November's circle of 5ths is a warm drink. As the year comes to a close, I am wondering if having the circle of 5ths with a different theme has had an impact on students other than my own. Last month the theme was a minor circle with skulls. When students entered the piano room they recited the order of sharps, and when they left, they recited the order of flats. Each was rewarded with a piece of Halloween candy. It was pretty effective. Most, though not all, students now hav

It's October 2025 and I've been working on an Advent, or Christmas project for the last several months. Today I am sharing with you the first part of the project which includes the documentation, the music, a series of videos to go along with this. You can get a taste of what this project encompasses from this first week. The rest of the videos and music for weeks two, three, and four will be posted by the beginning of November. You can download the instructions and summary h

Every year around this time (autumn), I pull out the Halloween and Fall themed materials. The originals were illustrated by my mom (...

Fantastic Fall from 2006! I can't believe that this was from 2006! It's still popular with my students. I have more up to date versions...

Kingdom Phylum Class Order Family Genus Species. When I was in 10th grade biology Mr. Engle had his whole class learn the order of...

JUST ADDED BONUS TO SPIDER SEASON If you want to make spider season a little more spooky, learn the endings in all keys and tag it at the...

Everyone starts with C. Why not start with a different key? What if you started with C sharp instead? What about A flat? When I started...

Stars! I was going to do fireworks, but then I had a student who wanted to learn Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, so I'll save the fireworks...

My summer project with students is improvising over the 6-2-5-1 chord combination. You can find the card here, shown here on c major. The...

Did you know that there are only 8 basic rhythms that can be made with quarter notes, half notes, dotted half notes, and whole notes?...

Summertime fun! It's almost June 2025 and time for the next circle of 5ths. This month it's baseball! Not all of my students are sports...

Have you ever had the experience when you're learning something and the teacher tells explains it to you and you completely understand...

It's one thing to see a card with vertical lines and notes, but what does it sound like? Do you know what an affordance is? It's the...

Do you remember your first lessons? I guess there are two potentially different first lessons, the first ones you took, and the first...

My favorite circle yet! I think this is my favorite Circle. The first car I bough myself was a 1976 VW Bug. It was 1989, and I didn't...

Today is the 4th week into my 3 month experiment on tiny experiments. I recorded a video explaining part of what I'm doing. (Credit to...

Another week of Tiny Experiments is over. I have an adult students who is learning Coldplay's Clocks. The tiny experiment we have been...

It's the second week of running Tiny Experiments and this is what's happening so far. My first Tiny Experiment is to write 2-4 bars of...

It's almost April (2025) and time for another trip around the circle. This time it's eggs! The decision to keep the eggs relatively...

Another book review, this time Tiny Experiments Writing about Tiny Experiments This book is about endless curiosity, creating learning...