This is brilliant!
Bobby McFerrin takes an audience that was there to simply watch a panel discussion and he has them signing in unison with very little instruction.
I can see how this sort of thing could be useful in the classroom or at a school assembly.
He doesn’t have to explain what he is doing. The audience buys into it and they create some music together.
I like how it involves movement and a simple way of conducting. Just by jumping from the left to the right, Bobby McFerrin is playing a virtual xylophone or keyboard. The audience members respond and actually produce the notes he is hitting on the invisible instrument.
Think of how this could be used in a the classroom.
- A student could lead the class for the vocal warm-up activity in music.
- Use it for ear training and have the students move to illustrate whether the notes you play are moving up or down the scale.
- Play a memory challenge game using music and movement.
- Split the students into groups of 5 and have them create a simple song pattern by jumping back and forth to sound their specific notes
And to think, I discovered this video by seemingly wasting time on Google+
Click on the link above and check out my profile there. I post lots of teaching related links and will be dropping about half a dozen throughout the day as an extension to the Teaching Tip Tuesday series I run every week here.
Enjoy!
