The Symphony of Cutlery

This is a short, fun lesson in 4-part group singing that was originally designed for students aged 10-12. However, I have found that people of all ages tend to enjoy it - it's just so silly! I tried it out on my music education class at the university and the reaction was positive:



How it works:

Each student is assigned one of four different utensils/kitchen gadgets: spoons, forks, spatulas and meat tenderizers. Each group has a unique song that is sung as a repeating 4-measure loop (see score below)




When each group has learned their song and is capable of singing it while the other parts are being sung, the next step is to sing along with the backing track (below):
Symphony of Cutlery (backing track - no vox) by Beautiful Unicorn Records

This adds a uniquely engaging element of harmonic context which is a great concept to begin reinforcing with younger students - when learning a short melodic line by rote, it is easy enough to imagine one's own possible harmonic context, or even ignore the concept altogether. In this activity, the chord progression of the backing track changes while the melody remains the same, so students who are unfamiliar with the concept of re-harmonization may suddenly be surprised to discover that the song still works, even though things now sound very different (what makes the harmony element effective is that it is only introduced as part of the culminating activity, after the melody is learned without accompaniment. As an extension, the students can try to create their own chord progressions that would fit the original melody.