Improvisation+Activities

__**Improvisation Exercises**__ Workshops with Doug Friesen at OMEA. Here are some of the ones I've tried, feel free to add yours!

I took the game Peter did with the 7/8 students, and modified it for the age groups I teach. I used the same idea, but did do, re, mi combinations for the Kodaly choir's warm up. For the grade 4's, they just stopped at 2 things to watch for. The grade 6's managed to complete 3 categories, after some practice. I haven't tried this yet, but I think in January when I start recorders again with the Grade 5/6 students, I might even try doing it with BAG on the recorders!
 * __ Peter Weigold's clap for boy/girl/glasses game __**

**__Changing Leader-Doug Friesen__** At OMEA, I took Doug Friesen's workshop. One of the games he did with us was to have us get into groups of 3 (4 works too) and to count off around the group up to 4 (or 5 if you're a group of 4). What happens is that every time the count goes around, the '1' falls on a different person until the cycle gets back to the first person. Once the kids have a good tempo doing just numbers, have the '1' person change their number to a sound, which is then used to replace the number through the count off. This continues until finally the kids are 'counting' in 4 seperate different sounds, which pass around the circle. Again, I'd like to try this with my older students on recorder or even with xylophones later on. It was amazing to see how even some of my lowest students could do this, sometimes even better than my musical students! *This game is much easier to demonstrate than it is to explain!

I have played this game with almost all of my classes with great success. This game was a huge hit and led to some very interesting conversations about silence as a part of music, the feelings the students had when they had the 'Stop', and how we could compare that 'stop' to the conductor getting ready to start a piece of music, or the pause in an exciting symphonic piece. It was a GREAT game!
 * __ Zip-Peter Weigold __**

This game was amazing and a great way to start the year or just start a class. The students should stand or sit in a circle, close enough together that they can lean and whisper to each other. I tried just jumping into the game and learned very quickly that I needed to start small. Here's my process: 1. Have the students play a simple game of telephone, where the goal is to get the word back to it's original 'owner' in the same form. I gave the students a hint by telling them it was a music word. 2. If they were successful with step 1, I then passed three words, at different times and locations, around the circle. The goal is to get them back to their 'owner' intact. 3. I had the students pass 5 words-same idea. 4. This time, we make it REALLY hard. The students number off 1 - 2 - 1 - 2... around the circle. There must be an even number so sometimes I played and sometimes I didn't depending on the number of students. This time, all of the number one's would pass their name (instead of a word that I chose) to their right, and then recieve the next name from the left. This is really neat to watch, as the student are in a constant rocking motion of listening then speaking. The goal, of course, is to get all the names back to their owners intact.
 * __ Name passing-Doug Friesen __**

From teaching this game across grades 4-6, I have learned that there are two key rules the kids need to do in order to be successful: 1. They should NOT rush-it's about accuracy, not speed. 2. They should never pass a name until the next person is turned to recieve it-that's how we lost a lot of names!

It was amazing how personally the students took it when their name was lost. I found that if we were running out of time in the class, I would 'give' the student back their name so that they didn't leave feeling as though it was lost somewhere-they were really upset! On the other hand, when they got their name back, there was a huge sense of relief and accomplishement.

Also, make sure to get through both the 1's and the 2's in one class, as the number who doesn't get to pass their names feels left out. I found it took a few tries, over two periods, to get this game, but it was well worth it when we did!

As an aside, it looks and sounds amazing when the students are doing it, I actually recorded them whispering the names and it was quite powerful!

__** December 4 **__ I was doing some searches today to look for inspiration for our lessons. Here are a few links I found:

[] This website had a whole section of activities used to teach timbre. I've copied it below.
 * The Expressive Elements of Music - Add Variety and Contrast to Music **


 * Timbre - ** The distinctive quality of tone of a sound.


 * Listen to sounds around you.
 * Using rhythm instruments - divide into 3 groups and instruct different groups to echo.
 * Wood - woodblock, guiro, sticks, etc.
 * Metal - triangle, cowbell, tambourine, cymbals, etc.
 * Skins - drums (some tambourines have both skin and metal)
 * Create sound effects for stories.
 * Listen for high, middle, low, loud, soft, long, short.
 * Use additional adjectives for descriptions - shrill, thump, rumble, crash, clunk, etc.
 * Create your own instruments.
 * Listen to musical instruments and identify instrument families.
 * Strings
 * Brass
 * Woodwinds
 * Percussion
 * Listen to different timbres in voices. (Hide students and have them try to recognize voices of classmates, teachers, etc.)
 * Learn the voice ranges by sung example or by families of instruments (recorders, saxophones, etc)
 * Soprano
 * Alto
 * Tenor
 * Bass
 * Look inside a piano
 * S ee how the hammers hit the strings
 * Examine the long/low and shorter/high strings
 * Watch the vibration of the strings
 * Demonstrate the concept of vibration
 * Examine guitar strings, frets, and harmonic proportions as you divide the string into half, fourths, etc.
 * Use bells to discuss vibration by letting them ring and then stopping the vibration with the mallet (or resting the mallet on the tone bar in order to not allow vibration.
 * Create a homemade string instrument with rubber bands
 * Play combs with wax paper to feel vibration

Here's another website I found with a lesson on timbre. I like the idea of black and white vs. colour pictures being the difference between the 'colours' of the sound of each instrument. Maybe it could tie in with art???? []