we are helping our students become literate, competent readers...all while they are having a great time and feeling successful with each new step we take on the journey!
In Lesson 8 of S-Cubed, we continue to build the skill sets that will help your young singers become fluent readers in months with these 10-15 minute daily lessons!
In this 4-day offering, you will receive several rhythm exercises, four Sight Singing exercises, and many teaching tips related to helping you effectively deliver the material in order to make sure your students master the new rhythm skills.
Lesson 8 is a direct extension of Lesson 7 and is focused on habits and skills that relate to performing rhythm exercises in 2/4 and 3/4. In this lesson, we, also work toward successfully demonstrating an understanding of meter in the Sight Singing exercises in all three time signatures.
In this four-day, 10-minute-per-day lesson pack, you will receive several written/oral warm-ups, three Sight Singing examples, several group rhythm practice exercises, a short rhythm assessment, numerous teaching tips to help make sure your students learn the material well, and, as always, you will receive YouTube links so you can see Mr. D working with his beginners who are learning the same things you are teaching your children.
This is the 9th lesson in the S-Cubed Series. Solid habits have been established in reading pitch, signing technique, and accenting technique. Our daily routines and rituals are in place.
In this lesson, we are beginning the initial stages of preparation for reading skips of the arpeggio, and we are preparing our students to deal with key signatures. We are continuing to train the eye to see and interpret information on the page of music by helping them to carefully identify the names of the solfege pitches that are not close together. In addition, we are continuing to prepare them for singing skips in our game, Forbidden Pattern.
Building Sight Singing skills in young beginners is like building a house. In Lesson 10, we finish pouring the foundation! ....And with S-Cubed, we are working methodically to build a sound structure that will last them a lifetime!
In this 4 day, 10-minutes-per-day offering, you will get
*Three Sight Singing exercises
*Three group rhythm exercises
*Several oral/written warm-up exercises
*An assessment designed to test your students' ability to read pitch as we prepare to learn to identify skips and teach about key signatures in later S-Cubed lessons.
*You will also receive two YouTube links of Mr D teaching his own beginners some of the lessons in Lesson 10.
NEW for Lesson 10- In this lesson, there are five different links that include teaching tips offered by Mr. D via YouTube links that directly address specific parts of the lesson. He talks directly to the camera in these short video links and shares some helpful hints that are designed to support and guide you as you teach specific parts of the lesson.
In Lesson 11, Tools in your Toolbox, it's all coming together! In Lessons 1-10, we assembled and sharpened all of the tools that our students need in the toolbox to successfully Sight Sing varied rhythms and stepwise pitches, and now it is time to put those tools to use in the most challenging Sight Singing examples yet!
In Lesson 11, you will get 3 days of lessons that are intended to be 10-15 minutes long. They include:
*Written/Oral Warm Ups
*Three group rhythm exercises
*Three Sight Singing examples
*Individual coaching in YouTube links that are intended for the teacher that include specific instructions for each lesson.
*YouTube links that will take you directly to examples of Mr D teaching the lessons to his own students.
*A video link about Philosophy and suggestions about how to help your students handle the new, higher levels of difficulty in the Sight Singing examples so they continue to fight hard to beat the page.
It's just like coaching a football team! Positively guiding them helps them strive for their best work!
It's time to put all of the tools in the toolbox to good use in Lesson 11 as they continue on their journey with S-Cubed: Successful Sight Singing for Middle School Teachers and their students!
By Lesson 12 of S-Cubed, your students are rockin' and rollin' with their Sight Singing! By now, you have created daily habits that include games, exercises and procedures that help your students look forward to their 10-15 minutes of Sight Singing every day rather than moan with dread!
Lesson 12 is a four-day offering. In the lesson, we harken back to an earlier lesson in the S-Cubed training system where we focused on training the eye. In this lesson, we start the process of helping the students to recognize rhythmic patterns and intervals in their examples. Lesson 12 includes 4 Sight Singing examples, 4 group rhythm exercises introducing Eighth notes, YouTube links that include teaching tips for every single day, and YouTube links of Mr D actually teaching the material to his students so that you can get ideas on how to approach the material to help it work for your upper elementary and middle school students.
Join the S-Cubed Sight Singing program today and your young, inexperienced singers will be Sight Singing fluently in just a matter of months.
In this lesson:
*Introduce SYN-CO-PA rhythmic pattern and train them to see the pattern quickly
*Assess their ability to identify intervals
*We continue the preparation for singing skips of the Major 1 chord through the game Forbidden Pattern and the activity Follow the Hand
*We increase the difficulty of the Sight Singing examples and begin to train their eyes to see and identify pitch patterns as well as rhythmic patterns.
This lesson is 10-15 minutes per day for 4 days. The first three days of this lesson follow the normal procedure (Written/Oral warm up; Group Rhythm Practice; Forbidden Pattern; Follow the Hand; Sight Singing Example). On the fourth day, you will give the Interval assessment.
In lesson 13, you will get:
*Three Sight Singing examples
*Three Group Rhythm Practice exercises
*Guidance on Forbidden Patterns, Follow the Hand and Sight Singing preparation.
*Individual YouTube links for each day of the lesson with short 2-3 minutes of guidance and teaching tips.
*YouTube links showing Mr D teaching the lesson to his students so you can get ideas about how to deliver the material.
Your students will stop moaning when you pull out the Sight Singing materials with S-Cubed! It is carefully progressive in order to encourage success for your Upper Elementary and Middle School students each and every day. S-Cubed is the perfect system to use in the Chorus Classroom with inexperienced students, and they will love “beating the page”!
One successful step at a time…The S-Cubed way! Start with Lesson 1 today, and your students will be sight-singing two parts with difficult rhythms and skips in a matter of months!
By Lesson 14 of S-Cubed, our beginning students are confidently and fluently sight-singing unison melodies that include varied rhythms using the numerous skills they’ve learned since starting the Forbidden Pattern game and other exercises weeks ago in Lesson 1.
In this 3-day lesson called “The Secret Code”, we create a bit of mystery as we begin the process of helping our beginning students unravel how to use key signatures to determine where DO is located.
Also, in this lesson, we introduce the hand signs for the Chromatic Scale through the game Forbidden Pattern. Using Chromatics in the game helps to refine the ears of our students and that will help tremendously with our performance songs too! The training in the S-Cubed system will start to pay for your choral program in ways you couldn’t have imagined!
This lesson includes 3 written/oral learning preparation exercises, 3 sight singing examples, 2 rhythm examples, a video link of the Chromatic Hand Signs used by Mr D, and, as always, we include links to videos of teaching tips for each day’s lesson. Also included are two video links to Mr D teaching two of the lessons to his middle school beginning choir students so you can get ideas about how to present the material to your students too!
We are well on our way to successfully reading 2-part Sight Singing exercises that include syncopated rhythms! Become a part of the S-Cubed System today.
One step at a time…the S-Cubed way!
Giving our young, inexperienced Sight Singers a Circle of Fifths and saying “GO” is a surefire way to make their eyes glaze over and to lose your audience. They are a tough crowd. So, we present this all-important lesson about key signatures in the typical S-Cubed fashion by presenting it as a mystery code that they have to know in order to unlock the information.
The preparation is done, and now our students are ready to have the Secret Code REVEALED!
I tell my students that it’s time to start on our path toward reading music the “Grown-up” way. The goal is to get them to use the key signature to determine what the first pitch of the song is, and that is exactly what they learn in this 4-day, 10-15 minutes per day lesson set that is a part of the S-Cubed Sight Singing System for Upper Elementary and Middle School Teachers and their Students. This lesson is a direct extension of Lesson 14 during which we lay the groundwork for this final step.
Also, in this four-day lesson, you will get 4 Written/Oral Warm-ups, 4 Sight Singing Examples, and 4 Group Rhythm Exercises that emphasize the differences in the appearances of the dotted-quarter/dotted half note. You will also continue refining their ears as you use the Chromatic Scale in the game Forbidden Pattern, and you will continue to prepare skips.
As always, you will get short video links of Mr. D giving you some teaching tips to help guide you through each day’s lessons, as well as actual teaching examples of Mr D delivering the material to his own beginners.
We are well on our way to successfully reading 2-part Sight Singing exercises that include syncopated rhythms! Become a part of the S-Cubed System today.
One step at a time…the S-Cubed way! Learn to teach Sight Singing the 21st way!
By Lesson 16 of S-Cubed!, we are approaching the halfway point on our Sight Singing journey with our Middle School Children in Level one! The students have mastered stepwise sight singing examples with some difficult rhythms. They have the tools in their toolbox to deal with many challenges, and they can figure out many things on their own.….and all of it is done acapella…with success!
We have been preparing skips for weeks. Now, it is time for us to help our beginning students learn to see, interpret, and successfully sign and sing skips on the actual staff.
In this 4 day PowerPoint lesson, you will get 3 Sight Singing examples, 2 Rhythm exercises, guidance on the game Forbidden Pattern using Chromatics, three written/oral warm-up exercises, handouts to supplement the learning of skips vs. steps, and, as always, you will get links to video teaching tips from Mr. D for each daily lesson. Also included, as always, are the video teaching clips of Mr. D actually teaching Days 1-3 of the lesson to his beginning students. You will get information about his own test results with his beginners so you can see how he is doing as he takes this journey with you while teaching his own beginners how to Sight Sing.
In Lesson 17-
*We will help the students discover ways to read skips quickly.
*We will begin giving students strategies for successful 2-part sight-singing through the Group Rhythm Exercises.
*We will continue refining the ears of our students by using Chromatics during the game “Forbidden Pattern”.
*We will challenge the ears of our students by Scoring the Scale using the Chromatic Scale.
*We will continue to refine our student's ability to sight-sing skips of the major I Chord while using all of the “tools in their toolbox” that they have learned along the way during the previous lessons.
This lesson is 10-15 minutes per day for 3 days. The lessons follow the normal daily lesson procedure outlined in the three freebies in the S-Cubed program. Please check those out! (Written/Oral warm-up; Group Rhythm Practice; Forbidden Pattern; Follow the Hand; Sight Singing Example). This method is cumulative in nature. Teachers should begin with Lesson 1 and implement each lesson progressively.
In this lesson, you will get:
*Three Sight Singing examples
*Three Two-part Group Rhythm exercises
*Guidance on the game Forbidden Pattern, Follow the Hand and Sight Singing preparation.
*Individual YouTube links for each day of the lesson with short 2-3 minutes of guidance and teaching tips geared specifically to the lesson of the day.
*YouTube links showing Mr D actually teaching the lesson to his students so you can get ideas about how to deliver the material.
MILESTONE! What is in Lesson 18?
It’s called MILESTONE because it is a BIG one in the process of teaching our young upper elementary and middle school beginners how to sight sing. I developed this method because most of the books and methods I found started where this lesson picks up, and my students failed miserably.
Instead, with S-Cubed, we have set down a solid foundation for our students.
Because we haven’t skipped any steps in our teaching process, our students are ready to tackle the big advances offered in this lesson! By methodically building the skill sets they need to succeed, I have no doubt that your students will meet the challenge offered in this important lesson in the S-Cubed Sight Singing series!
In this 4 day, 10-15 minute per day lesson:
*On the third day, they take the BIG step: Your students will perform a sight-singing example that includes skips and steps combined with challenging rhythms.
*Teachers will assess their ability to accurately name the notes using “Do, Re, Mi, etc.” using only the key signature to help them.
*We will awaken the students to the importance of developing speed in their ability to identify note names using solfeggio
*We will continue using Chromatics to refine their ears.
The lessons follow the normal daily lesson procedure outlined in the three freebies in the S-Cubed program. Please check those out! (Written/Oral warm-up; Group Rhythm Practice; Forbidden Pattern; Follow the Hand; Sight Singing Example).
In this lesson, you will get:
*One Sight Singing example
*Two 2-part Group Rhythm exercises
*Guidance on the game Forbidden Pattern and lots of help for this all-important Sight Singing example.
*“Follow the hand” is a critical component of this lesson and there is lots of guidance to help you use it effectively to encourage success on Day 3. This lesson is all about helping our students successfully sing the Sight Singing example on that day.
*Individual YouTube links for each day of the lesson with short 2-3 minutes of guidance and teaching tips geared specifically to the lesson of the day.
*YouTube links showing Mr D actually teaching the lesson to his students so you can get ideas about how to deliver the material.
AWAKENING!
“When the student is ready, the teacher appears.”
Well, it’s time to help our students take a big leap toward being ready to receive!
It’s called AWAKENING because the primary objective on the first day of this 3-day lesson sequence is to awaken our students to where they are headed for the next 9 lessons! S-Cubed is all about daily Success…except on this one day!
I use my S-Cubed program to prepare my own students for their adjudicated festival in Georgia. The standard for Middle School Sight Singing is extremely high in this state. At this critical juncture in the S-Cubed training system, I want to take a moment to let my students experience the high level of skill that will be required of them at the event. I want them to feel and experience what it would be like for them to walk into the Sight Singing room unequipped with all of the tools they need to do well under the pressure they are likely to feel at the event. So, on Day 1 of Lesson 19, we re-create the exact experience of the day of adjudication. On Day 1 of AWAKENING, for the first time, we deliberately set them up to fail by over-challenging them, and we use the failure to help them (and us) wake up to the work that still lies ahead in the process. We follow it up with a discussion. Because students really want to be successful, this experience helps them buy into the final phase of the learning process of S-Cubed and trust that you know where you are headed and that you have the skills to get them there. Over the final 9 week period of S-Cubed, they will listen better and work harder as they continue to learn new skills and tools to help them become effective sight singers.
In Days 2 and 3 of Lesson 19, you will go back to the preparation process, and you will start moving in the direction of sharing new tools like drilling, working to improve balance and increasing confidence in sections by using 2-part rhythm exercises. You will continue to develop their ability to locate pitch as you increase the difficulty of the “Follow the Hand” exercise. You will also begin preparation for the “RE, FA, LA” tool through the game Forbidden Pattern.
You’ll get 3 sight singing examples, 2 rhythm exercises, 3 written/oral warm-ups, guidance on how to use Forbidden Pattern to introduce a new tool, direct links to video teaching tips for each day's lessons as well as actual teaching examples of me doing the work with real students in a real classroom.
In Lesson 20…DOUBLING!
Congratulations to you for making it to Lesson 20! The hard work you are doing with your students is certainly paying off for you! Let’s keep it going! There are about 7 lessons left until our students will be Sight Singing 2-part exercises that include dotted-quarter eighth note combinations and very difficult skips, so it’s time to arm our students with tools to deal with eighth notes in their sight-signing examples! That is what Lesson 20 is all about! We introduce the concept of DOUBLING to our students, and we give them sight singing examples during which they implement and use this new concept. It’s the latest tool we are adding to their toolbox!
In addition, on Day 3, you will begin implementing a new Pitch Tool that I call the “RE, FA, LA” tool.
In this three-day lesson, you will receive:
3 Sight Singing examples that include eighth notes.
3 Group Rhythm Exercises in 2-parts during which you emphasize performing with balance as well as helping them learn to see some shortcuts that will help them avoid mistakes when performing in 2-parts.
You will get 3 Written/Oral Warm-ups to prepare the students for learning.
As always, you will get links to videos that include teaching tips for each daily lesson to give you some ideas on how to present the material.
In addition, you will get video links to Mr. D teaching many of the lessons to his own beginners in real-time in a real public school classroom.
The lessons follow the normal daily lesson procedure outlined in the three freebies in the S-Cubed program (except on Day 1). Please check those freebies out if you haven’t done so already! (Written/Oral warm-up; Group Rhythm Practice; Forbidden Pattern; Follow the Hand; Sight Singing Example).
In Lesson 21-
MATH CLASS
Congratulations to you for making it to Lesson 21! We have almost arrived to our destination of teaching our young singers how to sight singing 2-part exercises that include dotted-quarter eighth note combinations and very difficult skips.
Cross-Curricular work is always a good idea, so we are taking our students to MATH CLASS in order to reinforce the knowledge of note values, and to help our young singers avoid confusing quarter notes with singular eighth notes as we make final preparations for our students to read dotted-quarter eighth note combinations.
We will work on increasing their comfort level with the “RE, FA, LA” tool, and we will work toward helping them find the correct pitch for the more difficult intervals included in the “RE, FA, LA” tool.
In this three-day lesson, you will receive:
3 Sight Singing examples that include singular eighth notes.
3 Group Rhythm Exercises in 2-parts during which you emphasize performing with balance as well as continuing to help your students learn to see some shortcuts that will help them avoid mistakes when performing in 2-parts.
You will get 3 Written/Oral Warm-ups focused on note values.
As always, you will get links to videos that include teaching tips for each daily lesson to give you some ideas on how to present the material.
In addition, you will get video links to Mr. D teaching many of the lessons to his own beginners in real-time in a real public school classroom.
The lessons follow the normal daily lesson procedure outlined in the three freebies in the S-Cubed program (except on Day 1). Please check those freebies out if you haven’t done so already! (Written/Oral warm-up; Group Rhythm Practice; Forbidden Pattern; Follow the Hand; Sight Singing Example).
Lesson 22- SYNCOPATION
Congratulations to you for making it to Lesson 22! Your focus and determination to help your students sight sing will likely pay off for you in ways you never imagined!
SYNCOPATION is a four-day lesson during which your students will encounter their first syncopated rhythms in an actual sight singing example. We will help them navigate the unique feelings that can occur when they actually have to sing and sign an example with the difficult dotted-quarter eighth note combination.
We will also continue to increase their comfort level with the “RE, FA, LA” tool, and we will work toward helping them find the correct pitch for the more difficult intervals included in the “RE, FA, LA” tool.
In this four-day lesson, you will receive:
4 Sight Singing examples that include dotted-quarter eighth note combinations.
4 Group Rhythm Exercises in 2-parts during which you emphasize performing with balance as well as continuing to help your students learn to see some shortcuts that will help them avoid mistakes when performing in 2-parts.
You will get 4 Written/Oral Warm-ups focused on syncopation.
As always, you will get links to videos that include teaching tips for each daily lesson to give you some ideas on how to present the material.
In addition, you will get video links to Mr. D teaching many of the lessons to his own beginners in real-time in a real public school classroom.
Congratulations to you for making it to Lesson 23! You are going to learn a critical skill in this lesson that will help your students enormously as the difficulty increases in the sight-signing examples.
We have three major goals with S-Cubed:
Create success with each progressive step
Develop independence and self-reliance among our sight singers.
To arrive successfully at 2-part sight singing that includes difficult skips and syncopated rhythms.
In this two-day lesson, we focus on an important skill called
FIND/HOLD/DRILL. We actually take our students through the process of using this valuable pitch-finding skill seven times on Day 2 in order to raise their comfort level in using it.
In this two-day lesson, you will receive:
1 Sight Singing example that includes dotted-quarter eighth note combinations and difficult intervals.
1 Group Rhythm Exercises in 2-parts during which you emphasize performing with balance as well as continuing to help your students learn to see some shortcuts that will help them avoid mistakes when performing in 2-parts.
You will get two pages of interesting discussion guidelines to help prepare your students for the importance of this tool.
You will get a list of several sight-singing tools that you can give to your students.
You will get specially written guidelines for the procedures of Day 2 as well as special video teaching tips for this all-important day.
You will get two hand-outs to give to your students that include guidelines for the use of the FIND/HOLD/DRILL tool.
As always, you will get links to videos of Mr D actually implementing the lesson to his own students.
Congratulations to you for making it to Lesson 24! This is the final lesson that includes unison sight singing.
In this 3-day lesson, we focus entirely on teaching each individual child to recognize his own areas of weakness and then QUICKLY hunt for and find the parts of the example that can cause him/her the most difficulty. We teach process. We encourage independent and varied use of tools from the toolbox that we’ve developed over the last 23 lessons. It is critical that every child in the room confidently understands what works for him/her and how to refine their problem-solving skills to be as effective as possible as they work an example during the Chaos period. The better each child is at recognizing their own weaknesses and knowing which tools help him/her solve problems, the more successful our singers will be as they approach the all-important 2-part sight singing in Lesson 25! This lesson is our last chance to do just that! If we are successful, they will breeze through the 2-part sight singing examples, and that is our goal!
The procedures in this Lesson are different than previous lessons. It is almost entirely “Sight Singing Example” focused.
In this 23-slide, three-day lesson, you will receive:
3 Sight Singing examples that include dotted-quarter eighth note combinations and difficult intervals.
1 Written Warm/Oral Warm up for Day 1.
You will get a special “Procedures” guide for Days 1 and 2 because we aren’t following our normal daily procedures during this lesson. We are helping them to refine their Chaos PROCESS now that the examples are more difficult.
You will get helpful written guidelines to ensure that you properly prepare them for becoming more and more independent as they learn the refine their Chaos process so it is maximally effective for each individual student.
You will get specially written guidelines for the procedures of Day 3 since, on that day, they are responsible almost entirely for using their newly refined, individualized Chaos processes more effectively to ensure that they successfully sing the example and beat the page. The activity is timed, and it is up to them to work it out successfully.
As always, you will get links to videos of Mr D actually implementing the lesson to his own students, and you will get direct links to the video teaching tips.
After preparing our beginning sight singers for months and arming them carefully and methodically with numerous tools to fill their Sight-Singing toolbox through successful unison sight-singing work, we are ready to tackle Two-Part Sight-Singing! All of our careful preparation will pay off in this very exciting moment on the S-Cubed journey. The best part of it all is that the materials and ideas they are learning now in this Two-part sight singing lesson will help you and your students enormously in your performance repertoire too!
In this 27-slide PowerPoint, 3-day lesson, we focus on connecting the dots. In past lessons, we taught our students important skills through two-part rhythm exercises. Now, we will take the same concepts from the rhythm work of the previous S-Cubed lessons and transfer them to PITCHES in the Two-Part Sight Singing examples. As always, the examples in the lessons are custom-built to teach specific concepts like recognizing unison pitches and unison rhythms. The examples are specifically designed to work for the beginning middle school student. In other words, the problem areas are written to be obvious and clear so we get the answers we are looking for as we help make them literate, successful Two-Part Sight Singers. We work in this lesson to arm them with yet even more tools for their toolbox of successful sight singing, except this time, all of the tools are aimed specifically at how to survive and thrive in Two-Parts. We learn about “Recovery Strategies” and much more.
In this lesson, you will receive:
*3 sight singing examples
*3 rhythm examples
*3 written/oral warm-ups
*Written guidance on tuning ideas to improve intonation
*As always, you get links to customized video teaching tips for each daily lesson
*And you get videos of Mr D actually teaching the specific lesson to his beginners as he prepares them for their adjudicated festival event that is about 2 weeks away at the time these videos were created. At that event, they will have to successfully sight-sing in two parts at the level you are seeing in the examples included in this lesson!
The procedures in this Lesson are similar to all of the previous S-Cubed lessons: Written/Oral Warm Up/Two-Part Group Rhythm Exercise/Optional Forbidden Pattern and Follow the Hand/Sight Singing Tonality prep/Sight Singing Example.
After preparing our beginning sight singers for months and arming them carefully and methodically with numerous tools to fill their Sight-Singing toolbox through successful unison sight-singing work, we are ready to tackle Two-Part Sight Singing! All of our careful preparation will pay off in this very exciting moment on the S-Cubed journey. The best part of it all is that the materials and ideas they are learning now in this Two-part sight singing lesson will help you and your students enormously in your performance repertoire too!
In Lesson 27, it’s graduation day for Level one. My students love to be called “Smart Singers”. Sometimes I say to them while they are singing, “I am looking for the smart singers” or “I can SEE when you are listening”. They respond immediately by using their very best singing posture and trying to show me how “present” they can be. They respond well when we look for the best in our children, and it certainly helps their singing enormously. By using this positive approach that is such a big component of the S-Cubed Series, we encourage our students to dig deep and incorporate every technique they’ve learned. We want them be able to complete the two-part sight singing example successfully and absolutely independently! This has been our goal all along!
I decided to call the final lesson in the S-Cubed series “Smart Singers” because our students have certainly learned enough sight singing techniques to be deemed as such…and they respond so well to positive strokes. From the beginning, I’ve referred to S-Cubed as a philosophy as well as a method. “Smart Singers” reflects the positive and encouraging approach we’ve used throughout the method with our young singers.
In this 3-day lesson, the examples are custom-built to help reinforce our student’s ability to quickly recognize and listen for unison pitch while they sight sing in two-parts. We also learn how to use a technique called “Take that pitch”. We continue to review and reinforce the use of all of the approaches we’ve taught our students since we started sight singing in two-parts. We call Day 3 “Graduation Day” as our students attempt to sight sing a very challenging example that will incorporate the use of every skill they’ve been taught from the beginning.
Since this is the final lesson that I taught my own students before they went to their adjudicated festival to sight sing in two-parts, I decided to include direct video links to each of my four choirs as they worked through their sight singing examples at the event. I included the beginning 6th grade choir that I’ve filmed since August of 2013 as well as my 7th Grade Men’s Choir, 7th Grade Women’s Choir and my 8th grade Mixed Choir.
I’ve also included some information about my choral music program designed to give you insight into how I use S-Cubed with the students during their 2nd and 3rd years in the program. Perhaps in the future, I will share an S-Cubed Series 2!
In this lesson, you will receive:
*3 sight singing examples
*3 rhythm examples
*3 written/oral warm-ups
*As always, you get links to customized video teaching tips for each daily lesson
*And you get videos of Mr. D actually teaching some of the lessons to his beginners as he prepares them for their adjudicated festival event that is about 3 days away at the time these videos were created. At that event, they will have to successfully sight-sing in two parts at the level you are seeing in the examples included in this lesson!
I hope that S-Cubed has worked for you in your classroom!
In Lesson 1 of Level 2, we review items from the previous S-Cubed program. We learn the "Cup Up' Game to generate an atmosphere of teamwork. It will help them as they face tougher work in sight singing. We "test" ourselves in the mixed choir sight singing arena. We learn about tuning "octaves". With S-Cubed Level 2, we will build skills that help them begin to ask questions as they get ready to move to high school. We will begin to address the theoretical items that they have questions about. If you are looking for a Freshman Theory class, S-Cubed Level 2 isn’t it. S-Cubed is designed to appeal to real middle school students who walk into your classroom with little or no experience and to the teachers who teach them.
In lesson 2 of Level 2, we focus on hearing the two types of unisons, and we begin the task of helping our students to be able to visually identify the two types of unisons on the written page. We continue to work on balance and blend through rhythm exercises. There are four 10-15 minute sight singing lessons included in this purchase. All links to the video teaching tips and video teaching examples are included.
In lesson 3 of Level 2, we begin our transition toward the learning more about the theory of music while we continue working on their ears to help them hear and see true/perfect unisons and octave unisons. Using kinesthetic, aural, and visual techniques to help our students begin to connect the dots from solfege to reading the letter names, we are easing them into the understanding that is required to excel as true musicians. We continue to use rhythm exercises to further develop their balance and blend in the mixed choir setting.
In Lesson 4 of Level 2, we begin our transition toward the learning more about the theory of music while we continue working on their ears to help them hear and see true/perfect unisons and octave unisons. Using kinesthetic, aural, and visual techniques to help our students begin to connect the dots from solfege to reading the letter names, we are easing them into the understanding that is required to excel as true musicians. We continue to use rhythm exercises to further develop their balance and blend in the mixed choir setting.
In Lesson 5 of Level 2
The test from Lesson 4 is done. The post-test tutoring is done so that we can make sure all of our students understand what we’ve taught in Level 2 so far.
Level 2 requires very advanced thinking and reasoning skills, and it is best used with 8th grade and higher.
In Lesson 5, we continue to build the foundations required to understand the true purpose of key signatures. We use the keyboard to help them make the visual connection. We use scales from the original series to help them make the aural connection. We help them become comfortable with recognizing the various types of half steps and whole steps on the keyboard. We challenge them with new ways of singing the chromatic scale. We continue to advance their ability to recognize and use the eighth rest as well as recognizing all sorts of unisons…rhythmic and pitch.
By Lesson 6, our students are becoming more independently successfully in their new 3-part Mixed Choir arrangement. They are getting comfortable reading the letter names off of the bass clef and the treble clef. They have begun putting the puzzle pieces together in terms of recognizing unison pitches and rhythms (perfect unisons and octave unisons).
In lesson 6, we continue emphasizing all of those important concepts as we introduce a new daily “pre-sight singing ritual”. We also introduce the 16th note to our students. In this lesson, we begin referring our students to the key signature more and more as we work to open their eyes up to the enormous important information it supplies for them. We begin asking questions like “Is this the key of D? Or is the the key of D flat?”
We work to pique their interest and desire to obtain the theory of music as we slowly unveil new information to our curious young singers.
Lesson 7 Level 2
How does the key signature affect the young choral singer who doesn’t take any private instrument lessons? How can we get them to understand its impact and to navigate it with ease? In this four-day lesson, we continue to use visual, kinesthetic and aural means to lay the groundwork for our students to understand how to sight-sing chromatics….the ultimate long-term goal. You will find activities that ask them to determine whether a note is a D or a D# based on the key signature. We are introducing the final building blocks for our students to successfully build major scales on any key with the various activities so that, in the future, they will understand the “why” of the key signature. We also continue our work on sixteenth notes by introducing the 8th note/16th note combinations. The lesson ends with a test on the 4th day, and it includes an answer key.
Lesson 8 Level 2
In Lesson 8, the students learn to build major scales as we continue to work toward helping our young beginners understand the impact that key signatures have on their choral sight singing in hopes that soon, they will be able to sight sing simple chromatic pitches with success! We want them to understand the “Why”, and we are using aural, visual, and kinesthetic means to help that happen.
In this lesson, I share with teachers how I “connect the dots” to the sight singing of real music in the group setting. I introduce a concept called “Group Chaos”. It’s similar to the “Chaos” learned in lesson 6 of the original series, but the process allows and encourages much more discussion amongst the students so they can learn from each other as they decide which tools in their toolbox will help them the most in this moment for this particular song….all a capella.
I used a three-part a capella version of “Carol of the Bells” arranged by Wilhousky to demonstrate the new form of “Group Chaos”. It is a technique that you will use more and more as they get better and better at sight singing difficult repertoire. That’s why I called this lesson “Connecting the Dots”.
In this lesson, there are numerous video links in which I show you up close “Group Chaos” in action. You’ll see the setup, some of the actual groups doing their work, the result of the work, and you’ll hear the follow-up discussion in which I lead them toward some of the important concepts they will learn related to dealing with chromatics in future sight singing lessons.
In Lesson 9 Level 2, we focus on helping the students learn to successfully build a major scale on any key and naming the notes. I offer techniques to help them begin to ask the important questions as they relate to the key signature. It is always at about this time that my beginners start to notice things in their repertoire and ask questions about sharp symbols or flat symbols that are located directly in front of pitches. This is exactly what we want. Because we have successfully instilled techniques and we’ve filled their toolboxes with so many awesome tools, their curiosity kicks in and their hunger to learn what is next increases.
There are four days of lessons in this program, three sight-signing examples, and an assessment is included in day 4.
In addition to the work with building the scales, we are also continuing to build their 3-part confidence through the three rhythm exercises with increasing difficulty in this lesson. We also bring back the game (Forbidden Pattern) using Chromatics with a focus on the octave tuning that is so critical for a successful young mixed choir.
Lesson 10 Level 2
In Lesson 10, we take two important steps with pitch and rhythm skills: With pitch, we begin to learn the process of how to identify the solfege names of notes altered in a single measure. With rhythm, we learn to handle 8th note triplets. My own students LOVE triplets, so it adds a bit of fun to the lessons. We continue using Forbidden Pattern in order to help solidify our ability to sing chromatics in octaves instantly and in tune.
There are three days of work in this lesson including three sight singing examples, three rhythmic examples, three written warm-ups, and all teaching links.
One successful step at a time…the S-Cubed way…as we work to help our beginners become highly competent, curious literate musicians.
One of the major goals in Level 2 is to help our young beginners learn to understand and sing Chromatics successfully. Since early in the original series, our students have sung chromatic scales as part of their ear training. Soon, it will be time to sing Chromatics during sight singing examples. In Lesson 11, we begin the study of natural signs. Students are given two rules regarding the use of natural signs. In this four-day lesson, they focus on learning how to use rule #1. On the fourth day, they are given a quick assessment to determine their readiness to progress to actually SING Chromatics from the page for the first time.
In addition, we use a more advanced version of “Follow the Hand” as we prepare them for the singing of Chromatics in their music. We are also using Chromatics in “Forbidden Pattern”, and we are singing more difficult Chromatic scales to refine their ear training.
Also, in this lesson, we continue to refine the performance triplets in our rhythm exercises.
In our sight singing examples, we progress significantly by adding greater difficulty in the leaps our students are expected to do. We harken back to the original series with our “Find/Hold/Drill” techniques.
One successful step at a time…the S-Cubed way…as we work to help our beginners become highly competent, curious literate musicians.
Level 2 requires very advanced thinking and reasoning skills, and it is best used with 8th grade and higher.
Lesson 12 Level 2
In Lesson 12, we actually sing chromatic pitches from the page for the first time. Many freshman music majors can’t do that! This is one of the major purposes of S-Cubed Level 2, and it represents a huge milestone in the journey of S-Cubed Level 2.
Also in Lesson 12, students are continuing to build strong sectional independence with very difficult rhythmic patterns in the rhythm exercises. There are many syncopations that include eighth rests, sixteenth notes, and triplets.
In the sight singing examples, students are challenged with very large leaps to improve their pitch-finding ability.
Lesson 13 Level 2
In Lesson 13, our student's focus is directed toward “Natural Rule #2”. Because most of our students don’t play instruments, we took time to carefully apply “Natural Rule #1”, so applying Rule #2 will be simple for your beginners the S-Cubed Way. In this 3-day lesson, our students will do written warm-ups that include chromatics. They will name the notes using solfege while applying Rule #2. On Days 2 and 3, they will use “Varied But Comfortable DO” to sing the Chromatics unison. Combining Chromatics and Diatonics is quite challenging, so we will encourage listening skills through “Follow the Hand” and “Forbidden Pattern”. During this lesson, we also introduce 16 rests in the rhythm examples.
In Lesson 14 of Level 2
In Lesson 14, our students are not only applying “Natural Rules #1 and #2” to the written page, but they will also sing the pitches. To help them succeed, we return to some of the original concepts in the S-Cubed series of using “Varied But Comfortable DO” and simple rhythms so the focus is clearly on gaining pitch accuracy as our students tackle this incredibly difficult skill set. We use “Forbidden Pattern” and “Follow the Hand” in the same ways we did in the original S-Cubed series, and we use unison singing in the sight singing examples.
Lesson 15 Level 2
In Lesson 15, it’s Graduation time! The S-Cubed Middle School Sight Singing journey comes to an end! In this 3-day lesson, we continue refining our ability to apply and sing “Natural Rule #2” and we end the journey with a written assessment to demonstrate understanding of the Natural Rule Concepts while also showing rhythmic mastery of very difficult patterns that include 16th rests. Our toolboxes are equipped with a plethora of various tools so that we can move forward with excellent problem-solving techniques and a mastery of a level of difficulty that most middle school children and high school children would rarely be able to accomplish in the group choral music setting. In this lesson, Mr D talks about what is next for teachers as they help their students continue to grow, improve, and learn new sight-singing concepts in the future.
After finishing Level 2, please use Sight Reading Factory. When you purchase it, use promo code S-Cubed for all student and teacher accounts!
