Just like you see hanging from the rear vision mirror of
cars of a certain, ahem, calibre. Not normally what you would associate with
harp playing, but then again it is an instrument of surprises.
So why the fluffy dice? Well, as every musician, beginner or
advanced, knows, practice makes perfect. And practice by definition involves
repetition. The challenge comes in making that repetition engaging and meaningful.
Many a time I have congratulated myself on working on a passage for a
substantial period of time only to realise on honest reflection that I spent a
sizeable amount of that time mentally planning the weekly shopping list. Or
thinking up blog topics.
**Embarrassed silence**
Well. Yes. But anyway keeping your mind on the job is a
challenge for all of us. Keeping kid’s minds on the job can be doubly
challenging. Sometimes it seems that from a child’s perspective everything
should be fun. And entertaining. Not exactly words commonly associated with
repetition.
And that’s where the fluffy dice come in. I have to admit at
this point that the idea of using dice in lessons was not my own. I did knick
it from was inspired by a violin teacher of my acquaintance who was
terribly good at making lessons interesting for kids. How could I not learn
from her?
The violin teacher in question used normal dice which the
students could freely roll around the room. But she could pick up her
instrument and move it out of the way. Obviously not so easy for me, hence the
need for soft fluffy dice. Because even though I always direct the rolling to
be done away from any instruments ‘accidents’ do happen.
It was actually surprisingly difficult to find said fluffy
dice, but I eventually ended up with a lovely rose scented pair.
So how are they used? I’ve now come up with a few different
ways to incorporate them into lessons, the first and most obvious being to get
kids to repeat a passage and still find it interesting.
I always let the student roll the dice which makes for a
good mental break as well as a chance to get up from their chair and move to
the empty space in the middle of the room. ‘Do try to avoid the harps’, I
always say to more or less effect.
Generally the rules of the game mean only 1 dice (die) is
needed with the important proviso that rolling a ‘1’ means an automatic
re-roll. This means that the tricky challenging bit in question will
have to be played perfectly anywhere between 2-6 times. And that’s
perfectly, otherwise it doesn’t count and, yep, has to be done again.
And contrary to rumour, no I haven’t loaded the dice so it
always rolls a 6.
Pure coincidence…
So by the end of it all we’ve broken up the lesson a bit,
refreshed the concentration, had a bit of a laugh and achieved some (hopefully)
useful repetition. All with some fluffy dice.
I encourage my students to find some dice they have at home
and try the same thing. Useful practice at home? What more can these fluffy
dice achieve?!
Still more I can assure you. But that’s the topic of another
blog. One that I thought of while mindlessly repeating that tricky bit in….
Just joking. Kind of…
