Exercises and Resources

Exercises that do not have names attached to them have been developed by students and myself or have evolved out of our work with other musicians (a resource list follows)


Chain Composing

Kinesthetic Solfege.pdf (by Jeffrey Newberry)

Football (from R. Murray Schafer, appears in Hearsing)

Sounds in a Circle (from R. Murray Schafer, appears in Hearsing)

Passing Names (from R. Murray Schafer, appears in Hearsing)

Graphic Score (from R. Murray Schafer, appears in Hearsing)

Counting by Zen

Chances Are No.1 (by Sydney Hodkinson, appears in A Contemporary Primer for Band)

Music To Dancing (by Dwight Schenk)

Songwriting Exercise (by David Celia)

Wingspan (submitted by Chris Dadge)

Two John Stevens Exercises (submitted by Chris Dadge)

Massive Chords with Drum Machine (by Paul Linklater)

Zoom, Schwartz, Profigliano (camp game shown to us by Nick Didkovsky)

Revolving Trios

Eye contact - full ensemble (shown to us by Nick Didkovsky)

Large Group Spontaneous Chord Progressions and Orchestration (Doug Friesen)

Soundtrack Challenge (Doug Friesen and Maria Reidstra)

Tennis Ball Name Toss

Hand Signal Conducting

Hum Switch


There are so many amazing exercises that other musicians and educators have shown me.  Here are a few of the many amazing books full of ideas that I have found inspiring (please send me ones you think should also appear here):

 

Schafer, R. Murray Hearsing and A Sound Education

ear cleaning and creative music exercises

 

Stevens, John Search and Reflect

rhythm and improvisation games and exercises (hard to find in North America, I ordered mine from here)

 

Boal, Augusto Games for Actors and Non-Actors

amazing drama exercises, many using sound

 

Oliveros, Pauline Deep Listening: A Composer’s Sound Practice

deep/meditative composing preparation exercises

 

Nachmanovitch, Steven Free Play

 

Mathieu, W. A. The Listening Book


Clark, Dave How to Conduct Yourself

a good collection of hand signals with great pictures