Have you ever felt stuck in a pre-twinkle group class because every student is in a different place in their instrument set up and there is no way to fill up a class with entirely playing games? Or you notice that you’ve already used all of your ‘exciting’ games and you are only a quarter of the way into class? Or you find yourself in a lesson where the student and parent forgot their instrument at home and you have none on hand to lend?

Knowing a few fun, instructive games which don’t require the violin or bow will help you in all of these situations.

Here are ten of my favorites…

1) Chant the musical alphabet forward and backwards.
Extension: chant at different speeds and dynamics, make certain notes ‘blanks,’
Extension: same game with counting numbers up to 8

2) Sing Twinkle, use body parts to represent different notes.
Extension: sing at different speeds and dynamics, do the motions without singing, if I sit down you sit down

3) “Where is Thumbkin?” with all of the violin fingers (first finger, second finger, etc.)
Extension: scramble fingers behind back. Make a circle with _ finger. Bring it to front. Look through the circle glasses at each other.

4) Rhythms. My turn your turn (MTYT) on knees. MTYT all over body. To each student. Guess the rhythm (at varying dynamics).

5) Violin doctor. Teacher sets themselves up with poor posture. Students suggest appropriate changes to the posture.
Extension: student makes silly posture and is corrected

6) Pass the ______. Students sit in a circle. Have them pass an object (ball, roll of tape, marker, anything) around the circle while you play or sing a piece. If you stop playing they stop passing.
Extension: if you do something silly (harmonic, tremolo, glissando) they reverse and pass the other direction.

7) Planting. Students stand on in play position. You instruct them to root their foot into the ground. Plant the feet so they are covered with soil (you can go at pat each students feet down with soil). Grow the roots down so they reach all the way to the molten center of the earth.
Extension: Sway back and forth like there is a breeze. Sway fast with a wind storm. Really fast with a tornado! The roots never come up because they are so deep.
Extension: Sway the whole tree- trunk, branches, leaves. Now the tree is growing older and stronger. The trunk stays ‘grounded’ and just the branches and leaves sway. Now the tree is growing even older and stronger. The trunk and branches stay ‘grounded’ and now just the leaves sway.

8) Conducting. Teach simple down, up, up pattern (using gravity to whoosh the hands down, and lightness to float the hands back up). Have them conduct you on the Minuets (Book 1) or any other pieces in 3.
Extension: have them change their speed so you play along with them at a different speed. Super fast and super slow are informative and fun!
Extension: one person conducts the whole class.
Extension: teach 2 and 4 patterns. Teach compound meter.
Extension: “Rhythm Master” adaptation. Stand in a circle. Send one person out of the room. Determine a student to be the Rhythm Master. They will slightly speed up or slow down the whole group. Everyone in the group watches them for the tempo. Bring the person outside back in. They participate but also try to guess who the Rhythm Master is.

9) Phrase Arcing. Define destination points in a phrase as “HERE.” Then improv sing up to those points with words like, “Then it goes to Here.” “And we go to here.” “Then we go all the way to here.” Use the rhythm and pitch of the original. Most important thing is they are implying direction/intention in the music with their made up words.
Extension: Use the left hand as a conductor would to indicate phrasing. Moving away from the body means growing in intensity, towards the body tapering away in intensity. The climax (HERE) should be the moment they get furthest away from the body.
Extension: Change the scale. Determine phrase arcs for a measure, a passage, and the whole piece.

10) Name game. I can’t believe it when I come into a class of 16 year olds and they don’t know each others’ names. The social fabric of the class, especially for older students, is a vitally important foundation on which the class environment is built. Play the following game to help develop it. It works beautifully with 4 year olds and 35 year olds alike.
All students sit. A student stands and calls out the name of another student. That student stands and calls the name of a student still sitting. Repeat until all students are standing. If they don’t know the name of anyone sitting they can simply ask, “What is your name?”
Extension: add a body gesture or signature sung rhythm after they stand up but before they call someone’s name.
Extension: memorize the order they called on each other. Next time stand up in that order silently. Use the order to run through a sequence of technique. For example, everyone plays a Song of the Wind bow circle at their turn in the sequence.

11) Play an imaginary violin. You will learn so much from watching students do this. Look for points of tension to release. Recognize fundamentals mapped out in the wrong place or wrong direction. See what they remember to do without the kinesthetic object in front of them. See if they can play an entire piece within their mind, not through their body. This is amazing preparation before a concert to put the music into different parts of the consciousness so it is more reliable on stage. Can it be entirely in the mind? Music in the mind but body going through the motions? Sing the music and play with the motions? Just sing but do the body motions in the mind?