Sailing the Seas (Intervals)

I developed this game for Thanksgiving, but I have very deliberately kept anything purely seasonal out of it, so it can really be used at any time of year.

What You Need:

These cards, cut up and possibly laminated.
- Note that the two cards with ships should not be cut along the dotted line, so you can fold there and then stand them up.
A die
A game piece, coin, or other manipulative
A grand staff (optional)
- This can be on blank staff paper, on a whiteboard, on poster board, whatever you’ve got.

Setup:

Shuffle the interval, storm at sea, and tailwind cards together. Lay them out face down on the floor in a line or squiggle. Place the Old World at one end and the New World at the other (face up).
Add the icebergs on top of any three random interval cards. (I let the student do this.)
Place the ships on the Old World.
If you are drilling intervals on the keyboard, place a game piece (or coin) on Middle C. If you are drilling intervals on the staff and you have the right manipulatives, place a whole note on Middle C. If you’re using staff paper or a whiteboard, draw a whole note on middle C.

How to Play:

The first player rolls the dice. Move that player’s ship forward that many spaces. Move the note marker on the staff or keyboard by the interval specified on the card.
If the teacher strikes an iceberg, she goes all the way back to Start. If the student strikes an iceberg, he must answer an extra challenge of the teacher’s choice to see if he can navigate around it successfully.
The first person to reach the New World wins.

Variations:

To make it easier, use only the smaller interval cards.
To make it harder, use only the larger interval cards.
To make it shorter, don’t use all the cards, even if you choose them at random.

20181208_065118

For Health and Strength, Theme and Variations

I started this to put together some thoughts on how to help my students improv on this theme, but it got a little out of hand. I can’t imagine at what forum I would ever play my version, but here is my theme and variations on “For Health and Strength.”

My variations are:

Blues
Upside Down, Inside Out, and Backwards
Country-Western
Alberti Bass
Johann Strauss
Boogie-Woogie
Haunted House
Latin
Flowing Water
Bossa Nova
Bach Chorale
Persian
Native American
Debussy
John Cage
Chopin

thankful-2947263_1920

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