Contrasts

All little kids love animals…

I find animals a great way to encourage little kids to think about and describe the various contrasts that music can create: fast / slow; high / low pitch; loud / quiet; jumpy / smooth.

In my first or second lesson with younger students, I always introduce an “animal guessing game”. I have folded up strips of paper, each with two contrasting animals on them (cheetah and snail, elephant and chick etc). The game is to take it in turns to pick a paper (showing the other person both animals on the paper), and play a sound to represent one of the animals. The other person has to guess which animal is being represented. Kids LOVE playing this game, and frequently ask to end the lesson with it!

A follow-up to this game is to spend a lesson (or part of it) helping the student to compose some “animals in the zoo” music. I did this recently with a five year-old student - she picked four animals she had seen at the zoo and we discussed whether each animal was loud or quiet, slow or fast and jumpy or smooth before she created some music for each. We talked about how we could show the contrasts on a paper, so for example added dots to show the jumpy notes.

I always enjoy activities that teach students a variety of skills at once, and even better when they don’t even see it as learning!