Happy Holidays! This week my students will be doing a metronome activity that will require them to carefully go through a matrix of festive garland while picking up candy canes along the way. They will need to be careful, though, not to jingle the bells that are tied to the garland. I saw a few "matrixes" on Pinterest and thought, "Now, how can I make this relate to the holiday season and more importantly, piano?", and then it hit me! The kiddos will be going through the "Merry Matrix" by counting a steady beat out loud while picking up candy canes hung from the garland along the way.
For instance if I call out a 3/4 time signature they will need to continuously count 1-2-3-1-2-3-1-2-3, etc. while picking up the candy canes on beat"one". Every time they say "one" and they're near a candy cane they must pick it up right on the beat for it to count; not before or after but right on the beat. This helps them with a few things when playing music; they learn to keep a steady beat while playing their songs, they learn to multi-task while keeping that steady beat, and it's a super fun way to get them to do it, don't you think?
For my more advanced students I will switch time signatures as they go through the matrix and they will need to quickly shift from counting in 2/4, 3/4, 4/4 to 6/8. To add a little healthy competition to this activity I will write down the names of the students that got the most candy canes (while staying on the beat and counting continuously) on one of the wipe off boards I have in my studio. They LOVE having their names written on the board for all the other students to see. It also motivates all of the kiddos to do their very best with this activity.
Until next time, piano blogger signing off...........
