Emily Hornbake

While teaching at the Fairview Violin Project in Bloomington, IN, we introduced several "Tango" songs to students. I noticed that the first graders in my small group were struggling to remember the notes and pattern of tapping and stomping for the "Tango" they were learning. I thought that perhaps the visual learners were having trouble with the primarily aural method of teaching, so I created a visual representation of the song (right).

 

When using this visual aid, I noticed an improvement in my students' ability to recall the song. These students have not yet learned formal music notation and were only playing on open strings, so I chose to represent each string with both a letter and color. The bow in a yellow circle represents a "circle off" or bow lift. The bow in a colored rectangle represents "setting" the bow on a specific string; the string is indicated by the color of the rectangle.

 

This visual aid was also selected for use in all large group classes, and was projected on the board to help teach this song to students. Below, see a video of students playing this with our our band, Cuarteto Tanguero! Watch for me acting as a helper teacher.