Music In A Snap!

I found a fun web-page that is actually part of the American Heart Association. The page is called the "Hands Symphony" and is set up with three different styles of rhythms: dance, hip-hop and Latin. The page shows pictures of 12 different sets of hands performing a certain clap, snap or other movement that create different sounds. Each set of hands is actually a short video loop that can be turned on or off by a simple mouse click. The hands change for each style of music, but you can have all 12 hands playing at the same time and it still sounds good!

My daughter and I had too much fun playing around with the different sounds and rhythms! I gave her choices between two sets of hands and let her choose which one to activate until we had a nice rhythm going. By isolating just one set of hands we also tried to imitate what the hands were doing. She is only 21 months old, but was pretty good at trying to copy them! I think that this could easily be adapted to the classroom setting by choosing 4-5 sets of hands and playing the rhythms on instruments after the students learn the rhythms with their hands. Start with one rhythm and then layer in the other rhythms one by one. It may be helpful to have someone keep a steady beat on a drum or cowbell. There are endless combinations, so everyone in a group can have a turn in developing a unique rhythm!

Enjoy!