Tag Archives: music play

Make a Balloon Bassoon – a simple reed musical instrument

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Make a balloon bassoon

Finding simple wind instruments suitable to make with very young children is hard, but the balloon bassoon is perfect. Easy to make and satisfying to play, children love this instrument, not least because it’s loud! In my early childhood education music incursion programs this is always one of the most popular instruments.

Balloon bassoons are also inexpensive – about A$4 if you use PVC pressure pipe, much less if you use cardboard tube.  It sounds like a very cheap saxophone, and it only plays one note. Technically it’s more like a sax or clarinet than a bassoon, but hey! The name was to good to pass up!

How easy is it to make? I can make one from scratch in less than 3 minutes, including measuring and cutting the pipe. I use this instrument in my program to show children how easy and quick it is to make a musical instrument (I pre-cut the pipe, but that’s all).

Children from about 4 and up can make it themselves with some adult assistance – you will have to cut the hose for them, and they will need assistance and close supervision if they are going to saw the PVC pipe.

Children as young as 3 can play it, although most 3 year olds will need to have the instrument held for them.  4 year olds and up can hold it for themselves, but learning the right way to hold it takes practice.

The full instructions are below, but if you prefer a visual guide watch this video:

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Building a PVC Frame for Scrap Metal Musical Instruments

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In my last blog post I walked you through selecting scrap metal for making musical instruments; now it’s time to show you how I built a strong and easy to build PVC frame and turned some scrap aluminium castings into a bell tree. I use these instruments in my Child’s Play Music hands-on play-based music incursions with young children in all kinds of Early Childhood Education settings here in Perth.

You can use this frame design for many different instruments – even for hanging old pots and pans. I have 3 frames: for my stainless steel cymbals, my aluminium gongs, and now this one for my aluminium castings bell tree.

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Music play is play!

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I firmly believe that the best way for young children to learn music is through free, hands-on self-directed play.  Formal music lessons can be wonderful for older children but for young children nothing beats exploration and free play.

I made this poster about music play and I think it explains my beliefs about young children and music very well.  It got quite a few shares on Facebook and it seems to have struck a chord with people.

Poster about music play for children.

Let me expand a little on what I mean by “Music play is play!”:

Play is the fundamental way that children learn and make sense of their world, and music play is simply one of the many forms of play. But what is “play”?

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Music in ECE: Yes, You Can! Part 2: Singing

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As an early childhood educator you are the single most important component of your children’s play & learning environment.

What you do – how you structure the environment, what program choices you make, what you value, how you interact with children – sets the tone for all the learning that takes place.  And that is equally true for music in early childhood.

But as I said in Part One, many early childhood educators feel less than competent when it comes to music.  I’m here to tell you that you ARE competent – but you may not FEEL competent.

So let’s get you feeling competent, because the research shows it’s your confidence that counts not your musical abilities.

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Music in ECE: Yes, You Can! Part One

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Is anybody out there feeling a little less than totally confident about your own ability to provide a vibrant music program in early childhood settings?  Worried that you don’t sing well enough or you aren’t a good enough musician?  Not sure what a good music program looks like, let alone how to implement one?

I’m betting there are quite a few hands going up out there.  Because you are not alone: research shows that music is the single most-feared subject area for educators.  More than math, more than science – it’s music that we feel inadequate about.

So if you are one of the people bashfully raising your hand – this five-part series is for you.  I’m hoping to take you from:

I can’t to I can! 

From fear to fun!

How much fun?

This much fun!

Two girls having fun playing a metallophone

Looks like fun to me!

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Music – outdoors is where it’s at!

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If you want to do a great play-based music program in early childhood settings, providing a music-rich environment is 90% of the battle.  But sometimes that can be difficult to achieve in a classroom – music play can be loud! Sometimes too loud!

Which is why your outdoor area is the best place for your music program – and why I’ve written a blog post for PreK + K Sharing with tips and tricks for taking the music outside.

From which of your “real” instruments work best & how to set them up, to building music stations and encouraging music to movement, it’s extensively illustrated and has a hands-on practical focus.

Outside is the place for music play!

Outside is the place for music play!

Check it out now at PreK + K Sharing, the cooperative early childhood blog.

PreK + K Sharing
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A leap of faith – Child’s Play Music goes global

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To say I’m excited would be an understatement.  I’ve been selected to write a regular post for the prestigious PreK + K Sharing cooperative ECE blog!

PreK + K Sharing

I will be blogging alongside some of the greats of the ECE blogosphere, bloggers from all over the world, with thousands of influential posts to their credit.  I’m honoured – and very slightly puzzled.

Considering that my total blogging experience consists of just two posts here at Child’s Play Music that’s an amazing leap of faith on the part of Debbie Clements, PreK + K’s founder & organiser, and an ECE blogging luminary in her own right.

I’d like to think that it’s the sheer quality of my writing – the profundity and erudition of my prose – the enormous depth of my knowledge – and the sparkling originality of my ideas that made Debbie realise that I was the perfect writer for PreK & K.  However, I suspect that it was one word that made Debbie certain that I should get the nod.

That word was: deadline.

To quote from our correspondence:

Debbie: “SOOOOOOOOOOOO. It’s the 25th. At this point in time, it’s on an every other month sort of basis that I need a contribution from you, beginning next week for the 25th.”

Me: “Jan 25th! Wow that’s short notice. Trying to get that together and learn Blogger might be a bit tricky, but I’ll see what I can do.”

Debbie: “AWESOME!!!!!”

In the face of that sort of enthusiasm, what can you do?  I buckled down and wrote the damn thing.  And I think it’s pretty good.

It’s an article about why your outdoor area is the perfect place for your music program. Get music out of the classroom and outside in the dirt where it belongs! OK, that may seem a fairly strange statement: surely music is a genteel pastime, best suited to the salon, the studio and the concert hall.  Isn’t it?

Nope.  But you will have to read the post to find out why. It will be published January 25th, 5.00am EST (that’s US Eastern Standard Time). PreK + K Sharing.  You read it here first.

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Like this post? Make sure you check out the rest of my web site!

And you can find Child’s Play Music on Facebook

You might also like these blog posts:

The Best Playground in Perth – The Naturescape

Let Me Play! (Trust Me, I’m Learning)

Water Play, Music Play & Children: A Natural Combination

Water play, music play & children: a natural combination

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Water play – it conjures up visions of children scooping and pouring, floating things and sinking them, measuring and washing and splashing and laughing.  Huge fun, and there are a thousand things to be learned at the water trough.  But water play … and music?  It doesn’t seem like a natural combination but it’s amazing what you can do with a few household items, some stuff from your garden shed and a water play trough!

Water play and music play with floating metal bowls

Make sure you have different sized bowls available

My first exposure to water and music wasn’t working in child care – it was watching the great percussionist Trilok Gurtu dipping gongs, bells, cymbals and sea-shell rattles into a bucket of water during a John McLaughlin Trio concert many years ago.  The unearthly tones he produced delighted me – shimmering waves of ever-changing tones that swooped up and down in pitch.

I have a very broad definition of music.  To me, music is sound organised in time.  All sounds can be music, and with water play we can explore:

  • rhythm
  • pattern
  • tempo
  • pitch
  • timbre (tone)

These are the building blocks of all music, and water offers a unique playground for exploring them.  It also offers a fantastic way to explore the science of sound in a way that is meaningful and understandable for young children.

We aren’t going to be creating songs (although singing may happen); we aren’t going to be creating performances (although that may happen too).  Instead this is about exploration and learning through the joy of free play.  It’s going to be loud, it’s going to be wet and it’s going to be fun.  Get your water play clothes on (budgie smugglers optional) and let’s get playing!

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