Reply To: Engaging Warm Up Activities

[nafmeadmin]

A lot of good ideas so far. I would suggest maybe making a song out of scales by improvising harmony on the piano to each scale degree up and down, depending on your piano skills. I saw this done once and the students seemed to really enjoy this. Also, it adds energy to the beginning of your rehearsal and adds musicality to scales. I liked the String Skills website and you can implement some of those exercises by dedicating each day to a different skill set (rhythm reading, shifting, etc.) so your warm-up routine does not get too “routine”. Learning simple melodies by ear is always a fun exercise. If you are successful with learning a simple melody, you can try and transpose it to different keys by ear as well. Hope this helps.

Rob Hassing
Undergraduate in Music Education
Kent State University