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Lesson Plans

Our 1st Lesson with the Drummin’ Buddies Hand Charts.

[It was better than I could have imagined!]

First we found the rhythm, then we found the song.
If you can see it, you can say it. If you can say it, you can play it.

Age Group: 6- to 10-year-olds.
The point is to play and to play well with others.  Be easy on corrections. Handing is not as important as timing.

Activities

  1. If this is the first drum lesson, teach students simple technique for bass, tone, and slap.  Show them first how not to hurt their hands.
  2. Print Moribayassa Picture Rhythm for each child.
  3. Guide each student to touch the pictures one by one and say “DU” in each frame with a drum. They need to make sure to touch the empty frames as well. A space is also a note…   After they have sorted it out, keep a gentle pulse and have the whole group saying the pattern together.
  4. Replace the “DU” with an appropriate representational verbalization for bass, tone and slap. ‘DU’ ‘DO’ ‘TA’  or ‘Gun’ ‘go’ ‘pa’ or simply, ‘bass tone slap’.  Suggest that each ‘note’ has a matching pitch like ‘Do, re, mi’.  Repeat the patten melodically this way.
  5. After the students can sing the parts, play the rhythm with them so they can hear the song on the drum. This will stabilize the rhythm and tempo. Play s l o w l y! The tempo will pick up as they develop auditory and muscle memory.
  6. Have fun, always.

The Students in our Children’s Programs have a variety of learning styles and challenges.  Some are refugees and do not speak English well. Some of the kids in my Adapted classes are non-verbal. I can’t wait to try this out in those classes this week!

If you have questions, comments or a good story, please share! I’ll post your class experiences here for other teachers.
Rhythm Rules!

Tap-O-Phone

Grade Level: All Ages and Abilities
 Focus: (Concept or skills to be emphasized) – Rhythm, Listening

Activities:
1. students form a single line
2. Gently, but clearly tap a [*success-appropriate] pattern on the upper back of the person at the end of the line
3. Each person in line taps the pattern on the person’s back in front of them
4. the final person claps the pattern to see if it made it intact, all the way up the line

* Success-Appropriate = Match the patterns to the students.  Very young children will be very successful with simple patterns; older kids can practice more complex ones. If you have kids in your class with physical or cognitive variations, make the pattern something they will be able to repeat.

Variations:

  • Offer students a chance to make up the  patterns
  • students form a multiple lines and are given different patterns.  At the end, they can create a polyrhythmic pattern as a group.  As music is inclusive, I strongly suggest that this activity is not turned into a competition.  If the pattern varies and mutates into something other than what was started, it will produce a completely new song!
  • Have different lines of students end up at different rhythmic instruments. [line 1 bells, line 2 drums, line 3 shakers, line 4 sticks, etc.]

Fanga Walk

Grade Level: All Ages and Abilities
Focus: (Concept or skills to be emphasized) – listening, earning a rhythm, holding a part with other parts playing
Equipment: various shakers, drums, sticks, bowls, bells, washboards….

Activities:
Divide into 4 groups. Each group gets one Fanga drum part to sing
Part 1. Du
Part 2. da .. da.da
Part 3. Du Du
Part 4. da.da
show Du’s together, then da’s. [Du – Du Du, etc]
  1. Get the groups to walk around singing their part – HOLDING their part!
  2. Regroup into Fanga order
  3. Keep singing – pass out drums to students on Part 1. Du, sticks for the rest of the group
  • Have drummers being playing all drum parts; sticks variations or clave patterns
  • Trade some sticks out for shakers, bells, auxiliary percussion
  • Reduce to shakers and sticks. Have everyone trade instruments and pick back up again [as many times as necessary to give each kid a chance to play the pattern on the drums]

CHALLENGE: KEEP THE SONG GOING THE WHOLE TIME!

Pattern to the Pulse

Grade Level: All Ages and Abilities
Focus: (Concept or skills to be emphasized) – timing, technique, tempo, creativity. Differentiating between Call & Response techniques of repeat or reply
Equipment: sticks

Activities:

Discuss the point of the game. Keeping in time, steady tempo, etc.  Explain repeat and respond, as we do in conversations.

1.      Keep a steady slow pulse in the background [assistant]. Have students Echo the first 3 patterns

  • First round: |x . . . |x . . . |x . . . |x . . .
  • Second round: |x . x . |x . x . |x . x . |x . x .|
  • Third round: |x x x . |x x x . |x x x . |x x x .|
  • Fourth round: I make up a pattern that fits within the pulse – students echo
  • Fifth round: each student makes a pattern around the circle – echo around

2. demonstrate reply:  [with assistant] son clave;  tap | x x  x | reply | x x |

  • next pair of students call & reply their own pattern. ALL PATTERNS MUST STAY WITHIN PULSE
  • repeat around the circle, with assistant keeping a pulse in the background

Variations: Begin with sticks; then progress to instruments of choice

CHALLENGE: KEEP THE PATTERNS TO THE PULSE THE WHOLE TIME

Do you know that you don’t have to have a drum to practice drumming?

Look at one of the hand charts and touch each square while saying, or better yet, singing, each symbol.  Remember, the space, or rest is a note. So Moribayassa would be:

bass – [ ] – tone – tone – bass – [ ] – slap- [ ] -bass – [ ] – tone – tone – bass – [ ] – slap- [ ]

Say it several times until the rhythm of the pattern finds you. Try changing the pitch of each name:  low mid mid low HI! and repeat again until it comes out easily; like a nursery rhyme. Once the song is in your head, walk around with it, or tap it on your lap or table top so the song is in your body.  By the time you get to a drum, you will know that by your heart…..