At-home activities for music creativity

What bet­ter way to spend time at home than make music? CNMN is col­lect­ing resources for at-home music cre­ativ­i­ty games and activ­i­ties to do with fam­i­ly mem­bers, room­mates, and alone.

Veg­etable Sounds 
Con­tributed by Juli­et Palmer

Mate­ri­als: your voic­es and your imag­i­na­tion
Descrip­tion: A guess­ing game in which play­ers imag­ine, make and guess veg­etable sounds
Age range: all ages

Emp­ty Repeat­ing Can­vas
Con­tributed by Doug Friesen

Mate­ri­als: A piece of paper.  Use voic­es, body per­cus­sion, instru­ments, or go search­ing for the best sounds in your home!
Descrip­tion: Music emerges from a repeat­ed pat­tern that you decide on.  Open ears!
Age ranges: 5–100

Imag­ine Four Arts
Con­tributed by Nic Doy­on

Mate­ri­als: a dig­i­tal device to play music on-line, a clear space to dance
Descrip­tion: Lis­ten, dance, act, draw your own world while lis­ten­ing to music
Age range: 6–7 years old

Play it again, Sam
Con­tributed by Louise Camp­bell

Mate­ri­als: two dig­i­tal devices to play music and video
Descrip­tion: What hap­pens when you pair the Baby Shark video with the theme song to Jaws? Match and mis­match your favourite songs and videos for sur­pris­ing results and good laughs.
Age range: teen to adult

Quar­an­tine Mem­o­ry Rit­u­al
Con­tributed by Sandeep Bhag­wati

Mate­ri­als: two music devices e.g. mp3 play­ers, smart­phones, CD-Play­ers etc.
Descrip­tion: Quar­an­tine Mem­o­ry Rit­u­al is a piece for one per­son alone with two music devices. No spe­cial skills are need­ed, except the will to focus while doing the rit­u­al — which real­ly is one. Do not be ashamed to sing. No one will hear you!
Age range: 13 to adult

“Wow” for any num­ber of steel bowls
Con­tributed by: Jesse Stew­art, PhD

Mate­ri­als required: stain­less steel mix­ing bowls, one per per­former
Descrip­tion of activ­i­ty: Each play­er explores the sound of one stain­less steel mix­ing bowl with a small amount of water inside of it. Begin by tap­ping the side of the bowl with your fin­gers. Grad­u­al­ly, each play­er brings their mouth close to the side of the bowl while tap­ping, mouthing the word “wow.” Explore the result­ing tim­bral vari­a­tions.  After some time has passed, play­ers begin to tilt their bowls, allow­ing the water to alter the sound.
Age range: all ages

“Body Per­cus­sion” for two or more peo­ple
Con­tributed by Geremia Loren­zo Lodi

Mate­ri­als required: your body!
Descrip­tion of activ­i­ty: Body Per­cus­sion is the art that takes music back to its place of ori­gin: the body! It is a way of learn­ing music through move­ment. You will dis­cov­er that we are walk­ing musi­cal instru­ments, always ready to sound out.
Age range: 8 years old and up

Do you have activities to share?

Sub­mit them to Louise Camp­bell at mlouisecampbell@gmail.com and we’ll post them on the CNMN web­site and social media accounts. Let’s get every­one mak­ing music!

Cri­te­ria: Fun! 
Activ­i­ties should be pos­si­ble for peo­ple with lit­tle to no expe­ri­ence mak­ing music.

  • For 1–5 peo­ple (i.e. the num­ber of peo­ple typ­i­cal­ly in one home)
  • Required materials/instruments should be read­i­ly avail­able in the home (e.g. use of voice, body per­cus­sion, found objects, cell phones, free apps, chil­drens’ instru­ments, pots and pans, elec­tric key­board, gui­tar etc.)

What we need from you:

  • A link to the activ­i­ty (e.g. to a page on your website)
  • Your name
  • A 1–2 sen­tence description
  • A pic­ture of materials/instruments needed
  • 3–5 word descrip­tion of materials 
  • Age range of activ­i­ty (e.g. ages 2–5, teenag­er, old­er adult)