I just finished my first session of “Making Magical Music over the Holidays” Christmas camp this week. One of the first activities that my students seemed to really enjoy was Scrambled Christmas Rhythms. We first talked how even though the notes might be correct when playing a piece, if the rhythm is wrong it is not the same piece and may not even be recognizable.
You can download the scrambled Christmas rhythms to play with your students. This can easily be done in both a group or private lesson format. Since I did this in a group camp setting, I would play the scrambled rhythm a couple times (sometimes 3) and had the students write their answers on a piece of paper and then at the end we went through all them. Then I would play the wrong rhythm first and then the correct rhythm. For the more tricky one’s, once they heard the correct rhythm they knew exactly what Christmas song it was.
Scrambled Christmas Rhythm Answers
I love this! What a great way to show students, in a positive, fun way that rhythms DO matter! 🙂
Thanks for these examples. I was just doing this in the studio. Calling it how to hear a page. These come in handy and fun follow up exercise for to do on my last week of teaching before xmas holiday. Thanks
I wish I had seen this a month ago! It would have been a hit in my December classes. I used the Christmas rhythm match-ups at http://jenspianostudio.wordpress.com/ and the students LOVED it. Anything to work on internalizing the rhythm is so good. I’ll bookmark these for next December!
Thanks for putting stuff online and so willingly sharing!