October 4, 2025: Saturday Remix
Teachers and Staff: Happy Saturday!
Musical Ladder System Refresher
The Musical Ladder System is a way for teachers to engage with your students, encourage and motivate your students, have some fun and share more joy in lessons, celebrate achievements and milestones, and help with student retention.
Students' eyes light up when they see the wristband flyer! "How do I get those?!" Some younger students ask me every lesson, "What level am I on and how do I get to the next level?" And yes, adults enjoy them, too!
Here are some reminders about the Musical Ladder.
New Teachers: If you need assistance with getting up and running on the Musical Ladder, please email me, the Office, or ask Miss Grace, Mr. Denny, or another teacher who is familiar with it for assistance.
All Teachers: If you have tests that need scheduling and completing, please do as soon as possible! Keep your students up to date. And schedule their first test right away when they start lessons, so they can look forward to their first wristband right from the beginning!
Musical Ladder System Login and Setup
Here are the basic steps for getting set up in the Musical Ladder System as a teacher.
You will receive an email from Office noting that your username is your email address. Click through to set your password, which must be 8 characters long, contain 1 lowercase, 1 capital, 1 number, and 1 symbol (enter twice for confirmation). Agree to the terms and conditions, and click through some additional pages.
Once in the Web Portal, if you teach at more than one school (including the travel studio), then you will have the option to Select School on the upper left hand side of the window. This allows you to switch between Laguna Niguel School of Music, Dennis Frayne Travel Studio, and later, Lake Forest School of Music.
Once there, you will see your students and their level on the Musical Ladder. If you click the plus + icon next to a student, the listing expands, revealing the option to add notes, and to add a test. (See more about tests below.)
The right hand side of the screen features a calendar as well as three sections:
Upcoming Events
My Scheduled Tests
Projected Unscheduled Tests (your students will likely appear in this list, initially, with various months in the current and possibly upcoming year listed).
About Tests
The Musical Ladder System calls them tests, and they can be tests, but they can also be other types of goals and milestones. Accomplishments can be: written tests, oral tests, playing tests, performances (including in-lesson, at-home, Forum, recitals, at school talent shows, and more), memorization of some material, completion of a task or project, reading or research and then a written or oral report, demonstration of a new skill, a self-assessment, and many more.
Remember, students NEVER fail their test or are unsuccessful in reaching their scheduled milestone and level. It is your responsibility, as their teacher, to define their goal at each level in a manner that ensures that they attain their goal, every time.
In the Musical Ladder System, tests have three features which can be selected:
Date Scheduled (required)
Date Completed (optional, enter once completed)
Notes (optional, enter once completed)
Once a test is scheduled, it appears in the calendar and the appropriate section on the right hand side of the main window.
Please browse around and get to know the Musical Ladder System!
More about Musical Ladder “Tests”
The Musical Ladder uses the term, “tests.” These are intended to be assessments of some sort to help make achievements on the Musical Ladder more meaningful. The Musical Ladder levels are based on longevity – how long a student has been continuously enrolled in lessons. (If a student withdraws and then returns later, they restart at the first rung of the ladder, because their continuous enrollment restarts.)
What are tests?
Tests or assessments have two important features: 1) They should be designed and planned for by students and teachers in cooperation. 2) A student must never, ever, fail their test. (They can, perhaps, not succeed the first try, but then they should soon succeed – that same week or the week following. They cannot ever go to a level without completing it.)
Tests do not have to be tests, per se. They can be other types of achievements and accomplishments. They should be brief, attainable, yet meaningful. Here is a list of examples of potential tests or assessments.
Complete the written Review of Part 3 of Presto! It’s Piano Magic, Book 1.
Play two songs from memory while singing the lyrics, back-to-back, and demonstrate proper performance practices (such as coming to the performance space, bowing in response to applause, exiting the space, etc.).
Play the G Major and D Major scales up and down, one octave, with proper fingering, in a consistent rhythm.
Complete the Review Test at the end of Book 4 of The Basics of Keyboard Theory series.
Perform in the studio recital taking place in this evaluation period.
Complete a written self-evaluation, approximately 2-3 paragraphs, possibly answering one or more questions posed by the teacher.
Successfully tune your own guitar or other string instrument.
Play a song accurately and in good rhythm to a recorded backing track.
Define a list of music vocabulary terms (written or oral).
Complete a harmonic analysis of a piece or section of music.
Play a song on the piano while singing the lyrics, and while singing the melodic solfege.
Prepare, produce, perform, and preserve a Solo Recital for family and friends, according to these instructions and guidelines:
https://www.dennisfraynemusicstudio.com/music-solo-recitals-for-family-and-friends
Play the first 5 Major scales up and down, one octave, with proper fingering, in a consistent rhythm. (C, G, D, A, E.)
Complete the Row, Row, Row Your Boat transposition/arranging project in Presto! It’s Piano Magic, Book 2, and play in each key (C, D, F, G).
Attend a live musical performance and write a brief “concert report.”
Watch/listen to two performances of the same piece, and write a brief analysis consisting of three similarities and three differences of the performances.
Perform in your school’s talent show.
Practice until able to aurally identify the difference between two intervals with 90% accuracy. (Such as major and minor seconds, or thirds, or octave v unison, or major scale v minor scale, etc.)
Research and be able to discuss the significance of four composers (written or oral presentation).
Complete an analysis of the form of a sonata composed for your instrument.
As you can imagine, the possibilities for tests are endless!
Musical Ladder - Test Completion
Certificates, wristbands, and trophies will be distributed approximately monthly, for tests completed up to that time. We will be distributing the next round starting October 6.
If you didn’t get all your tests completed up through September, let’s get them done as soon as possible! Everyone should be completing their tests and marking them completed in the Musical Ladder portal.
If a student was absent for their scheduled test, please conduct the test at their next lesson. Please put the completion date accurately – the date they actually complete their test.
Remember – no student can ever fail their test (and not pass their level)! They can postpone their test, perhaps. They can do not as well as they hoped for and then retake the test, but ultimately, they must pass their test, in a reasonable timeframe according to when they are supposed to complete it.
When you log into the Musical Ladder portal you will see your students. Click on the + sign to open one student up. Then select Tests to open up a window to mark their test complete. You can add notes if desired, please keep everything positive and encouraging!
Q: What should I do if I can’t figure something out, something isn’t working, or I cannot see my student in the Musical Ladder?
A: Please let myself or Mr. Denny know if you have any questions or cannot figure anything out. Let myself or the Office know if there is an error regarding students.
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Thank you, everyone, for all that you do!
Have a magical Saturday, a musical weekend, and a safe and healthy coming week.
Thank you,
Dennis Frayne
"Dr. Dennis"
Laguna Niguel School of Music
Dennis Frayne Music Studios
30110 Crown Valley Pkwy, Suites 105/107/108
Laguna Niguel, CA 92677
(949) 844-9051 (office cell)
(949) 468-8040 (personal cell)
www.lagunaniguelschoolofmusic.com
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