Staff Wars

This tool has not been reviewed by our editors yet

Description

Staff Wars is an online music note identification game that is free to use and no account is needed (although there is an option to purchase the game if the the teacher desires to.) In this game, students first choose the range of notes and the clef(s) they would like to be quizzed on (treble, bass, grand staff, alto, or tenor), then the game starts with notes sliding across the screen. Students have to name the notes before they reach the end of the screen, and if they choose the wrong note or don’t choose in time, they lose one of their 3 lives.  Every 10 notes, the game levels up and the speed increases.

Pricing

Plan Price Details
Staff Wars Free Free for use.

Reviews

November 17, 2020

As we move into a more and more digital-based learning environment, more and more online lessons and games are becoming available. According to Professors Spires, Paul, and Kerkhoff from North Carolina State University and their article “Digital Literacy In the 21st Century”, “…teachers need best practices for how to integrate game-based learning into their classrooms and support students as they navigate virtual spaces related to content learning.”(2240)

I think Staff Wars is a great activity to help with music literacy because it gets students active in note recognition while they have fun playing a game at the same time. Just like in reading, musicians have to recognize a series of notes instantly to read the musical sentence, so this tool is a way to help that sight reading ability. Some strengths about Staff Wars are that it can be altered depending on what clef you want to read and what range of notes you are comfortable with identifying. This way it can be differentiated depending on what grade level you are working with. The fact that you can choose which clefs to use is also a differentiation for other instruments. Trombones and other low brass can get practice with bass clef, pianists can get practice with grand staff, and violists can get practice with alto clef. Another strength is that the speed increases and it feels like a game. In the music classrooms I’ve worked with, the students have fun keeping track of scores and knowing who has the highest score in the school.

An area of improvement with Staff Wars is that it could include more areas of music literacy other than note reading. Staff Wars could modify the game so that it can test the user on dynamics, instruments, articulation, etc. Also, Staff Wars has to be used with Adobe Flash Player installed. If students don’t have this installed on their computers, it can take time to work that out and get it installed.

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