When Wendy Stevens came out with her Rhythm Cup Explorations book, I knew it was a winner before I even bought it. I also knew that I just had to have it and couldn’t wait to use it at our summer piano camp. I know by now that most of you have probably heard about this book, but just in case you haven’t I thought I would share my experience with it.
For my bigger groups I downloaded the book onto two iPads and had one at each end of the table. For my smaller groups I had it up on the wall via my projector. It seemed to work pretty well. One of my groups was a mix of different ages and levels so we used the basic units. (Mixed groups were my “hurry out of town” option for camp. Otherwise the groups were separated into K-6th; 7-12th)
We played the Rhythm Cup Explorations on our 1st day of camp which was a patriotic theme so I used patriotic music as the background (Stars and Stripes Forever, This Land is Your Land…) to our cup rhythm fun! I kept forgetting to take video’s and the pictures above are the only one’s I remembered to snap. But here is a video of two students doing the cups to Stars and Stripes forever.
Rhythm Cup Exploration is a reproducible book that is divided into 4 units. The units include: Quarters, Half notes, Quarter rests, Eighth notes and rests, Triplets, Sixteenths. There is even an international version available (quavers, semi-quavers, etc…)
Rhythm Cup Explorations is truly a must for the studio. It can be used one on one with student and teacher or in a group setting. Regardless of the setting, students will love it! One thought I had that we ended up not having time for is using this book with boomwhackers. It would be fun to hear what adding in the pitch from the boomwhackers with the fun rhythms would sound like. Another time perhaps.
Summer is the perfect time to join the cup craze and purchase Rhythm Cup Explorations here.
Jennifer! Thank you for the ideas on how to display the rhythms. I just used Rhythm Cup Explorations in a Guitar Summer Camp. It was a hit with all ages.