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Is Pitch Making You Crazy? The Secret Sauce for Teaching Up and Down and High and Low
Episode 15120th May 2026 • The Happy Music Teacher • Jeanette Shorey
00:00:00 00:15:16

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Have you ever played a clear, ringing note for your students only to have them completely guess whether it was "high" or "low"? If teaching pitch direction and register is driving you a little bit crazy, you are not alone!

In this episode, Jeanette unpacks why pitch is such a difficult conceptual hurdle for young brains and why you shouldn't blame yourself when it doesn't click right away. Discover a sequential, multi-sensory approach to teaching ascending, descending, register, and direction using movement, visuals, and classroom instruments.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

  • The "Spidey Senses" Trick: How to lean on peer-to-peer explanation when a concept isn't sticking.
  • Why Visual-Spatial Tools Rule: How to leverage the fact that 70–80% of our students (especially those with exceptional needs) are visual-spatial learners.
  • The "Climb a Mountain" Routine: A step-by-step vocal and kinetic game to teach direction without the overwhelm.
  • Boomwhacker & Orff Scaffolding: How to visually map the size of an instrument to its pitch register.
  • The Gold-Standard Rhyme: A simple, catch-all vocal chant to anchor your instrument units.
  • The Truth About "Teacher Failure": A reminder that teaching is an ongoing experiment, not a perfection test.

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