Learn the Music Alphabet

Learn the music alphabet this summer using ice cream. Who doesn’t love a dripping ice cream cone on a hot summer day? Summer arrived with a bang here in Louisiana and our temperatures are in the 90’s with the humidity level about as high, I’m using ice cream cones in my lesson today to teach the music alphabet.

Today we are going to talk about skips and steps through the music alphabet. There are several activities you can do with or without the instrument. And we can celebrate summer with ice cream scoops.

Stepping Activities to Learn the Music Alphabet

1. Music Alphabet Mix-Up – mix up the scoops on the floor and have the student put the letters in order going up the scale.

2. Music Alphabet Backwards – Mix up the scoops on the floor and have the student put the letters in order going down the scale.

3. We will play the “Who is Missing Game?”

Version A: With the scoops in order, have the student close their eyes, turn over one scoop. Then ask the student to open their eyes “who is missing?” Turn the scoop over to see if they are correct.

Version B: I will choose two scoops a skip apart and lay them out on the floor with a space in the middle. Ask the student “Who is Missing?” They find the missing scoop and place it in the middle creating a three letters stepping. For example: I’ll put out B and D. The student will find C#.

Version C: I will choose two scoops that are a step apart and ask the student “Who is missing?” and point to one side of the two scoops. The student finds the scoop of the letter of the position I am pointing to.

*For alphabet work, use the scoops without the sharps. For A-scale and violin work, use the scoops with the sharps.

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A Scale Stepping Activities

With instruments:

1. Play all the scoops up the scale. Choose your favorite flavor and create a rhythm pattern to play on each letter.

2. Play all the scoops going down the scale using a rhythm pattern. (You can mix up the letters and have them put the letters in order going backwards down the scale.)

A Scale Skipping Activities

Note: Start with skipping up the alphabet

1. Take three letters skipping and stack them on top of the cone. Talk about which letter is being skipped.

2. Play the skips and talk about which letter and which finger is being skipped.

3. Play the skips backwards, skipping down.

4. Give the student one scoop, and have them find the scoop that skips up or down from that letter.

5. Have them play that skip on their violin.

6. Show them a scoop and have them skip up or down on the violin.

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Optional terms to introduce:

Interval: How we measure the distance between notes.

Second: Two letters, A and B, so it’s a 2nd!

Third: Be sure and count the first letter as “1.” We count up three notes. One of the letters is silent, but he is still there.

Triad: Two thirds stacked on top of each other.

Note: Skipping down from F# to D, or from E to C# can be tricky for young kids. They don’t think of skipping down from first finger to third finger. If you use letter names this helps them make these mental connections, rather than only using finger numbers!