Musical CODENAMES| Free Piano Teaching Game (Digital Print)

Musical CODENAMES is a game my students frequently request.  They love the challenge of the game, and I love that they are making connections with musical terms and concepts!  It’s an awesome combination that you can’t quite get in any other game out there.

This is a musical spin off of the popular game Codenames.  I like that version, but of course this has become a favorite for me, too.

Level: Intermediate

Objective: To review musical terminology & find how they interconnect with each other

 

Materials:

• Musical terms and concepts cards:  Musical Terms & Concepts from PianoTels.pdf (972 downloads)
• Musical Codenames Game Board Cards:  Musical Code Names Game Cards by PianoTels.pdf (432 downloads)
• Musical Codenames Cover Cards:  Musical Codenames Cover Cards by PianoTels.pdf (389 downloads)

 

Players needed: works best with 2 or more (can be a teacher and a student, or 2 or more students).  If there are more than 2 students, this game can be played in teams — one red team, one blue team.

 

Game Set-up: 

Place nine of any of the Musical Terms and Concept Cards in a 3 x 3 grid, facing up. The players decide if they are going for red or blue this round.

One student picks a game board card without showing the other players.

The game board card can be oriented in any way — there is no “right” way to hold the game board card.  This allows for more possibilities of game boards.

 

Game Play: 

The objective of the game is to get the other player to choose either all the “red” cards, or the “blue” cards.  You want to be able to find all of your colors in as few of rounds as possible.   If you pick the “black” card, you lose and the game is over!

When you pick up a game board card, it becomes player #1’s guide to what musical terms are red or blue or black for this round.

In only one word, player #1 can give player #2 hints as to what cards to choose.  They will say only a one word hint, then a number that refers to the number of cards the word refers to.

For example, my set-up would look like this:

 

 

I would hide the game card from the other player(s) otherwise that would be cheating.  🙂

If we were trying to get all of the red cards covered, then, I might choose the word “fast, 2” hoping that player #2 would choose “adagio” and “presto” which would match the two red spots on my card.

Player #2, would decide which cards they think player #1 is referring to and then touches the card on the table.  Whatever card is chosen, player #1 puts the appropriate color on top of it (according to the game card they have).

For the example above, player #2 chose the words I was hoping for –  adagio and presto.  So I put two red cards over those spots, like so:

 

 

Now, I need to get player #2 to choose two more red spots: staff, and fortissimo.  So, this time, since I can’t think of a word that would work for both staff and fortissimo, I choose the word, “loud, 1” since I only have one card in mind: fortissimo.

Player #2 touches a card that he thinks I am referring to.  Unfortunately, he chooses forte, which I failed to see in the first place.  This time, I have to put a blue on that card because that is what my game card shows should go there.

 

 

This time, I say, “blaring, 1” and hope player #2 guesses fortissimo.  Lucky for me, he does!

 

 

Now, I just have one card left to choose.  I say the word, “treble” and player #2 touches staff.  We won!  Since all the cards are in the right places according to the game card I am holding, we completed the game and won!

 

 

If my partner had accidentally chosen the word “flat” at any time, the game would have been over immediately and we would have lost.  Luckily, that never happened this round!

We can play again and again, mixing up the cards to put on the table and then drawing different game cards and turning them in different directions in order to get all sorts of different combinations to play from.

This is such a fun game and it really causes you to think!  It’s a great way to make sure you know all of these terms!

 

Click here for more really fun games and activities for teaching piano!