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Human Piano

by | Nov 29, 2022

32

Category

vocal

Age

8+

Number of participants

in multiples of 3 or 4

Duration

approx. 20 min.

Working method

group work

Musical abilities of the trainers

1 2 34  5  6

Equipment and instruments
  • any musical instrument or app
    to have the first tuning references
Competences
  • concentration
  • collaboration
  • attention
  • cooperation
  • hearing sensitivity

Human Piano

This activity is designed to learn the pentatonic scale in a funny
and innovative way. In addition, it will develop motor,
cognitive and affective aspects indirectly.

AIM

The aim of the activity is to provide with a basic tool to perform music. The most common and basic multicultural scale: the pentatonic. This knowledge will enable the participants to complete other activities and to have a resource to create music.
In addition, we must comment that this scale is much related to the Hungarian music and that it has also an approaching objective to a participant culture.
Lastly, to promote our aim of impulsive musical activities for young people these kind of active and alternative ways of learning are a tool for it.

Description

  1. The motivator will ask the participants to form lines and to let some space between them.
  2. The facilitator will give a note (part of the pentatonic scale) and ask the participants to repeat it in loud voice.
  3. All together will jump to right or left, and by the new position they will add a new note.
  4. They will be asked to produce a third note, but in the third one the facilitator will not give the “sound clue”, they will only jump to a specific position and they will automatically discover it.
  5. They are not going to use more “sound clues” and they will sing and jump following the facilitator, making music.

Comments for facilitators

Ensure a comfortable place to practice it, spacious and clean.

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In Your Shoes

by | Nov 29, 2022

33

Category

vocal

Age

12+

Number of participants

4-40

Duration

approx. 25 min.

Working method
  • individual
  • group work
Musical abilities of the trainers

1  2 3 4 5 6

Equipment and instruments
  • papers, crayons
  • music player / app to play the song
Competences
  • cultural / intercultural sensitivity
  • creativity
  • collaboration
  • attention
  • cooperation

In Your Shoes

This activity has a multicultural and motivational orientation.
But it’s also orientated on song creation asking the participants to do a “collage like” new song. It consists of using different cultures’ popular songs to develop a new one.

AIM

The first aim is to impulse multiculturalism and own music production. This aim is composed by the use of different cultures’ music and the objective of doing a collage with them. As one of the beginning activities, it will motivate the participants to open their music culture knowledge and give them the security that they can create music with a limited musical knowledge.
Apart from what we have mentioned, the cultural perspectives are going to be worked also thanks to the translations of the songs.

Description

  1. We divide the participants into groups of 4-5 people of mixed nationalities
  2. Each group will listen to a given pop song
  3. They will be asked to share and write down their own countries’ stereotypes and their own personal qualities
  4. They will gather all the ideas and create a lyric for the given song, showing that stereotypes and personality are different.
  5. They will practice it
  6. They will present the created songs

The exercise can also be played in a version where the participants of the same nationality use and search for the music of other nations and use their characteristic features.

comments for facilitators

Helping teams to work properly together and suggesting how to arrange the piece is desirable.

USEFUL LINKS

https://expat-press.com/world-famous-hungarian-hits/

https://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/the-official-top-40-best-selling-vinyl-albums-and-singles-of-2022__38205/

https://www.mtv.it/playlist/i15mhc/top-20-best-of-classifica-canzoni-2022/gul6ei

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7jNxCwo9Ec6nKgqzgOvFQn

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Mamma Mia Tralala

by | Nov 29, 2022

35

Category

vocal

Age

12+

Number of participants

15-

Duration

approx. 20 min.

Working method

group work

Musical abilities of the trainers

1 2 34  5  6

Equipment and instruments
  • music player / app to play the song
Competences
  • improvisation
  • creativity
  • collaboration
  • attention
  • cooperation
  • concentration
  • hearing sensitivity

Mamma Mia Tralala

Sing a popular and worldwide known song arranged in
an Italian folk singing style (Trallalero Genovese) to follow
with the Italian culture immersion

AIM

The aim is to try and practice some different rhythm/singing techniques (body percussion, trallalero singing and singing in a foreign language)and improve the pitching.

Description

  1. First of all they will watch a “Trallalero” song in youtube (see resources) and also “Mamma mia” (see resources)
  2. The facilitator will explain about the context and the roles in Trallalero singing techniques, also they will experiment with the singing techniques before performing them.
  3. After, they will be divided in 5 groups, each one for a voice role (guitar, basso etc.) and they will sing “Mamma mia” in a Trallalero style version.
  4. The facilitator will give them the tone and the rhythm and they will perform and change periodically the roles.

“Ideas about Trallalero”:
Tenor: sings the melody
Contralto: sings a second melody in falsetto
Baritono: does a tra-la-la constant rhythm
Chitarra: does also a tra-la-la constant rhythm
Basso: maintains the low note mainly 

Mamma mia’s Trallalero version:
Tenor: sings the melody
Contralto: sings the melody with “bocca chiusa” with body percussion
Baritono: does a “mamma mia” constant rhythm
Chitarra: does a “mamma mia” constant rhythm in a higher pitch
Basso: maintains the low note mainly

About Trallalero:
Trallalero is a form of polyphonic Traditional Folk Music originating in the Ligurian region of Genoa, in northern Italy. Although the first written and oral sources of this musical form are from around the mid-19th century, it is reasonable to assume an earlier origin. As the names of parts suggest, the imitation of instrumental styles replaces traditional vocal polyphony which is a distinguishing feature of this genre.
Trallalero groups are almost exclusively formed by males and are called squadra (Italian for „team”). They are usually made up of 7, 9 or 12 elements. Every „squadra” has 5 kinds of voices: a tenor (called primmo) who intones the chant and chooses the right key, a contralto (contræto/bagascetta/segòndo) who sings in falsetto, a baritone (controbasso) who has the task of keeping the rhythm of the trallalero constant, a voice called chitâra that has a rhythmic function obtained by placing the back of the hand in front of the mouth, which serves to accompany the singing with rapid succession of notes that imitate the sound of a plucked string instrument, and various bass voices.

Comments for facilitators

I’ve been cheated by you since I don’t know when
So I made up my mind, it must come to an end
Look at me now, will I ever learn
I don’t know how, but I suddenly lose control
There’s a fire within my soul

and I can hear a bell ring
(One more look) and I forget everything, whoa

Mamma mia, here I go again
My, my, how can I resist you?
Mamma mia, does it show again
My, my, just how much I’ve missed you?

Yes, I’ve been brokenhearted
Blue since the day we parted
Why, why did I ever let you go?
Mamma mia, now I really know
My, my, I could never let you go

I’ve been angry and sad about things that you do
I can’t count all the times that I’ve told you we’re through
And when you go, when you slam the door
I think you know that you won’t be away too long
You know that I’m not that strong

and I can hear a bell ring
(One more look) and I forget everything, whoa

Mamma mia, here I go again
My, my, how can I resist you?
Mamma mia, does it show again
My, my, just how much I’ve missed you?
Yes, I’ve been brokenhearted
Blue since the day we parted
Why, why did I ever let you go?
Mamma mia, even if I say
Bye-bye, leave me now or never
Mamma mia, it’s a game we play
Bye-bye doesn’t mean forever

Mamma mia, here I go again…

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Conductor

by | Nov 28, 2022

45

Category

vocal
instrumental

Age

15+

Number of participants

5-30

Duration

approx. 30 min.

Working method

group work

Musical abilities of the trainers

1  2  3  4  5  6

Equipment and instruments
  • optional: any type of instrument
Competences
  • individual responsibility
  • creativity
  • attention
  • cooperation
  • concentration
  • singing together

Conductor

The game draws attention to the challenges and excitement of a leadership role, such as that of a conductor.

AIM

The activities provide participants with the opportunity to learn first-hand certain musical characteristics: tempo, dynamics and timbre. For all of this, we have chosen a suitable and easy melody as an example, which can be easily sung by participants who are not familiar with music.

Description

The first task is to find the song that the majority of the group knows well, sing it several times so that everyone knows it confidently.
One participant is chosen to be the conductor (the instructor can be the conductor for the first time to show the group what to do). They can choose a song, e.g. Oh I’m going to sing.

The instructor explains that when the conductor raises his arms higher in the air, he wants the participants to sing louder. If the conductor holds his arms lower, the group should sing more softly. In addition, the conductor can indicate start (e.g. thumbs up) and stop signals (e.g. flat hand towards them). The group can agree on which notation to use for slowing down and speeding up the tempo. So, you can freely expand the instructions and markings.

Level up!

Once the participants are familiar with this activity, we can let the group, the „band”, use body instruments or rhythm instruments.
We could also divide the participants into groups of similar instruments, where the conductor controls the dynamics of each group when he gets close to them.
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Discovering Guitar in Pairs

by | Nov 28, 2022

52

Category

instrumental

Age

8+

Number of participants

in multiples of 2

Duration

approx. 20 min.

Working method
  • individual work
  • group work
Musical abilities of the trainers

1 2 34 5  6

Equipment and instruments
  • guitar
Competences
  • attention
  • dexterity
  • movement coordination
  • cooperation
  • concentration

Discovering Guitar in Pairs

This activity is the first one in a group of activities that consists in the use of a single guitar in pairs, being one of the partners the left-handed player and the other one the right-handed player.

AIM

The idea of this activity is to face alone technical difficulties and isolate them in a funny and musical piece. Like in general music studies, we will isolate one hand. However, this activity is not going to be a repetitive as the other studies. In fact, it is going to be amusing, the guitar is going to be shared between 2 partners.
They are going to use one hand by person, and in this way, they are going to have the same use of a normal guitar, but with less hands to worry about. In addition, they will experiment since the beginning the process of sharing music interpretation with another person.

Description

  1. The facilitator would explain the guitar neck and how to play the guitar
    2. Will give a demonstration on how to play the piece.
    3. After that they would be explained what to do on the activity, play the guitar on pairs. Using one hand by each person.
    4. They will view the positions in 5 minutes with the facilitators help.
    5. They will perform changing roles in other 10 minutes.

Comments for facilitators

Knowledge of guitar requisite, ensure they know the positions.
This type of instrument learning can also be applied to other instruments, where the notes can be played by using several hands together, e.g. piano, accordion, lute, violin, cello.

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