Teaching Tips Series: Pitch Pig | 117

Welcome back to the Teaching Tips Series, where we share practical ideas to elevate your classroom experience! Today we have a delightful and quirky tool that’s sure to add some fun to your music class: a stuffed pig!

Now, you might be wondering—how can a plush pig help teach pitch? Well, this isn’t just any ordinary stuffed animal. We’re diving into the concept of “Pitch Pig,” a creative and engaging method that helps students grasp the fundamentals of pitch recognition and ear training.

Join us as we explore how this playful companion can make learning about pitch an unforgettable experience. 

Links Mentioned in the Episode:
🐷 Pig Stuffed Animal – IKEA

Where to find me: 

Crescendo Community Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/crescendocommunity
Official Crescendo Page: https://www.facebook.com/CrescendoMusicEd/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/CrescendoMusicEd
Twitter: https://twitter.com/crescendomusic
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/debbie-o-shea-62a3741b/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/CrescendoDeb

Introduction

Here is the Crescendo Music Education Podcast – Episode 117.

This podcast is being recorded on the lands of the Turrbal people. I acknowledge them as the traditional owners of the land and pay my respects to elder’s past, present and emerging. They were the first music makers on this land.

If you’d prefer to listen to this episode, click here!

About ‘Read the Episode’: Sometimes, we would rather skim visually than listen to a podcast! That’s a great way to learn too!
The transcript of episode 117 of The Crescendo Music Education Podcast is below.

Debbie 

Hello and welcome to this episode of the Crescendo Music Education Podcast. I thought I would just do a bit of a solo episode today and I wanted to focus on a little friend in my music room. So if you’re watching this as a vodcast, you’re about to meet him. Are you ready? Here he is. His name is Pitch Pig. Now I’ll just try and show you. There we go. If you’re watching on YouTube, Hello. Okay, so Pitch Pig. You might recognise Pitch Pig as being a toy from IKEA.

So, yes he is just literally a toy from IKEA. Now, when I first bought him I just thought he was cute and cuddly and I wanted him for my music room. I used him for I Had a Little Pig. When we did our little, if you don’t know that one you should get that one, should I tell you now? Yeah, in case you don’t know it, “I had a little pig and I fed him in a trough, he got so fat that his tail popped off. Got me a hammer, got me a nail and I made my pig a brand new tail”. I then clap a rhythm and then the students clap it back. So I used him for I Had a Little Pig and he was hanging around and I literally have the best use for him now. And it was 100% accidental, right?

The Importance of Pitch

Debbie 

So when teaching a melodic concept, pitch direction is an important part of the preparation steps. So you might do it with pictures on the whiteboard. You might manipulate magnets. You might have counters on the staff. Well, no, before we get to counters on the staff. So just general pitch direction, you want to hear if the sound is going up or down etc. So one of the things I’ve always done is to point the pitch so that if we’re doing Bounce High (sings) “Bounce high, bounce low”. We just point where the pitch is roughly. So it’s even before we do body signs and well before hand signs.

My pig, who wasn’t called Pitch Pig then, it’s his name now. He actually didn’t have a name then, sorry, they don’t always get names straight away, but his name is Pitch Pig now. So Pitch Pig was there and I really don’t know what prompted me to do this in the first place, but Pitch Pig decided he was going to point the pitch in the air and I told them that there are pigs, truffle pigs that their nose is very sensitive and they can suss out where the truffles are buried under the trees, in the tree roots, wherever it is where you get truffles. And I said this is Pitch Pig and he points to the pitch.

He can work out the pitch, whether it goes higher or lower and whether it’s just a little bit higher or a lot higher. So Pitch Pig has a very sensitive pitch nose. So what he does is that he points the pitch for the children. So obviously this is not when they’re working it out for themselves, but he will give us a hand sometimes and I get the children to point to his nose as he shows in the air where the pitch is going.

What can Pitch Pig do?

Debbie 

Pitch Pig has become quite a useful character in my music room. I’ve even had the kids sometimes suggest, Oh, could Pitch Pig do that for us. Could Pitch Pig show us where the notes go. So Pitch Pig has been really useful. I wanted to bring Pitch Pig as a guest onto one of my podcast episodes, for two reasons, apart from the fact I think it’s actually a useful little addition to your sequence of how you teach melodic elements. It’s just another way you can help prepare children so that their understanding is nice and deep and real and they’re ready for when you name the concepts. But I also brought him on to illustrate that the creative parts of our profession as educators, sometimes they just happen accidentally.

But accidental is not really the right words, because I knew what I was doing and why I was doing it. Pitch Pig just happened to be a useful little prop. And the creative part was me thinking, I guess, to use him as part of this process and that the Pitch Pig could sense and tell us where the pitch goes. It also helps me use the word pitch more often, because sometimes I would realise I don’t use the word pitch often enough. How high or how low a note is and using Pitch Pig helps to understand the word pitch as well. I love, love that part of our job. How we can just come up with really innovative but useful ways to prepare and practise these elements that we’re trying to teach our children.

Another reason that Pitch Pig is very effective is that narratives are really important in education, having the narrative, having the story to hang something on, makes the learning so much more powerful and meaningful. So the little story about Pitch Pig being really good at hearing different notes and knowing whether they go higher or lower, the kids relate to that story.

They relate to Pitch Pig having this little personality and being really good at finding the pitch, so it helps. Using narrative is a very important part of our job. So I thought you’d like to meet Pitch Pig. You can take this idea, or you can go, mmm Debbie, not using that one, but I appreciate you sharing. So Pitch Pig and I are going to go now. We just thought we would share this concept in case you would like to get your own Pitch Pig, perhaps from IKEA as well. Thank you, everybody. See you next time.

Sign-Off

Thank you for joining me for this podcast. Don’t forget, you’ll find the show notes and transcript and all sorts of information on crescendo.com.au. If you’ve enjoyed the podcast or found it valuable, you might like to rate it on your podcast player and leave a review. I’d really appreciate it if you did. All I can be as the best version of me. All you can do is be the best you. Until next time, bye.

Just for Laughs

As we know, laughter relieves stress, don’t lose sight of the funny side of life.
How does the moon cut his hair? Eclipse it. (He clips it!)