The archive contains posts about teaching ADD students music.
Do you want to know a secret about ADD? It is not a deficit of attention. In fact, students with ADD have excessive amounts of attention.
Sensitive to their surroundings, the person with ADD has problems with random stimuli. Namely, a ticking clock can become really distracting when a student with ADD tries to study.
If a noise suddenly happens in the room, it can become very hard for the person with ADD to ignore it. Because they have too much attention, everything grabs their focus.
This makes it hard for ADD students to keep to a task. It gets even harder when there are new and fun things to distract them.
Sorting out sensory data remains an issue. However, what appears to be a self-control issue in school, can become an asset in the real world. Let me give you an example:
What color is the apple?
If you said red, look again. Does it just look red?
When you look closely, you can easily see many colors across the skin of the apple. Dark cloudy patches, white and yellow spots, and a brown stem all appear on the surface of the apple. If you said the apple looks red, then you unconsciously filtered out the other colors to quickly label it by its main hue.
This type of sorting does not come easily to students with ADD. Nonetheless, the talent to look beyond the simple label to see all of the colors that appear on the fruit remains a critical skill if you wish to correctly paint a picture of the apple.
Therefore, the student with ADD can easily connect together outwardly unconnected information, because they do not quickly filter out seemingly unrelated data. This tendency helps fuel their creativity.
Curious George always gets in trouble because of his curiosity. However, it turns out he would have made a good scientist (or he would if he was human).
Similarly, students with ADD often get in trouble for being distractible. However, they are also creative and interested in diverse topics of learning. They have a sense of curiosity about them, an important trait for scientists.
“One of the most important qualities of a good scientist is curiosity. Curiosity makes a scientist ask why things happen. It makes him or her eager to learn more or test an idea” (Spectrum Science Grade 3 8).
ADD students are observant. True, ADD students have a hard time with filtering. However, the flip side is that they may just discover something that no one else noticed before. Kinda like Einstein did with the speed of light.
Creating and interpreting music needs this type of curiosity and creativity as well.
© 2021 Geoffrey Keith
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Do you wish you could read rhythm better? “Sight Singing with Rhythmic Syllables” looks at rhythm. Also, we have sung so far in the keys of C, Db, D, Eb, E, F, Gb, and G major. In today’s singing lesson you will learn the keys of Ab, A, Bb, and B. Once again, the more keys you know, the better your reading will become. Estimated reading time 4 minutes.
Want to be able to sight sing melodies? Shape notes makes reading sheet music easier. The post also talks about breathing and phrase structure, and explores the keys of E, F, Gb, and G for both scales and songs. Read more for your shape note singing lesson. Estimated reading time 3 minutes.
![sight singing with solfege - vocal trio - Singing Shape Note Solfege Mixolydian Melodies - Angels We Have Heard on High: A Powerful Carol of Joy [Words] - Celebrate Christmas with O Come, O Come, Emmanuel](https://successmusicstudio.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/christmas-christmas-song-singers-2994383-1024x894.jpg)
Do you want to learn how to sight sing music? Today’s post continues to look at sight singing with solfege using shape notes. The more keys you practice in, the better your sight singing with solfege will become. We also discuss singing with power. Read more to learn how to sight sing with solfege. Estimated reading time 3 minutes.
Have you always wanted to sight sing music, but found it too hard? Shape notes can help. Also, last post centered on singing melodies with a specially tuned synth-organ sound. Namely, we focused on harmonic tuning. This week we will look at the same melodies, but from the angle of melodic tuning. Most of the examples have sing-along sound tracks, but the last example is a shape note sight singing quiz. Read more to experience shape note sight singing success. Estimated reading time 6 minutes.
Have you ever had a piano student who couldn’t tell the treble from the bass clef? Learn how to color code the clefs for LD students. Estimated reading time 3 minutes.
Does your student have a problem telling the right hand from the left? Many LD and special needs students have problems with left hand/right hand confusion. On piano this can be a real issue. Read more to learn how to color code hand icons in music scores. Estimated reading time 2 minutes.
Does your student confuse the notes on the instrument? Learn how color coding musical instruments leads to LD and special needs success. Estimated reading time 4 minutes.
Does your student use the wrong fingers? Color coding the fingers for music learning enables LD students to accurately finger the music for smoother playing and faster response time. Estimated reading time 3 minutes.
Want to read music? Does your child or music student have a hard time reading notes? Color coding music notation can help. I had a student with amnesia who would forget everything she had learned from the previous lesson. However, she was able to learn beginner level piano music with hands together. Find out how color coding helps students like her. Estimated reading time 11 minutes.
Tablature creates a picture of the guitar neck. However, many LD students become confused by tab despite its visual appearance.
In other words, they become dazzled by the shimmer created by the contrast of the black and white lines of the notation. Color-coding the strings helps reduce the confusion that students experience, assisting them in effectively reading the score. Estimated reading time 3 minutes.