Colorful Intervals

This week I played a game to practice the concept of intervals:

What you need:

A set of cards with intervals
Two keyboard sheets* printed out and laminated or put in a sheet protector
Whiteboard markers, preferably in a variety of colors

Setup:

Shuffle the cards.
Each player should label Middle C with a whiteboard marker.

How to Play:

The first player draws a card and names the interval. Once you have named it, color in the entire interval (meaning the top note, the bottom note, and all notes in between) on your keyboard. This ends the turn.
The second player follows the same process.
If you have already colored in some or all of the notes contained in the interval on the card, you can color in an equivalent interval anywhere else on the keyboard. For example, if you draw a fourth from middle C to F, but you’ve already colored those notes, you can draw a fourth from G to B above it.
If your keyboard is so full you cannot find an equivalent interval, color in the largest interval you can find and name it.
The first person to completely fill their keyboard wins.

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*My keyboard sheets are from Kristin’s site at http://www.myfunpianostudio.com/. I highly recommend her Piano Magic improv course.

Connect Four (Music Twist)

Last week I played Connect 4 with my students. Here’s how the basic game works:

What you need:

Music note flashcards
Anything to use as markers (coins, pieces from other board games, erasers, etc.)

Setup:

Lay out your note flashcards into at least four columns and four rows. More is better, at least for more advanced students.
Divide the markers by color or shape between you and the student.

How to play:

When it is your turn, place a marker on one of the flashcards and say the name of the note.
The first person to get four in a row wins.

Variants:

For pre-readers, use cards with only the letter. To place a marker on that square, they have to play that note on the keyboard.
For readers who have only learned the C position notes, lay out all the flashcards. If they want to claim a space with a note they haven’t learned, they should say only whether it’s higher or lower than the notes they do know.
For more advanced readers, use cards with ledger lines or intervals.
For an extra twist, make it Gravity Connect Four, where all pieces automatically fall down to the lowest available flashcard in their column.
For a bigger extra twist, make it Reversi, where if you flank an opponent’s pieces, they are replaced with your pieces. In this version, the goal is not to get four in a row, but to complete the grid and then count up who has claimed the most flashcards.

Connect Four, loridavisstudio