Yesterday I came across a set of balls in my studio like the ones you see at places like Chuck E Cheese where the kids can get in a pit and just have a good time. I had purchased them a while ago knowing that eventually I’d get an idea about how to use them to teach music. Well yesterday was the day the idea finally arrived! SONGWRITING BALLS!
This is an activity that can be done with any instrument, not just piano!
The balls conveniently come in 5 colors. I purchased mine at Wal Mart. Of course in my mind the number 5 screams PENTATONIC SCALE. So, I chose one note of the pentatonic scale for each color. C – red, D – orange, E- blue, G- green, and A-yellow and wrote these one the balls. I made 5 sets of each color.
To play the game (which is really writing a song), place all the balls in a large hat or bag.
Then, using a composing worksheet such as the ones you can find on Susan Paradis’ site, determine how many balls to draw from the bag. You will need one for each note of the song.
Each time a ball is drawn from the bag, write the note name in the appropriate space on the composing worksheet.
Since we are only using the pentatonic scale for this song, any combination should sound nice. You could also specify that the first ball drawn will be the first and last not of the song.
Once you’ve got all the notes written on the worksheet, it’s time to play your new masterpiece!
Extensions – Add lyrics!
Use the G and C balls to demonstrate V-I progression. Add this to the end of your song to show how lots of songs end this way. Have your student play G-C up and down the chosen instrument.
Kids & Keys 
Fantastic idea. Putting this in my hat of tricks for when I’m finally a music therapist. Thank you for the amazing suggestion.
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Thanks, Rocky! How much longer until you get your license? I think music therapy is fascinating!
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Great idea! I see the F pentatonic FGA CD here.
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Great idea! Another extension could be to use solfa and have the kids sing their creations as do re mi so la!
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The pentatonic major scale starting from C doesn’t contain F note???? It is without the 4 and 7 !!?? It should be C D E G A , shouldn’t it??!!
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You are so right! In all these years no one has let me know about that typo! Thank you so much!
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Thank you for sharing this! I hope it helps make some lessons easier right now!
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I absolutely love this! Thank you for sharing!
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