Author: Lori

Turkey Feathers (How to Drill Anything)

There is nothing better than using the same materials you already created for a new purpose. My Thanksgiving turkey from Pluck the Turkey (Note Review) is a multi-purpose turkey for drilling other things as well.

What You Need:

  • A turkey body, plus a lot of feathers
    • I cut mine out of scrapbooking paper so they were already in cute patterns with no extra effort on my part.
    • If you want to be able to reuse it for multiple purposes, laminate everything. Otherwise, don’t bother.
  • Tape or sticky tack

Setup:

  • Write on the back of the feathers what you want to drill, such as:
    • Phrase 1, Phrase 2, Phrase 3, OR
    • Review Song, Recital Song, Sightreading, OR
    • Rhythms to clap back OR
    • write absolutely nothing and just draw a card from a stack of flashcards when necessary.
  • Hide the feathers around the room or don’t bother and just put them in a heap next to your turkey body.

How to Play:

  • The student finds a feather if they are hidden or just choose one if they’re not.
  • Do whatever is on the flashcard.
  • Tape or sticky tack the feather on the turkey body to make your turkey resplendent.
  • Repeat.

20171106_071908

Pumpkin Bowling (How to Drill Anything)

Pumpkin bowling was used with great success during my final lesson before Thanksgiving. We used it to choose variations on “For Health and Strength,” but it could be used for anything.

What You Need:

  • A mini pumpkin
  • Flashcards with whatever you want to drill
    • These could be official flashcards with notes on the staff on them, or they could be scraps of paper that say phrase 1, phrase 2, phrase 3, etc., or practically anything else.
  • Something to use as bowling pins
    • I don’t have actual bowling pins, but I have used stacks of plastic bowls, larger pumpkins, paper towel rolls, anything you have several of and will not break.

Setup:

  • Place a flashcard under each of your makeshift bowling pins.

 

How to Play:

  • The student rolls (not throws), the mini pumpkin toward the bowling pins. Whichever one they hit, do the flashcard under it. (If it’s something heavy like a large pumpkin, it won’t actually fall over, but it’s okay just to bump it.)
  • Replace the bowling pin with a new flashcard.
  • Repeat.

 

small-pumpkins-616423_1920

 

For Health and Strength (Learn by Rote)

Certain of my students are really struggling with developing an ear, so a simple song that can lead to success without a lot of tears along the way is a good thing.

“For Health and Strength” is a traditional song, which is appropriate for Thanksgiving, fairly well known, and easy to learn, so it ticked all the boxes for ear training this month, and every one of my students picked it up pretty quickly, following this method:

  • Place the hands in middle C position.
  • Starting in the right hand, play four notes, three of which are the same:
    • G G G F
  • Then play the same pattern, but start on E:
    • E E E D
  • Play the same pattern again, but start on C:
    • C C C B
  • Start at the top and play the whole sequence:
    • G G G F   E E E D   C C C B
  • Our song doesn’t sound finished until we add a long home note at the end:
    • G G G F   E E E D   C C C B   C
  • The last thing we add is the pickup note at the beginning. It’s a low G. So our final sequence is:
    • G (low)  G G G F   E E E D   C C C B   C

 

Once they knew the basic song, we did a number of things depending on interest and ability level:

  • Play it in a round.
  • Transpose
  • Play it with duet accompaniment in various styles.
  • Create a variation in the melody by shaking up the rhythm or articulation or dynamics or making it minor.

Alternatively, you could also use this fakebook version to practice a different skill set with the same song.

thanksgiving-2903166_1280

 

 

Pluck the Turkey (Note Review)

What You Need:

  • A turkey body, plus a lot of feathers
    • I cut mine out of scrapbooking paper so they were already in cute patterns.
    • If you want to be able to reuse it for multiple purposes, laminate everything. Otherwise, don’t bother.
  • Flashcards with the notes of the staff.
  • Some kind of timer (only needed for version 2)

Setup:

  • Write on the back of the feathers. (Use a whiteboard marker if you laminated.)
    • About three should say “Teacher Loses a Turn”
    • About three should say “Freebie”
    • Half of the rest should say “N” for name the note.
    • All of the rest should say “P” for play the note.
  • Lay out your turkey on the floor.

 

How to Play (Version 1, the competitive way):

  • The first player plucks a feather from the turkey and draws a note flashcard.
    • If the feather says “N,” the player should name the note on the flashcard.
    • If it says “P,” the player should play the note on the piano.
    • If it says “Freebie,” they get the feather for free.
  • Take turns until the turkey is completely plucked. Count the feathers to see who has the most.
    • The teacher loses a turn cards guarantee that the student will always have more. None of my kids picked up on this.

How to Play (Version 2, the timed way):

  • With input from the student, determine how long the student will need to completely pluck the turkey. (The amount of time varied from 1 to 5 minutes, depending on the level of the student and the number of feathers on the turkey.)
  • When the timer starts, the student plucks one feather at a time and plays or names the note. In this version, the teacher loses a turn feathers are just like a freebie feather.
    • (Occasionally, I surreptitiously stop the timer while they aren’t looking to make sure they finish in time.)

20171106_071908

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.

 

djembe-2413970_1920