Friday Fave: Remo Hand Drums

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Remo Hand Drums

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!)

 

Turn the Beat Around

by | Listen & Learn Music, Uncategorized

Turn the Beat Around

Why yes, I am referring to that old song made famous by Gloria Estefan in the 90s.  I used to love it way back in the day, especially trying to sing along with the crazy fast syllable-full verses.

While I was brainstorming new instrument songs last week, this one just popped into my head and refused to leave.  But it turned out to be a good thing, because I ended up tailoring the lyrics just enough to make it the perfect rhythm sticks song.

I predicted that when I played it with my Church Mice on Sunday, the parents would get a kick out of it…and I was right.  Most of them knew the song and were singing along with me right away.

Turn it up, turn it up, turn it up so loud!
Turn it up, turn it up, turn it up so loud!

Turn the beat around,
Love to hear the percussion.
Turn it upside down,
Love to hear the percussion.
Love to hear it.

Oh, you sure sound pretty,
Your rhythm keeps movin’ to the nitty gritty
When you hear the tap of the wood a-tappin’
Then you’ll know that rhythm carries all the action,
Woah, yeah!

Turn the beat around,
Love to hear the percussion.
Turn it upside down,
Love to hear the percussion.
Love to hear it.

Turn it up, turn it up, turn it up so loud!
Turn it up, turn it up, turn it up so loud!

Turn it down, turn it down, turn it down so soft…
Turn it down, turn it down, turn it down so soft…

Turn the beat around!

I had a lot of fun with this recording, in case you can’t tell by listening to it.  I’m thinking about tweaking the lyrics to make it a drumming activity for my students.  And that’s the best thing about this song — it could be used with or without any instrument, not just rhythm sticks.  Even keeping the original lyrics would work, because they’re all about music.

How would you use it?  Or maybe you wouldn’t at all.  It didn’t cross my mind as a good song for kids until just recently, but I’m sure glad it did!  Except for the part where it is permanently stuck in my head, that is ;)

Guess What Makes Great Reindeer Hooves?

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reindeer-hooves-castanets-sound-effectsCastanets!  I realized this on Friday as I was planning the music activities for my church’s annual Breakfast With Santa event, and then I wondered how I hadn’t thought of it earlier.  Rhythm sticks have always been my go-to instrument for reindeer hooves, but not anymore.

There are lots of castanets out there to choose from, but my personal favorites are these plastic beauties from Musician’s Friend.  At 99 cents, they’re easily replaceable and sound great (if a little loud).  Mine have held up extremely well; my students are not easy on instruments, but I haven’t had one castanet casualty yet!

Last year’s Breakfast at Santa music activities were fun (read about them here), but the castanets made this year’s even better.  I always stick with a reindeer theme, so we sang classics like “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “Up on the Housetop” along with Listen & Learn originals, like Do You Hear the Reindeer? and The Other Eight Reindeer.

Have you experimented with holiday sound effects?  Maybe you have an even better suggestion for reindeer hooves…if so, please do tell.  There are plenty more school days left to fill before holiday break begins!

The Right-Left Song for Shakers

by | Listen & Learn Music, Uncategorized

right-left-shakers-song

I heard the original version of “The Right-Left Song” for the first time last fall when Kimberly Sena Moore presented it at AMTA National Conference. Kimberly has a great video of this song, which was actually written by another music therapist named Michelle Hardy.

I’ve used it many times as Kimberly demonstrates in her video — it’s wonderful for kiddos who need to work on crossing the midline — but I decided to change it up recently when I was in need of a new shakin’ song.

We’re going right and left,
And right and left,
We’re shaking, we shake.
We’re going right and left,
And right and left,
We’re shaking we shake.

(Repeat, getting faster each time.)

The real challenge is making sure to shake in the right direction as the tempo of the song increases!  I’ve enjoyed using this song so much that I may have to adapt it for other instruments, too.  I love being inspired by other music therapists — thanks Kimberly and Michelle :)

That’s How We Ring & Sing

by | Listen & Learn Music, Uncategorized

Handbells, jingle bells, sleigh bells, and resonator bells are all a part of my instrument collection, which is probably why I have so many songs about bells!  (Each word links to a different song.)  But last week I decided that I needed a fresh one to accompany my little bell players, so I adapted a traditional folk tune to get the job done.

Ring to the music, la la la.
Ring to the music, la la la.
Ring to the music, la la la.
Ring to the music, la la la.

The blank spaces in the song are there so that if being used in a group, I can go around the room and address each student: “Ring to the music, Jessica; ring to the music, Jackson” and so on. I can also add these verses to make the activity a little more interesting and challenging:

  • Ring to the music, slowly…
  • Ring to the music, quickly…
  • Ring to the music, softly…
  • Ring to the music, loudly…

I tried this song out yesterday with my Church Mice group using tone blocks, and I’m happy to report that it was a success :) But really, anytime you ask a child to play an instrument quickly and/or loudly, it will most likely go over well! What are your favorite “bell” songs?