Practice Sight Reading: Notes, Clefs, Tempo, & Time Signature
From Hoffman Academy
18 min1st2nd3rd4thMusic
Summary
In “Practice Sight Reading: Notes, Clefs, Tempo, & Time Signature,” Joseph Hoffman walks students through what tempo means and how to feel the speed of music. A 18-minute lesson from Hoffman Academy's free elementary piano curriculum — drop it into a music center, a keyboard station, or a whole-class music block.
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Teaching resources
Discussion questions
Discussion
Tempo is how fast or slow the music goes.
- What does *tempo* mean?
- How can the same song feel different fast versus slow?
- Can you name a song that is fast and one that is slow?
Quick work-a-long
Vocabulary: tempo, fast, slow.
Try it: Tap a steady beat to a song — once fast, once slow — and notice how the feeling changes.