Duets and Ensemble Games

"Sit back to back.
Share a hum"

This simple exercise helps you to listen to your partner (if you can), feel the vibrations down your respective spines, and begin a musical dialog. Doing it in many pairs also means you can't tell whose hum you are meant to be sharing, so individual/group dynamics get interesting quickly.

We paired up and played flutes for each other too; this resulted in lively characterful conversations. Maybe we will start the performance like this when the time comes.

We started working on rhythmic games today. We took songs everyone knows (Bah Bah Black Sheep, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Hickory Dickory Dock, God Save the Queen) and clapped their rhythms only. Then we divided the groups and tried superimposing one song over another. Eventually we had all four going at the same time. It sounded like we knew what we were doing and proved a quick way to generate complex rhythms. We can easily transfer these skills to the drums when they are ready and people will wonder at the performers' amazing memories.