Sight Reading "White" Boards

Don't have enough money to buy the set of 17 white boards from Neinhuis? Make 'em. It's kind of a time consuming process, and you must be "in the present moment" with your sharpie or other permanent marker, but the results are classy. I was going to paint this book board stuff white with some spray paint before drawing on the notes, but I thought it looked unprofessional. This way, the boards match the rest of my music materials, which are mostly golden in tone. You will need to do some measuring to make sure that all the notes will fit on your staff. Pick a large coin that will serve as your note template. I used a 5 peso coin which is about the size of a quarter. For each note, I placed the coin on the board and traced around it with the sharpie, then filled it it.

You will also need a yard/meter stick to make clean, spiffy lines.

Each board is numbered in order of difficulty. If you need to know what note patterns the 17 boards have, order Susan Stephenson's (AMI) music curriculum from Michael Olaf. It's $5 and well worth it.

Also, thanks to Jo from Japan for sending in some Japanese music files! She also sent in this photo of a woman playing the shamisen - the instrument used on two of the three files she sent. The other file is a great Japanese remake of John Denver's Country Roads. It would be great to have the children listen to both versions! The three new files are available for you to download if you click on the small box.net button in the sidebar.


My husband comes home tomorrow! It's been a long week without him. I'll be driving three hours to the "big city" of Chihuahua to pick him up at the airport. Oh, and did I mention that I will be driving a thoroughly Mexican-ized car? The muffler fell off of our little Toyota Rav4 last week. Now I will totally blend in on the highway! No license plates (immigration didn't give us any and Washington, D.C. made us send our plates back to them) and a healthy engine hum. Too cool. Let's just hope nothing else falls off during the drive! Come Wednesday I'll be uploading Composer Definition Stages and Who Am I? stories for the composers and the instruments. Have a happy Tuesday.

Peace,
Meg