Learning objectives for students.

Form:  Moving the various segments around, layering patterns, working in a round.  Perform body percussions as a Symphony (a whole group working together) a Concerto ( a soloist with the group doing backup) a Concerto Grosso ( a small group doing the solo with the large group backing up)  The possibilities are endless.

Timbre: use various sounds and different versions of the same move, will make a different sound

Steady beat: Gross motor movements enable kids to feel steady pulse much more easily that sax playing

Meter:  Perform body percussion in common time, triple meter, compound meter.

Ensemble Skills.   Students rehearse and perform these rhythms in groups and as solos.

Improvisation:  Students take turns improvising new sounds and new patterns.

Dynamics:  Students use various dynamic changes to  create original music.

Melody;  Students can sing along with their rhythms

World music/culture:  Teach clave patterns, cascara, bell rhythms, Highlife, and other world music patterns with body percussion.  Students can play along with recordings.

Music Vocabulary; Tempo, crescendo, forte, legato, etc.,   using body percussion to demonstrate and practice.

Notation:  Students can notate their compositions, or read the compositions of others using traditional or non-traditional notation.

Performing:  Students can perform for the class, at a concert, or be videotaped.

Composing;  Students will create new music.

Analyzing/Describing:  Students will describe what the see and hear using musical terms.

Evaluate:  Students will evaluate the elements of the music they hear and the moves they see.

Relate to other arts:  Students will connect music to dance and theater.

Music History:  Students will  learn of the connection of body percussion to our musical history, ie.,Hambone, Juba, Minstrel Shows, tap dance. 

Tips, tricks, and procedures.

Students may be uncomfortable with body percussion at first. 
so....

• Start with rhythms that are done sitting down, maybe even while behind their desk or table.
  
• Start with rhythms that are very fast and look "cool."
  
• Keep them simple at first.
  
• These activities are best done in small amounts of time, 7-8 minutes.  I use these as ways to start class, to end class, or as a transition between other activities.  I also use these when I'm in a large group and I need everyone to come together to focus on something.
• Play some great music on the stereo for the kids to add the percussion too.    My students love classic rock tunes.
• Teach some basic easy ostinato patterns  that fit into most of your other beats.  Kids who are  unable to get the new pattern can fall back into one they already know.   Like "We will rock you...."
  

• You do the singing while the kids do the patterns, soon, they'll be singing along.
• Use TV jingles the kids will recognize and make a rhythm pattern for them.
• Show videos (Youtube? Vimeo? etc..) of groups doing body percussion, especially ones that seem impossible, or just plain funny.
• When the kids are ready to do these standing up, do them as the last activity in class.  You can have them stand and push in their chairs and stand behind them to perform, that way you'll get everyone to push in their chairs before they leave!!!

Lesson ideas

• Click here for Ideas on how to write your own rhythms
• Play Simon Says with body percussion.   The kids should only echo your rhythm pattern if there is a clap in the pattern.   If no clap, then they don't echo it,   (the clap is the equivalent of Simon Says)  Don't always clap on the first beat, make them wait for it.  They have to echo it perfectly, even the dynamics.  Divide your class into two teams, and when a student on either team goofs up, the other team gets a point.   This way, no one is ever 'out' and everyone keeps playing...
  
• Set up a simple ostinato, the first student performs it with a body percussion sound.  Another student suggest a 2nd way to do it, then the whole class performs it the first way and then immediately, in time, using  the second sound.  Next student demonstrates a new way, the whole class performs it three times, with all the sounds suggested so far, in order.   I've had classes perform a rhythm with as many as 27 different bod-cussion sounds consecutively, from memory.  You can do this in teams, just like with Simon says.
• Students can write their own music.  Put them in groups of three, and give them parameters.   (Here are a few suggestions, one or two limitations helps them to create) Limit the number of sounds, something must be a repeated figure (ostinato,)  it needs to be 16 beats long, there must be a sequence in the song,  there must be an improvisation break, has to demonstrate two different dynamic levels, etc.  these can be performed live for the class, or the kids can videotape them and then all can watch together. Most of our media centers have plenty of cameras and ipads for videotaping.
• Have kids make up ways to perform the rhythms taken from the melodies of songs,  for instance, use the melody of the first two bars of Frosty the Snowman, and create a way to do it with bod-cussion.  Another student can take the rhythm from another song, say, Jingle Bells, and perform that one layered on top of the first, Then a third student or group might add on the rhythm from YMCA.  You can always have simple ostinato patterns going at the same time to help keep the beat.
• Students can improvise new music by controlling where they are  in the room.  three students, one standing, one sitting in a chair, the other on the floor.
• Limit students in their compostion by restricting one student to only using his feet, another, his hands.
• Give the kids constraints when writing a new composition.   Tell them they can only use rhythms taken from a well know song.  Like....Waltzing Matilda, Jingle Bells, Happy Birthday(3/4)  etc.