Quarter Note Madness is a GROUP sight reading series designed for band and orchestra! It also works well independently by increasing the speed of note recognition! Since all of the rhythmic values are the same, the student can easily focus on identifying the letter names of the staff while making the connection on their instruments.
Great warm-up activity
Easily learn other pieces
Strengthens uncommon accidentals like A#, D# and Gb
The entire book consists ONLY of quarter notes and quarter rests. This allows for 100% concentration applied to memorizing the letter names of the notes on the staff and how they relate to the instrument. The first exercise starts with the notes in the Bb major scale. Each exercise adds one more accidental until all the keys have been covered. The tonality of the exercises starts traditional, staying within one or two tonal centers with a classical feel. However, as more accidentals are added, the melodies become more angular and progressive.
Each part has been transposed so that everyone is playing in unison, occasionally changing octaves to fit within each instruments range. Drummers can keep time by playing in various styles (swing, funk, rock, bossa nova) and hitting a percussive sound (cow bell, kick drum, etc...) on the rests. Expect to see noticeable improvement after just a few readings!