Trevor and I absolutely loved seeing the videos of your students playing their compositions that resulted from our Halloween Improv Activity in October. It was wonderful to see so many piano teachers adding improv activities to their piano lessons; giving their students the confidence to find freedom on the keys!
But… now it’s on to a new season, and those Halloween improv cards have likely been packed away. This means your improv-loving kiddos need a new theme!
A “Santa’s Workshop” Improv For Young Piano Students
Now that your piano students have mastered the Halloween Improv Cards, today we’re sending a Christmas version your way with a new “Santa’s Workshop” accompaniment that will help you and your students immediately create a fun improv duet for the holiday season.
Your kiddos get to experiment with simple melodies and rhythms in the Key of C Major while you provide a cheerful accompaniment (a suggested chord pattern is below).
Here’s how it all works:
Step 1
Download and print and the Santa’s Workshop Improv Cards found here.
Step 2
Practice saying, clapping and tapping the matching rhythms and words with your piano students. Ask them to choose their two favorite cards and set them aside. There is one blank card for those students who want to create their own rhythm.
Step 3
In the key of C Major, ask your students to come up with a melody to match the rhythms on the cards using only their 1, 2 and 5 fingers on C, D and G (using any combination of these three keys).
Step 4
Ask your students to select two of their favorite cards and set them on the piano.
Step 5
Play this teacher accompaniment and repeat as many times as necessary:
Step 6
With their hands in C position, and using only C, D and G, have your students find melodies to match the two chosen rhythm cards, and have them play these on top of your accompaniment. They’ll be using “made-up melodies” – any combination of C,D, and G on top of your teacher accompaniment.
Step 7
Choose new cards and try it again! You can either add more cards to the two your students have already used, or you can select two brand new ones. Encourage your students to embelish their simple melodies and experiment with adding their own rhythms.
Holiday Activities Continue the Learning
We love sharing themed activities on the blog. We know that a little something different can really spark the excitement of a piano student! If you’re looking to add more holiday activities to your teaching, check out these:
A “Save Santa” Composing Activity
God Rest Ye Merry Hummingbirds – Have Fun Composing With Christmas Tunes
Kick Off The Holiday Season With This Christmas Tune for Teens
Thanks for your hard work. I will use the cards with my group lessons and we will make up a whole new tune each class. This will lead easily into composing in January/February. Thanks again.
John
Hi John – thrilled to hear you can use it with your group lessons – what a neat group project idea! 🙂
Love your Christmas improv activities and I have a couple of students who are really enjoying Three Ships. Quite often students find Christmas music “boring” and so taking it and giving it a new contemporary. sound is a super way of introducing old Christmas carols with a slightly new twist. Thank you, Andrea.
Hi Jan – that’s wonderful to hear! You’ll be happy to know we’re giving away another christmas tune at some point this week or next with the same contemporary sound – so keep your eye on the blog! 🙂
This is excellent! I had made something similar with just favorite foods, but this is perfect for December. thank you!
You’re so welcome Diane! 🙂
These are such fun! My students loved the Halloween improv activity so I’m excited to use these as a parent/child activity at class recitals next week. Your timing is perfect–thank you, thank you!
Hi Marie – happy to hear it and what a cool idea to have a parent/child activity class!
Thank you so much for sharing this! It has been one of my goals to incorporate more improv and composing exercises into lessons, and this is a festive and fun way to meet that goal!
You’re so welcome Brandy!… and great goal to set for yourself 🙂
My kids LOVED the Halloween one of these, I can’t wait to give these a try. Thank you Andrea – you guys are the best.
Dear Andrea
these little rhythm cards have been FANTASTIC!
But I didn’t use them for improv: I let my pupils choose 4 of them (like pick a card, any card), then we put them in a random order and spoke the words, then clapped them. Then mixed them up, then the pupil chose 1 for me to clap as an ostinato while they clapped the row of 4. I used it with 3 pupils, 2 of which have special needs and they LOVED it!
I am looking forward to using them more next week, during most of my pupils’ last lesson before Christmas.
Thank you!
Hi, Andrea! Just wanted to let you know that this activity was a HUGE success in my studio! From 6 year old twins to adult students – everyone had fun with this activity. My teen student actually laughed out loud as we were playing this together and when we finished, she exclaimed, “How did that work? That was amazing!” Thank you for supplying such a happy end of each student’s lesson right before Christmas break! Many of my piano parents said their children were definitely looking forward to resuming lessons in January!