A Warm Up That Pays Off

I normally have some kind of class warm-up, whether it be a line of music, the Bb Scale, or playing a pattern that I write on the board.

So today, when I asked my students to play this pattern on the third note of their Bb Scale, they didn't bat an eye.

I then had them play quarter notes in this pattern.

They looked at me like I'd asked too much. I don't normally have them bounce around with the notes much for this kind of warm-up, but they did it.

Next, I had them put both parts together.

They needed to repeat the first portion two times in a row and then finish the line.

Most of them figured out what I was having them do. They realized that we had just played "Jingle Bells" and that I had kind of tricked them into playing it.

I asked my students to figure out the rest of the piece by ear. I gave them two minutes to do so. I then handed out the sheet music so we could play it together.

You can find all sorts of great music for band at MusicEdMagic. My students really enjoyed playing this piece. It is completely in unison and really easy to play. It's the kind of piece that lets them achieve success fairly quickly.

There are many other Christmas Carols for band available for you to print off right now. There are several other songs there as well. It is a great resource just like this weekly series.

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