I teach many younger students and decided to find some fun games to play in lessons to teach various music skills. (older students might enjoy these as well.) I set out on a search for games that you can make and games that you can play online. Here are a few of my finds. If you have one that you play in lessons send it to me in the comments section along with the instructions for making/playing the game.

Repeat the Melody- This is a sort of simon says for piano. The computer plays a short melody. You repeat it. Each time you correctly play back the melody it plays another one.

Name the note- I play a note on the piano and the student has to name it. A favorite variation of this game is Stump the Teacher. They sit at the piano and I turn my back and try to guess the note name that they are playing. I don’t have perfect pitch so I am only right some of the time, but they get a kick out of it. They still have to know the note name to tell me if I am right or not.

Hangman with music- You or the student spells a word with music notes. If you need help thinking of words here is a list of words I found using morewords.com You can add letters and vowels that aren’t musical notes by writing them in between the blanks for the notes you have written. Ex. __ __ __ M

I found this lesson plan on lessonplanspage.com. (As a side note, there were a lot of musical lesson plans on this site that could be useful to private lesson teachers.) This is for sight reading and basic composition. Basically the student writes a simple melody and rhythm using sticks and M & Ms. (or any other small round candy. If they can sing what they have written they get to eat (or keep) the candy. To read the entire lesson plan click here.

Another game I found on lessonplanspage.com is called Rhythm Face Off. One person writes and one person sings. (You can do this game with 2 or more people.) The person who writes has 15-20 seconds to write a rhythm. The person who sings has the same amount of time that the writer took to sing the rhythm. If the singer gets it wrong, the writer has a chance to sing it and get the point. If they can’t sing what they wrote, they loose a point. View the lesson plan here.

This next one looks like it would be a lot of fun if you had a large group to play it. It is called rhythm baseball. Set up 4 chairs (or bases) and clap or use sticks to play rhythms for each “batter”. If they get it right, they get a hit and go to first base, if they get it wrong, they get an out. After 3 outs the next team gets a turn. Check out the lesson plan here.

If you have a couple of students (great for one students bring a friend to lessons) you can get out a dry erase board and play this game. The teacher sings a pitch pattern. The students then have to write dashes to illustrate the pattern. Ex. If the teacher sings one low one middle and one high it would look like this ___
___
___
You can increase the number of notes sung or played to increase the level of difficulty.
A recent game I came up with was major minor triad. I play a triad on the piano and the student has to answer by singing La Ti Do for Minor Triad or Do Re Mi for Major Triad. I thought this would be tricky, the first person I tried it out on caught on pretty quickly.

I also spotted a subscription service by Fun Music Company of musical games that you can download and print. They have many to choose from. The service is $69.00 per year.

There are tons of games out there. I spotted these in just a few minutes time. I am really excited to go out and play them with my students. If you have one that is your favorite, I hope you will share it with the rest of us.

Most common lesson opener: “I didn’t get as much time to practice as I’d like.” [Who does?]

Less common: “I didn’t get to practice too much. Very little, really. Just ran through it a bit today, actually.”

Most unexpected response, after a student played all the quarter notes and eighth notes exactly the same length: “I didn’t want to waste time.”

Question requiring calm response and no chuckling–asked by a beginning student after teacher demonstrates a bit of music: “How come I can’t play like that?”

Most ambitious question after a student finds out she’ll have to pay for a lesson cancelled at the last minute: “Can I have a lesson over the phone?”

Most devastating compliment: “I loved your tape so much I made copies for my friends.”

Most confusing comment after a performance: “That was so you.”

Best answered with a smile? “I want to get as good as you are so I don’t have to practice.”

During the school year. I host 3 recitals. Most of my students are kids, and I have about 6 adult students. I understandably find that the adults are uncomfortable performing in these recitals. I came across an idea a few years ago online for getting some performance experience for adults. The idea was to create a casual music night at your house (or someone else’s.) The idea is to create a casual, non-judgmental get together where each adult gets to perform one song for the group. I was thinking about also organizing a group jam session that everyone would be able to participate in. I’ve only mentioned this to one of my adult students, and she’s really excited (and relieved about not performing in the kiddie recital.) Of course there will be drinks and food, and it will be just like a party. Students can bring their spouses, and we would all have a good time. I would also play a song on my new instrument: The mandolin. Since I’m new (and I’m not very good), it would be a good opurtunity to see the teacher learning something new.

Do you have any creative ideas for including adults in the performance part of their education? If so, what do you do? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated by all of the teachers here at Music Teacher’s Helper.