16 mm Music Dice

Comprehensive List

I've added more music dice to The Practice Shoppe and now I can see it can be overwhelming to know the differences between all the dice, so hopefully I can outline all my dice here in a blog or two as well as give you some ideas on how to use them during practicing and teaching.

First of all, there are two sizes, 16 mm - which is a standard size dice.  I also have 25 mm - which is larger and can fit more details but is also more expensive.

Here is a list of all the 16 mm. dice I have in stock today (I've colored all the rhythm dice to make them easily distinguishable) in a basic order of simple to more complex:

Light Green Rhythm Dice

Super basic, just beamed eighth notes, quarter notes and quarter rests. Get a bunch of these and have the little beginners start clapping and counting.

Brown Rhythm Dice

The basic rhythms above with added half note, dotted half note, and whole note.

This is a great die for playing games where the kids don't have to know fractions like "Roll 100" and "Rhythm Race"  I also play "Shut the Box" and "Rhythm Chemistry" with these dice.

Blue Rhythm Dice

These are the first rhythms I teach my beginners out of the book Rhythm Train.  They are also the rhythms learned with Let's Play Music.  Great for composing and counting.  

Orange Rhythm Dice

Start learning how to count the eighth note and eighth rest.  These dice are harder to use for composing with beginners because the eighth note and eighth rest add some half beats.  But a "Rhythm Race" game is perfect to start introducing the half beat.

Magenta Rhythm Dice

These dice have everything from the eighth note to the whole note, with the fractional notes (eighth note and dotted quarter note.)  This is a great die for identifying different types of notes playing the game "Roll 10."  It's also a great "Tic Tac Toe" and "Bingo" die.

Purple One Beat Rhythm Dice

I love using these dice for composing because the rhythms are variable, but each side is only one beat.  This way you can easily fill measures and learn the tricky dotted eighth-note rhythms.

Red Rhythm Dice

 

This is very similar to the magenta dice but it adds a sixteenth note (and eliminates the dotted quarter note.)  I love to use these dice to play the game "Musical War."  It's also a more complex "Rhythm Race" game dice, dividing the beat into 4ths with the sixteenth note.

Green Rest Dice

This dice mirrors the red rhythm dice but with rests.  This would make the game "Musical War" more complex.  One person plays with the red, one with the green.  You could also play "Musical War" with only the green dice.  This is a great die for identifying all the different kinds of rests.

 Blue Rest Dice

 Here is another super basic dice with only a quarter rest, half rest, and whole rest duplicated.  

 Light Green Rest Dice

This die is on clearance and won't be around much longer.  It is pretty much the same as the green rest die above, but it has a 32nd rest (and no dotted half rest.)

Lavender Dotted Quarter Rhythm Dice

These next few dice are great to use when learning and teaching about the time signatures 3/8, 6/8, 9/8, and 12/8.  

Light Pink Dotted Quarter Rhythm Dice

 Gray Dotted Quarter Rhythm Dice

 Roman Numeral Chord Dice 

 This has been one of my ideas for a long time and they are brand new so I haven't played with them much.  I hope to use these to initiate composing and a discussion on the basic chord progressions.

 Accidentals Dice

Pair these dice with the Lines and Spaces dice to learn the names and locations of all the notes on the staff.

CGDAE Dice

I initially got these dice to roll to determine which string to play a finger pattern on with my students.  But, I also realized after I've played with these that they are the first five keys on the circle of 5ths and also the notes in the C major pentatonic scale which is really fun to compose with.

 Dynamics Dice

Here is another dice to use with the game "Roll 10" to teach students how to identify the different dynamic symbols.  It's also fun to roll and play a passage with whatever dynamic that is rolled.

Clefs Dice

Test your knowledge of all these clefs when you pair these dice with the Lines and Spaces dice.  Can you roll and name the note?

 Intervals Dice

I originally made these dice to help teach intervals on the violin or piano.  It's also fun to play and practice whatever measure you roll (4th measure, 6th measure, etc.)

Anyone can compose music!

Composing Dice? How do I use these? Why are there notes missing?

These are the most common questions I get at conferences where I have my music dice for sale. I wish I could easily and quickly convey how cool these dice are and they are the very reason I started making music dice in the first place.

Composing Pentatonic Dice do not have every note in a scale because there are only SIX SIDES! I commonly get the question why I can’t have every note, but please remember, my friends, there are 7 notes in a scale – 8 if you put the tonic on both ends. The solution is to make it a pentatonic scale (pent=5, 5 notes, plus the tonic at the end.) The notes are these dice are scale degrees 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, and 1 (omitting scale degree 4 and 7). There are four different dice available.

1.  A Major in treble clef – perfect for violinists (A, B, C#, E, F#, A) 
2. C Major in treble clef – perfect for pianists and general music (C, D, E, G, A, B) 
3. C Major in bass clef – perfect for pianists and general music (C, D, E, G, A, B) 
4. G Major in bass clef – great for cellists (G, A, B, D, E, G) 
5. Here is a set of 1 of each dice.

Now, let me tell you why I decided to make pentatonic scale dice and why they are so great for composing. Often Jazz music, hymns, and folk tunes are composed using the major pentatonic scale. It is the best scale for improvising and composing simple tunes. The more I know about this amazing pentatonic scale the more songs I realize use this very scale and notes in their melody. Think of the following pieces:

My girl (opening introduction), 

Oh Suzanna, 

Amazing Grace 

The notes in a major pentatonic scale give a nursery rhyme-like quality and are easily remembered. It has a pleasant sound that works great with many chords. It’s easy to compose a pentatonic melody because you don’t have to worry about what to do with the leading tone or the tricky 4th note of a major scale.

Here is what I do with my students to help them start composing:

1. Start with four measures of music. Use staff paper or whiteboards, I personally like using a paper cut into 4ths and using each piece as a measure and then connecting them at the end. 
2. Add a clef (treble or bass, depending on which dice you are using) and a 4/4 time signature. You could use ¾ or 2/4 as well, but let’s just make it easy and use 4/4 this time. 
3. Before you start rolling let’s end the melody on the tonic, so write a half-note tonic note at the end of the piece – a C if you are using the C scale dice, and A if you are using the A scale dice, etc. 
4. Now, let’s add a dominant half-note at the end of the second measure. The dominant is the 5th note of the scale, so for the C scale it would be G, for the A scale it would be E. 
5. It’s time to start rolling and fill in the measures with quarter notes with the notes your roll on the dice. 

When your measures are filled up, voila! You have a simple melody. ANYONE can do this – your most beginner student, your smarty-pants high school student, ANYONE!

Take it to the next step:

1. Now, let’s add another 4 measures to your piece. In measures 5 and 6 copy what you wrote in measures 1 and 2. 
2. Add a tonic half note at the end of measure 8. 
3. Fill in measures 7 and 8 with quarter notes rolled with the dice. 

Voila! You have a phrase.

And now…

1. Here is where you can fancy things up a bit with passing tones and neighbor tones. 
2. Are any of the notes next to each other? Make the first one a barred 8th note with the note above it and create a neighbor tone. 
3. Are there any notes next to each other that skip a note? Make the first note a barred 8th note and pass the tone to the other note. 
4. There are lots of ways you can doctor your melody by adding rhythm, dynamics, articulations, etc. See what you can come up with. 

If you want to try something fun with your students – see if what happens when you compose a “duet” to a common melody. For example, Jingle Bells. Do the same steps as above, but make sure you are following the same rhythmic pattern as Jingle Bells. When you play Jingle Bells in the key you are composing you have just made a simple duet to your common piece.

Here are several downloads that you can use when composing your own melody or teaching your students how to compose:

Basic Composition 1 - 4 measures
A Major (treble)
C Major (treble)
C Major (bass)
G Major (bass)

Basic Composition 2 - 8 measures
C Major (treble)
A Major (treble)
C Major (bass)
G Major (bass)

Composing Music with Music Dice

 This week we've been making practicing fun by using several different kinds of music dice.  My 6-year-old resists practicing more than my other girls so I'm trying to motivate her to enjoy music and that includes writing music.  She absolutely loved this activity which we spend a couple minutes between chunks of our practice time.

I have this great staff paper that is really big and long.  This is great for kids who like to write big.  I bought it at Music in Motion and I'd like to stock some in my store soon.  However, there are plenty of free sites where you can download staff paper with a variety of sizes like this one that has three different sizes.

The first step was teaching her how to make a treble clef.  It's so much fun to draw treble clefs, don't you think!  I love doodling treble clefs.   After she drew a treble clef she would roll a time signature die to determine the time signature of her composition. 

The next step was to use the musical notes die to determine which notes to draw.  Since she's a violinist she used the A Pententonic die.  There are other dice available such as the C Pentatonic die (great for pianists and general musicians) and the G Pentatonic die in the bass clef for cellists.  Basically, all of the pentatonic dice have the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th, and 8th notes of a scale (A, B, C#, E, F#, and A for the A Pentantonic dice.)  These notes generally sound pretty good when arranged in any order.

I let her decide what kind of note (we were only doing quarter and half notes) and she figured out where to put the bar lines.  When her measures were finished she and I would play her composition.  I would play different versions of it as well (different rhythms, different pitches) so she could see that she could develop it into a song.  She got such a kick out of listening to me compose a little piece out of her melody.  I noticed her doing this later on her own.

Here is one such composition (notice the half note is backward.  :)  This has sparked an interest in practicing again...at least this week.

Music Dice

In the fall of 2012 I received my first shipment of music dice and have been so excited to use these and sell these at The Practice Shoppe.  I saw a version of them online, but couldn't purchase them and thought they were a fun addition to teaching music.  I had a group of parents and teachers play with these dice for a few weeks and then asked for some ideas on how to use them.  Here are some of these ideas:

Musical Notes Dice:  These dice are notes in the pentatonic scale.  The pentatonic scales is the basis of most of American folk music and combined together can create very musical tunes.  I've used the C pentatonic scale for these dice because they are the easiest to play on the piano (C, D, E, G, A, and C).

• Use these dice to randomly create a melody.  Roll one die several times or use 4, 5 or 6 and see what melody you come up with.  Use this with the rhythm dice, or create your own rhythm to come up with a basic theme.  Then you can elaborate on that theme by repeating it, adding notes, changing the rhythm, creating variations, etc.  This could be the very basic start to composing a piece.  
• Roll the dice and name the notes.  This would be similar to using flashcards, but it would reinforce only these 6 notes.
• Use the die to determine how many places that note can be played on the instrument - and then how many octaves could be found with the same note.
• These dice would be good for deciding which scale to play in a group setting.  Or, it could be the starting note of an easy piece - to help with transposing on the instrument.
• "Play it, don't say it."  Roll the die and play the note on the instrument instead of saying it.  The dice adds a dimension of tactile learning that flashcards don't have.  This is great for the "hands-on" learner.
• For violin students, roll the die and use that note as the starting note using 1st finger (playing in different positions) of a scale or piece.

What are some ideas?  I'd love your comments!

You can purchase these dice exclusively from The Practice Shoppe at this link.