Month: November 2017

Drumming in Eight

The kids love drums. Any drumming activity always meets with approval from them, though I haven’t always been so pleased myself. This activity went better than many.

What You Need:

  • Two drums
  • Playing cards

Setup:

  • Sort through your playing cards. You need one ace plus one each of the numbers two through seven. The suit does not matter.

How to Play:

  • Explain how musicians usually count to four in each measure because most music is in 4/4 time. Dancers like to put two of those measures together and count to eight. For this activity, we’re counting to eight.
  • Give the student one of the drums. Keep the other for yourself.
  • To get the hang of how to play the drum, we always start with the easiest challenge: Both of us playing quarter notes as I count out loud to eight. (I always give them a preparatory measure or half measure first.)
  • After that we go through a series of challenges in more or less this order:
    • Pick a random card. Rest for every beat except the one drawn.
    • Pick a second card. Play on both of your cards.
    • Pick a third and fourth card. The teacher plays on those beats while the student continues to play on the first two cards drawn.
      • Note: I find that many kids struggled if the beats alternated. For example, if their numbers were 2 and 6 and my beats were 5 and 7, they had trouble. If we swapped cards so they had 2 and 5 and I had 6 and 7, it seemed easier.
  • It is also possible to go through the same series of challenges to practice eighth notes. For this version, there are no rests. Hit the drum on every beat, but on the beat that matches the card, double hit (play eighth notes) instead.
    • One of my students inadvertently did this when I wasn’t planning on it. He always hit twice on beat seven because there are two syllables in it. By the time we finished the lesson, I still hadn’t managed to train him out of that.

 

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Holy Child

The melody of this folk hymn comes from Southern Harmony, the 1835 shape note hymnal. The words and the SAB arrangement are my own.

Click here to download the music.

 

Gentle Jesus, Holy Child,

Born this night, in the dark and wild,

Come to save poor sinners here,

With thy saving grace, draw near.

 

Angels sang to shepherds there,

Easing nights of pain and care.

Let us all haste to thy side.

In thy presence let us bide.

 

Bearing gifts, came wise men three.

Gold and myrrh, they offered thee.

We, too, strive to do our part:

Willing hands and contrite heart.

 

Gentle Jesus, Holy Child,

Born this night to the dark and wild,

Come to save poor sinners here,

With thy saving grace, draw near.

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Halloween Practice

I always like being able to make one set of materials and use it in multiple ways. Most of my kids used these Halloween cards to compose a rondo, but one lucky girl also used it to work on her current songs.

What You Need:

  • These Halloween cards, printed and cut (you won’t need the second page)
  • Dice
  • A mini pumpkin or anything else you can use as a playing piece
  • A list of Halloween jokes. I have a little book of jokes, but you could also use these, either printed out or just available on a device.

Setup:

  • Make a list of the pictures on the cards and assign them to things you need to practice. It’s okay to repeat, it’s okay not to use all the cards, and it’s good to include a few things in there that are more exciting. For example, here’s a sample list:
    • moon: current song, section A
    • raven: current song, section B
    • haunted house: current song, hardest phrase
    • jack o’lantern: current song, hardest phrase
    • skeleton: current song, hardest phrase
    • bat: review song
    • trick or treat bag: review song
    • cat: current scale or arpeggio
    • witch: current scale or arpeggio
    • spider: next step in the composition book
    • skeleton: Halloween improv duet
    • mummy: sing a Halloween song
    • ghost: sight read
  • Arrange the cards face down in a circle on the floor and place the pumpkin or playing piece on one of them.
  • Hide the jokes so the student can’t see them all at once.

How to Play:

  • Roll the dice. Advance the pumpkin that many cards, moving clockwise.
  • Flip the card. Spend a couple of minutes practicing whatever goes with that picture.
  • Keep the card just as it is and roll again, continuing the same pattern.
  • If you land on a card which has already been flipped over, you have earned a Halloween joke. Conveniently, the likelihood of getting a joke increases the longer you play.

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Halloween Rondo (Composition)

We rounded off October with Halloween Rondos. A rondo is a musical form where one main theme keeps coming back again and again.

What You Need:

Setup:

  • If you’re using a spinner, arrange the Halloween pictures in a circle with the spinner in the middle. Don’t include the cards that say “A” and “Coda.”

How to Play:

  • The student spins the spinner. Whichever card they end up with becomes Theme A, the one that will be repeated in their rondo. If you’re not using a spinner, just shuffle the cards and have them draw the first card.
  • The student should compose two measures in 4/4 time to be the A section, which the teacher transcribes onto the staff paper. (I thought about making the kids do this, but it would just take way too long.)
    • I recommend placing the hands with the lowest finger on an A. That way they are automatically playing in the key of A minor, and it will sound spooky without much extra effort on their part.
    • Depending on the picture, we talk about how to represent it in music. Should it be fast or slow? Loud or soft? Legato or staccato? In a high octave or very low?
    • I do insist on exactly two measures in 4/4 time. Part of the reason for doing this is to learn to compose reasonable phrases.
  • When the A section is defined, put it on the music stand, and spin again. The next card becomes section B, which should also be two measures of 4/4 time.
  • When the B section is written down, put it on the music stand to the right of the section A card. Afterwards place one of the cards that says “A” to the left. For example, you might end up with this sequence: Jack-o-lantern, Witch, A. The cards are there to remind you and the student that the Jack-o-lantern measures come back after the Witch measures have been played.
  • Spin again for section C. Continue as before until you run out of cards or out of time.
  • Every rondo should finish with a Coda. The coda can be as simple as a long low note quietly fading away or a loud, high note to represent a scream or it can be a further two measures just like all the others.
  • Play the final composition for the student and enjoy. Most of my students were not actually capable of fully reading and playing back their compositions themselves. There is nothing wrong with this: Composers who write symphonies certainly can’t play every instrument themselves. It’s good to have an imagination that stretches beyond our current abilities.

You can listen to my students’ creepy compositions here.

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