Teaching Music

I was reading blogs today and came across a very interesting youtube video posted here.

It is a video featuring Bobby McFerrin teaching the concept of a pentatonic scale to an audience of non-singers. It is really amazing! I instantly thought of some of the more advanced students with special needs that might be able to accomplish this (with the music teacher or music therapist performing the improvisation over the scale at first) with voice or even boom whackers! Resonator bells could also work and the pattern Bobby McFerrin demonstrates could be made even more simple so that there could be an ostinato for the lowest functioning members of the group who could keep the beat. One could even break up the pattern and assign different bells/boom whackers to each individual student and cue the pattern within the pentatonic scale. The possibilities are endless! What do you think?

I'm thankful to see others teaching in such creative ways! It really helps keep the creative ideas and teaching flowing!

Hope everyone had a nice Labor Day!