Tag Archives: rhythm

Issue 25: Drumkit Samba

This is a simple rhythm to teach, and surprisingly effective. If you don’t have a set of samba instruments, try it anyway; just substitute other percussion. The rhythm patterns repeat over 8 counts; Surdo (bass drums) plays on beats 1, 5 … Continue reading

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Issue 22: Don’t clap this one back

This is an incredibly simple little listening game, which quickly sorts out the classes that have learned focus and self discipline from those that have no idea! Keeping an internal pulse going all the time, the leader claps a four-beat … Continue reading

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Issue 14: 101 things to do with “Rain on the Green Grass”

There’s a nice little 3-note round on the www.singup.org website; Rain on the green grass          Rain on the tree          Rain on the house tops          But not on me. If you want to see the notation, have a look at the website. … Continue reading

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Issue 11: Outline Plans for a Short Samba Course

I shall soon start teaching a 6-week taster course in Samba.  This school has a long-standing practice of offering small groups of year 6 children an opportunity for extra music on Friday afternoons.  Up to now, I have been teaching a … Continue reading

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Issue 7: Reading and Composing Music – Rhythm

The easiest way of finding out if the children can read music is to get them to write it.  It doesn’t take long to teach children to understand the basics of rhythm notation; a handful of flash cards and you … Continue reading

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Issue 6: The Name Game

This game is a real oldie, and we all tend to do it at the start of every year in a vain effort to learn classfuls and classfuls of names in the first week of term.  This week I watched it … Continue reading

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Issue 6: Playing Bach

My parents listened to a lot of records when I was young, and three particular recordings of Bach have stayed with me over the years.  They are: George Malcolm playing the Italian concerto on the harpsichord, the Swingle Singers, and the Jacques Loussier Trio. … Continue reading

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Issue 4: Action Song; Tony Chestnut Knows I Love You

This is a version of “Heads, shoulders, knees and toes” with the same amount of manic bending and stretching. The children will enjoy the puns in the song once they know the actions; simply point to each part of the body as … Continue reading

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