Ideas For Boomwhackers®

Boomwhacker® Seating

Submitted by Sue Michiels, Los Angeles, California

Idea posted 2003-10-09

I have all my classes in the auditorium with the students sitting on the floor. The students usually sit in rows of eight with a glockenspiel in between every pair. (This helps when we want to study the melodic line or I want someone to play the whole melody on the glockenspiel.) If I am using Boomwhackers®, I place them in color order along the row with one on either side of the glockenspiel. On a poster, I list which colors are in the music, making it as easy to send those students whose note will not be played to the back empty row (where they sit in color order). This makes reading the "music" easy for me to "conduct" as they are sitting in color order with each color in a single line one behind each other. If I move to the left in front of line one the notes are moving higher and vice versa. Hypothetical examples:

NORMAL SEATING
C'

 B   A   G   F   E   D   C

C'

 B   A   G   F   E   D   C

C'

 B   A   G   F   E   D   C

"YOU'RE A GRAND OLD FLAG" SEATING (Diatonic Boomwhackers®)

              F        D   C

C'

 A   G   F   E   D   C

C'

 A   G   F   E   D   C

C'

 A   G   F   E   D   C

My students do not always sit in the same spot, so they get accustomed to reading the part for whichever color they have in front of them. If we are really working on a piece and I want them to be aware of other parts, I usually have the high C people stand up, walk to the front, and everyone shifts one Boomwhacker® to the right. Then the high C person becomes the low C. The kids love this shuffle. With the upper grades I have done the shuffle in various ways, such as the two lowest notes standing up and moving to the front then everyone shifts to the left two notes. It depends on the Boomwhacker® music, as I like them all to have a "busy part" at some time during the lesson.

By the way, I color code my posters with Avery circle colored labels as they are very visible from a distance, whereas yellow markers, for example, are not very visible.