Submitted by Gretchen Taylor, Illinois

Idea posted July 28, 2003

I'll be trying a rehearsal game this week with some of my classes that is a form of Tic-Tac-Toe. Here's the game...

On the board, I will draw a tic-tac-toe grid with nine squares and write the following in the squares (random order except for the middle space, which will always be the "memory" square):

  • Dynamics (accuracy of)
  • Focus (eyes on me or the music)
  • Pitch (in general, no faulty notes)
  • Cut offs (clean and precise)
  • Words (Were they well articulated and understood?)
  • Singing (Was everyone singing?)
  • Movement (If used, was it precise? If not used, then was everyone standing tall with good posture?)
  • Open mouth (I demand a 2-finger open mouth on the open vowels. Were all mouths open on vowels?)
  • Memory (Was it sung securely by memory?)

Okay, after filling in the grid, I will select a section of a song (For my purposes, it will be the first page of "Lights of Freedom" from Music K-8, Vol. 13, No. 3; also available as a Singles Reproducible Kit.). The class will be the X's and the O's are for an imaginary opponent. Then I will draw a name or call on someone to choose a square. Whatever the square is, that's what we'll concentrate on in our singing of that section. After the sing through, I see whether or not the class feels they did well enough to earn the given square. I have to agree before they earn the square, and I will have the power to veto them at any time should I feel they could have done better. If they earn the square, I'll X it, if not, I'll put an O in the square. The goal will be to earn three X's in a row before moving on to another section or song. I'm putting the memory square in the middle to encourage them to get an easier three in a row, but only if they can sing it once from memory. I also plan to make earning each square harder than they might expect. Anyway, we'll see how it goes.

With the varied rehearsal games I've been using, I have found substantial increase in their focus when they know what the purpose is for any repetition. It's been quite enlightening. I had a wonderful rehearsal day with my classes on Thursday, and I was actually expecting them to be dragging their feet.