Leading, with a pencil, 8 year old Sophie through the right hand of a new piece tonight, I skipped over a tied note.

Ate the end of the phrsae, I stopped and drew a light circle around the notes, pointed to the tied note and asked, "Why did I leave out this note?"

Sophie peered for a few seconds then announced triumphantly, "Because it's a smiley face."

Looking closely, I saw the the combination of circle, notes and tie line had indeed created a smiley face.

I went with the flow on that one. A fiver says that in five years time, Sophie and I are still referring to tied notes as 'smiley faces'.

Steve

It's good that we can have some light hearted moments isnt it!
My daughter now practicing for her grade 8 violin, still does 'rainbows' with her bow and calls the right hand piano pedal the accelerator - we know what she means!

I have a student who always calls minums 'minimums'... doesn't matter what I do or have tried... they'll always be 'minimums'

I had one who couldn't get that word either - it came out as "mininims", "mimins", "miminims" etc. After a while I tried the words "Minnie Mouse" but she had trouble there too! I think eventually it became a joke so they're now '2-beat notes'. She's also the pupil who refers to D as 'woofie' (after doggy D!!)

One of my young pupils came up with something quite ingenious, not really humorous but related I think. We all know how pupils can find difficulty distinguishing the note D above middle C, when written in bass clef. Well she told me she remembers it because if you turn the page sideways it looks like a capital D. How about that, not something I`d have ever thought of.

Enk

How about "half note" and other American names? They are more logical than the British ones and get you half way to German ones (Ganze, Halbe, Viertel, Achtel etc.).

I have a pupil who always referred to 'minimins', too-sometimes she still does although she's been able to say it properly for ages, as it makes us both laugh in the lesson. And we have a pause as an upside down smiley face-can't remember who thought of that one-think it was me in fact!