Good News Bad News
Play this fun game to get young ears more familiar to the sounds of major and minor chords and how they relate to the different moods they often portray. Students will create their own (short) stories that correspond with the chords they’re hearing. When the students hear a major chord, they add a piece of “good news” to the story and when they hear a minor chord, they add a piece of “bad news” to the story.
- Play either a major chord and have the first student start the story off with a narrative sentence in the mood of that chord.
- When you perform the next chord, the next student in the circle or in the duo adds on a piece of narrative in that mood.
Here is an example of how that might play out:
- MAJOR: One day, my mom bought me a puppy.
- MAJOR: It was the nicest puppy I had ever seen.
- MINOR: But the next morning, the puppy ran away from home.
- MAJOR: It was a sunny day, so it would be easy to look for the puppy.
- MINOR: We looked all day and couldn’t find the puppy.
- MAJOR: But when we got home, the puppy was waiting for us at the front door.
Options:
- These stories can be as long or short as you determine – whether they’re just two sentences/chords, or multiple!
- Multidisciplinary: Have students work independently and write down their stories instead of saying them out loud. You can even take this a step further by asking them to draw a corresponding picture for their stories.