Think You Don’t Have Time for a Game? Think Again!

What if you could pull out a game, reinforce an important music concept, and be finished in just a few minutes? 

You can!

One of my favorite things about many of the Keys to Imagination games is you’re completely in control of how much—or how little—you play. You don’t need to commit to a full game to benefit.

Here are a few easy ways to shorten Harmonic Hike!

Start Small

Want to work on scales without playing an entire scale? Start with pentascales. Since students are working with just five notes, you’ll use fewer cards and can complete a round much more quickly.

Once students get comfortable with the game, you can graduate to full scales.

Use the Keyboard

Give students a cloth keyboard or use the regular piano keyboard and a few markers. As they figure out the notes they need, they can mark the keys. They’re still doing the thinking—but they have a visual reference to keep them moving. 

Chords = Quick Wins

Need a fast activity? Try chords or chord inversions. Because you’re working with only three or four cards, students can practice an important concept without committing to a long game.

Complete a Partial Game

Short on lesson time? Harmonic Hike is designed for 5 scales, but you can easily make it a quicker game. Set the winner as the first player to complete just 2 or 3 scales!

Interval Incline

Here’s a Harmonic Hike feature you might not be using yet…Interval Incline!

Give your student a starting note and choose an interval to practice. If you’re working on fourths and start on C, they find F. From F, they go up another fourth to B—and keep going.  You control the length of the activity simply by controlling how many cards you deal. That means Interval Incline works beautifully for a quick lesson warm-up, a focused review, or a challenge for advanced students. You can even use it to explore perfect, major, minor, augmented, and diminished intervals.

See these tips in Sally’s Video here.

Your Game. Your Goal. Your Time.

Harmonic Hike isn’t an activity you have to “fit” into your lesson. You can make the game fit your lesson.

Have five minutes? Take a short hike.
Have more time minutes? Keep going.
Need a specific concept? Choose the cards that get you there.