The Importance of Games and Activities

Many of us who had music lessons as a child will remember being expected to sit at the piano, or stand in front of the music stand for the whole lesson, playing through various scales and pieces and being expected to remember tips and comments being given at the end of each in order to go away and practise and improve. It wasn’t always much fun, nor terribly interactive, and recounting what we did in the lesson once at home and trying to practise could be a struggle, even with notes written down to help. These days, we know the importance of involving the students in their own learning and making it fun, as well as catering for different learning styles. Moving about a bit helps too, even if it’s just getting off the stool – keeping the lesson lively and enjoyable for the pupil (and teacher too! J).

There are many games and activities I use with pupils to develop musical knowledge and help with their playing and understanding. They are directly tailored to the pupil’s learning stage and very interactive, therefore relevant and memorable as well as fun. In these strange times of online lessons due to Coronavirus, many of these can be adapted to use online just as effectively as face to face. Below are just some examples of kinds of games and activities that I regularly use with my pupils.

Some examples of games which focus on Reading Skills are:-

• Button Stave – I have a grand stave (bass and treble clef) and ask the pupil to put buttons on certain lines/spaces or notes. This encourages familiarisation with the stave, and we also use it to look at ‘Landmark notes’ – instantly recognisable by their visual appearance – middle C being one example. 

• Keyboard Correction – Using a large keyboard mat and counters with note or solfa names, I put some in the right place and some wrong and the pupil has to correct them. This can also be used when coming across sharps and flats (the black keys) for the first time to explore the relationship between F & F#, and extend to E & E# for example.

• Rhythm flashcards – I have put together almost 200  rhythm cards that can be used to focus on the specific rhythm being learnt at the time. Each card contains a four beat rhythm in either simple or compound time, and is grouped with other similar rhythms from simple to more complex, following Kodály principles. These can be used together with rhythm language (see previous blog post) to solidify and bring to conscious understanding the specific rhythm being taught, clapping and saying the rhythms, and for memory work too. Rhythms being worked on could include; crotchet rests, syncopa (quaver, crotchet, quaver syncopated rhythm), semiquavers, compound time, or any number of others 😊). Below is an example of two rhythm flashcards; the first is an introductory level card for the syncopa rhythm (syn-co-pa ta ta), the second shows where this rhythm can eventually lead to (um-co-pa tiki-ti ta)!

• Note flashcards – Often I give pupils their own set of these to work on at home, focussing on the notes they are learning at that time. These consist of a single note, written on a stave on one side of the card, and the letter name on the other. They can be used by pupils to test themselves on reading the note on the stave, as well as to find the relevant note on the piano.

• Find, say & play – Some of these are contained within the tutor books, but I have additional ones too. They are a series of notes written on the stave, but usually as semibreves (4 beat notes), so there is no rhythm to worry about. The challenge is to see how quickly pupils are able to find the notes on the piano keyboard, say the note names, and play them one after the other without hesitating.

Games for aural skills include:-

• Stepping Stones – This is a game which requires pupils to listen to a series of three notes, either sung or played, then identify them from a selection written on a stave, or from a selection of written solfa patterns, depending on whether the focus at the time is stave reading or solfa. It requires recognising intervals - is it a step or a jump? If a jump, how large? This sort of work builds to higher level aural awareness and musicality.

• Improvisation – The focus of this can be rhythm, aural or playing. For rhythm work, I clap one four beat rhythm while saying the rhythm names then the pupil claps and says back a different one as an echo – keeping a steady beat and without a pause and we keep going! If focussing on aural skills, we can also do singing improvisation using four beat solfa patterns – with solfa labels and handsigns, or for playing, we use the black keys to improvise on the piano as a call and response (which can include rhythm as well as pitch).

• Solfa – This is a powerful tool for aural skills, which I introduce right at the beginning with new pupils. It can be used as a copying game, for improvisation (see above), or internalisation (hearing it in your head) – I sing the first note, then they sing the rest following my handsigns, and building on that; for identification – I sing a solfa pattern to ‘da’ without handsigns, saying what the starting note is, then pupils sing back the solfa with handsigns.

• Rhythm – There are lots of fun rhythm games involving clapping & copying (see previous blog on French Rhythm Names). One such game involves me clapping a rhythm which the pupil then claps back, while identifying the rhythm by saying the rhythm language at the same time. A fun challenge that gets pupils moving is to try to walk the pulse (either moving or on the spot) while clapping the rhythm of a piece they are playing.

• Flip-a-rhythm – This is two part rhythm work which is great for co-ordination as well as rhythm reading. The top rhythm is tapped with the right hand on the right knee at the same time as the bottom rhythm being tapped with the left hand on the left knee. These are of varying complexities – the left hand can just be a ta (crotchet) or titi (quaver) pulse, an ostinato (repeating rhythm) or a complete rhythm in it’s own right. Can be 3 or 4 ta (crotchet) beats in a bar, or compound rhythms of 6/8 or 9/8.

 Some Theory Games are:-

• Quizzes of all types, some contained within the getset books, plus extras that I use when appropriate.

• Dice match up game - I have a set of musical dice with different lengths of notes or rests on each side. These can be used in a variety of ways including matching the symbol (note or rest) to the written name eg ‘crotchet’ or ‘ta’ depending on whether we are working on standard names or rhythm solfa.

• New Piece Challenge  - before starting any new piece, I ask the student to tell me something about what they see – this can result in discussions about dynamics, tempo, key and time signature, as well as identifying patterns in the music, and specific musical markings.

I hope you have found the insight into the types of games and activities I use interesting and informative. This approach is a vital ingredient in helping to make piano fun, and increasing learning by making it more interactive and therefore more memorable.