Name Games

Vista is a small enough school (around 300) where I can hope to learn the majority of students' names. Back when I ran the library there, I did know everyone's names (and who had late books, etc.), but I have not run the library in five years.

This summer I pulled out Doug Goodkin's Name Games: Activities for Rhythmic Development. I am going to make a concerted effort to use at least a handful of these games throughout the year. I would love for the kids to create ostinatos with their names as building blocks and transfer these patterns to pitched and unpitched instruments.

I am inspired by this youtube video where these 4th grade students, over a long period of time, created their own piece of music - over 8 minutes long - (ala Philip Glass, sort of) with ostinatos. I would love to work towards a student-composed piece (or pieces), and I think that using the rhythms of their own names would be a great elemental building block.