As we continue in our month of Star Wars, I figured it could be fun to create some practice games that are Star Wars based. So let’s dive in!
Eyes Closed
In “A New Hope”, Obi-Wan trains Luke to fight with a helmet covering his eyes. So he can’t see. There are many pianists who are blind, as well as many “blind” leaps that we have to make with our hands. So this is a fun starting place! Close your eyes and start simple. Go for a second or a step. This is really easy. Then progress farther and farther apart. A third, fourth, all the way up to an octave. Do this with both hands. Once you get that octave down, let’s increase the difficulty. Find a note, then jump up an octave plus a fifth and play the chord based on that note. You can create lots of possibilities from this. Keep your eyes closed!
Jabba’s Journey
Jabba the Hutt is a very, very large, slug-like being and this is a great way to practice scales slowly. Imagine your fingers being Jabba, moving very, very slow, but steadily. You could start with a pentatonic scale, then move up to an octave scale, even up to two octaves!
Lando’s Legato
Lando Calrissian is a very smooth talking character. Which lends itself very well to a practice exercise of playing legato. Just like with Jabba’s Journey, you can imagine Lando moving smoothly up and down the scale. And you could even combine the two together!
R2’s Rhythm
R2D2 is a droid who speaks in different bleeps and bloops which are highly rhythmic. This can be a fun exercise to create and improvise different rhythms. You can mix high and low, as well as faster and slower rhythms.
Chewbacca’s Crescendo
Crescendos are very important for musicians to have a controlled build in dynamics. For Chewbacca’s Crescendo, students can practice getting louder, and they can always practice diminuendos and getting quieter.
For all of these exercises, students can choose how many to do, whether 5 or 10 or whatever their number is. Be creative, have fun and may the force be with you!
If you’re looking to join in the fun this summer, you can go here to find out more!
Leave a Reply