Newsletter for music lovers who want to gain confidence in and explore their inner musician.

Jacks Be Nimble, Jacks Be Quick!

A musical game of jacks enhances learning through play.

Have you ever played jacks? It's that game of agility and speed played with a small rubber ball and a set of 10 six-pointed jacks.

The rules are simple enough, but the achievement of "threes-ies" can take many hours. Scatter the jacks on a flat, hard surface. Toss the ball into the air, pick up one jack and catch the ball after only one bounce. A game of Ones-ies is completed by picking up all 10 jacks, one at a time in the process described above.

Twos-ies, as you might guess, is played by tossing the ball into the air, picking up two jacks and catching the ball after only one bounce. Continue tossing the ball and picking up two more jacks until all are picked up.

Oh, and use the same hand to toss the ball, pick up the jacks, and catch the ball.

Using Multiple Senses

I was mulling over how we musicians use our senses - in particular, sight, sound, and touch - in learning and playing music. When a student is struggling with reading music and recognizing notes, I instruct them to do a multi-sensory exercise that goes like this:

• Look at and point at each individual note.
• Say aloud the name of the note as you point to it.
• Notate the music on a separate piece of staff paper, and say the name of each note as you notate it.
• Finger the note on your instrument while saying aloud the note name and looking at the note in the music.
• Play each note while looking at it on the staff and say the note name in your head.
• Sing each note while pointing to it or fingering it.
   

This method of learning is very effective. Students often see results right away as their confidence in note-naming and note-reproduction increases. Because they are using multiple senses in the exercise, the learning attaches in a number of places in the brain. Recalling the material later is quicker and easier.

Sing, Say, Play

Suppose that each learning variation above might be a different jack from the game of jacks. Saying the name of the note as you point to it could be your Ones-ies. Threes-ies might be something like saying the name of the note as you point to it and then singing the pitch. I've prepared some suggested guidelines, and created some audio files and written music for you to use to get going. Read through my suggestions below, download the files, and play some Musical Jacks!

Gather your gaming materials

1. Download and print the music (PDF) for your particular instrument.    
   • Musical Jacks Treble Clef C Instruments
   • Musical Jacks Bb Instruments
   • Musical Jacks Eb Instruments
   • Musical Jacks F Instruments
   • Musical Jacks G Instruments
   • Musical Jacks Bass Clef C Instruments
2. Download the audio file (MP3). The files are provided in both bass and treble range. Choose whichever range is more comfortable for your voice. I also created slow and medium tempo files; 60 BPM and 100 BPM.        
   • Treble 60 BPM (7.7 MB)
     
   • Bass 60 BPM (7.7 MB)
     
   • Treble 100 BPM (4.6 MB)
     
   • Bass 100 BPM (4.6 MB)
     

Ones-ies, Twos-ies, Threes-ies...

I came up with eight different 'jacks to pick up.'

1. Sing La: sing the pitch sounded on a syllable of "la" or "ma."   
2. Speak: speak the pitch name.   
3. Point: point to the note on the music.       
4. Sing Pitch: sing the note name on pitch, i.e. "cee-sharp."   
5. Notate Treble: on a treble clef staff, draw an empty oval (whole note) on the appropriate space or line.           
6. Notate Bass: on a bass clef staff, draw an empty oval (whole note) on the appropriate space or line.          
7. Finger: position your fingers as you would to play the pitch on your instrument. Pianists should touch the appropriate key with alternating left and right index finger. String players should position left hand on the fingerboard and right hand or bow on appropriate string.         
8. Play: play the tone on your instrument. Pianists, play the indicated key with all five digits of alternating left and right hands, in rapid succession.

Suggested Game Play

Set the printed music on the stand, sit with your instrument on your lap or otherwise handy, and have your MP3 player within easy reach to start and stop the audio file.

Decide which 'jack' or how many 'jacks' you want to do for each pitch and start the audio file. I just played a few rounds of the game and completed fours-ies comfortably. My fours-ies were Sing La, Point, Speak, and Sing Pitch Name.

It will quickly become obvious to you once you start playing that not all jacks are created equal. For example, you can Point and Speak simultaneously and then Sing La and Finger simultaneously. But you wouldn't necessarily be able to Notate and Play at the same time.

I can see the strategists among you are already planning how to do all eight jacks in 4 seconds. Go for it! And let the rest of us know about your Musical Jacks successes.

Comment now

Which jacks are easiest to do? Which are the most fun? How many jacks did you complete in one round? What other variations of the game have you come up with? I invite you to share your stories with me and the readers of Musician's Motivator. Make a comment on my blog or drop me an email: meg@meggrace.com.

Thanks for reading! The next edition of Musician's Motivator will be out on Wednesday, March 10, 2010.

If you liked this, you may also want to read:

• Brain Benefits from Noteworthy Music Practice
• Dive Into The Unknown
• 4 Ways To Get More Fun Out Of Practice

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Read the next edition of Musician's Motivator  March 10, 2010.

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