Anticipation & the Most Addicting Sheep Game
A constant theme in piano lessons is anticipation. Some days I feel like a broken record because I'm always reminding students to think ahead. One of the very real cognitive hurdles of playing the piano is that you have to be reading several steps ahead so you know where you're going while maintaining the music you are already playing. This is definitely an acquired skill that is not easy, and requires a lot of what neurologists call "regulation."
It can also be a very difficult concept to explain to young students, and sometimes even harder to implement. The good news is there are a lot of tools we can use to build this ability naturally, to train the brain into regulating tempo and wiring hand-eye coordination to match it. And many of these training tools are actually quite fun! One of those tools is a favorite app of mine, The Most Addicting Sheep Game.
It is a simple game in concept, you just have to make the sheep jump to the correct tempo in the music, but if your anticipation is off and you tap just a little too soon or too late, it's game over. And the levels get increasingly more difficult as they start to incorporate some rhythm in addition to tempo, and then they increase your inventory of actions as you move through the levels. It really is the perfect brain training for sight reading, without feeling like sight reading at all! And it's only $0.99, so you can check it out on the app store today, and have a perfect Off-the-Bench practice activity ready to go at a moment's notice!