Fun Lessons for Percussion

[TBDecker]

I am looking for some fun lessons that I can use with my percussion students. I have heard about some schools making Taiko drums and things like that. I am wondering if anybody has some fun lessons that I can use with my percussion class during the offseason that they would be willing to share.

[5thBassonBass1]

We did something that was kinda fun just yesterday. We learned to play on chairs and performed during lunch, i don't know if you can do that, but you can try learning to play on random objects and make a cadence or something?

[DynaGlide]

You can get many ideas from the "Stomp Out Loud" DVD.

[redbeard]

Oh..........I don't know? I've always found it fun to learn to assemble and disasemble all kinds of percussion instruments. One of my college semesters, we took dresdin timp heads off and put new ones on. A class on repairing instruments is also great.

[Teever]

Here are a few:
1) Ask the students to bring in an "instrument" from home - must be something that is not an instrument. Give them a day or so to gather them, then when they bring them in, they must demonstrate playing techniques for them. Improvise together with the instruments the kids bring in. This can lead into a productive discussion about different timbres and textures, and is generally pretty fun. Good to do after watching a section of Stomp.

2) Drum circle - develops pulse and improvisation skills, and also gives you an opportunity to demonstrate fundamental accessory and ethnic drum technique, and for the kids to rotate around on each instrument. Keep concepts simple at first - call & response, simple patterns, improv over patterns, different groups of instruments, etc.