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!
2 responses to “Music and Movement (Teaching Tip)”
Hi Chase .. great idea – wish I could sing and have some rhythm .. but I'll certainly pass the idea across ..
Cheers Hilary
Hi Hilary,
The best thing about this activity is that you don't actually have to sing. You just need to hit the five notes in the pentatonic scale. If you have a hard time doing that, you could have someone hit the notes on a piano or xylophone as you move. Just an idea anyway.
Cheers!