Body Percussion

Body percussion can be viewed as a musical instrument, and used as a precursor to other musical instruments.  It involves clapping, slapping, tapping, snapping, stamping, and patting.  It is very fun for the children and gets them up and moving during the lesson.  It also has the advantage of producing different timbres, allowing for more creativity.  It improves rhythm skills as it is so good for internalizing rhythms.  This makes it a good tool for preparing children to play both non pitched rhythm and barred instruments.  If a child learns a rhythm through body percussion, they have the feeling of the rhythm inside them before they even start playing, which makes it easier to concentrate on things like pitch and technique.  A child can pat the rhythm on their legs, then when they play it on the xylophone, they can much more easily figure out the notes because they don't have to think as hard about the rhythm.