Last summer, I received an email notifying me that a former student’s family had donated $2,000 to my music therapy program at The Hope Institute. Needless to say, I couldn’t wait for school to start so that I could take inventory of our current instrument collection and decide what to add to it.
Rainsticks, jingle bells, tambourines, cabasas, and a Q-Chord were immediately added to the list, as were all 5 Garageband Jam Packs. And then, a few months later and with a little over $1,000 of the donation remaining, my music therapy intern suggested that we order some new hand drums.
I took the drums with me to classrooms for the first time this week, and they definitely did not go unnoticed. Students and co-workers oohed and aahed when they spied them on my cart in the hallway, and it was apparent that the drums had quickly replaced the shaky fruit as their instrument of choice.
Karen (my intern) and I are using these drums to address all kinds of objectives, including the concepts of slow/fast, soft/loud, counting, 1:1 correspondence, imitation, and more. But I don’t consider myself a drumming expert at all, so for those of you who are, what are some cool ways I can incorporate these drums into my music therapy sessions? (I’m looking at you, Kat Fulton!)
You are SO funny! Thanks for the mention and write up about the hand drums!!! I *love* using hand drums with kids… especially for chanting and telling stories. Dave Holland has an awesome DVD called Drumagination and an awesome CD called Jam Alongs and Drumming Songs or something like that. I use all his stuff for kids. But my FAVORITE thing to do (by Dave Holland) is to tell the story of the little mouse, who eventually has a big party with all the animals, then the BIG elephant (slow and loud) gets scared by the little mouse, runs away, then the whole house comes down with one big boom…
Ok, maybe the DVD would be a better demonstration, but you get the point. Dave Holland is the kids drumming meistro =)
Have FUN!!!
Oh one more: [snap on off beats] Copy Kat is the name of the game. Whatever Kat plays, you play the same… do call/response. Always a hit. Take turns following the kids.
You can make veggie and fruit shaker soup if you turn the hand drums upside down… then they are soup pots! =) Ok I’ll stop now. Can’t wait to hear more about how you use them!!
I LOVE Drumagination. I can’t wait until I get to use it again with a group!
Anyhoo, I am a big fan of “passing the beat”. Helps the kids listen and remain focused while making a really cool drum song (especially with pitched drums). yay! You can continue on to pass your name, pass the rhythm, do it with your eyes closed… switch directions :) The kids LOVE it!
Get drumming!
I’m a huge fan of Dave’s as well! I attended one of his facilitation training a few years back and loved it! He has some great ideas in the book/Dvd Drumagination. Any group I’ve used the activities with have loved them.
Another to try is Together in Rhythm by Kalani. Kalani is a wonderful percussionist and music therapy student/advocate. His site is http://kalanimusic.com/products/books/
Have fun!!!
John
Thanks for all the great tips, ideas, and resources, everyone! They all sound fantastic and I will be checking them out immediately. Thank goodness for drumming experts willing to help out total novices like me ;)
I’m still rather new to the field, but recently I used the drum in a way I never did before. I have a client within a group that drops instruments on the ground any chance he gets, so I used the drum to catch the instrument, in attempt to facilitate interaction. What was cool to see was he attempted to drop the instrument where the drum wasn’t and he began laughing and made eye contact with me- something I don’t recall hearing/seeing him do before.
Hi Katherine! Well now that just proves you are a bona-fide music therapist :) What a cool moment for you and your client!