3 Creative Resources for Halloween
These elementary-intermediate composition and improvisation activities from Barbara Arens, Alison Mathews and Andrea Dow will fill your studio with spooky inspiration
The Vampire Challenge: Count Dracula’s Piano Book by Barbara Arens
This hilarious intermediate-level book features several pieces where the student has to make creative decisions. In “Revenge”, Dracula asks us to recreate a macabre song from his childhood and the student is asked to create their own arrangement from a leadsheet. In “You Don’t See Me In The Mirror”, the student has to write their left hand own notes that mirror the right hand. In “Vampire Valse” the student has complete control over the dynamics. The whole collection is great fun, accompanied by with plenty of absurd black humour from Dracula, and would make an ideal autumn project for an early intermediate student.
While you’re at it, check out Arens’ book Spooky! 31 Eerie Piano Solos from Telemann to Tilzer. Alongside some really wonderful spooky classical music, it has a couple of pages filled with ideas for composing your own scary music.
Halloween Creative Pre-Reader Bundle by Alison Mathews
These are three extremely accessible spooky improvisation duets for elementary students who are not yet reading off the staff.
With titles like “Monster’s Footsteps”, “The Mummy Awakes” and “The Lonely Ghost”, there’s plenty of opportunity for creative musical storytelling and to review theory concepts like keyboard geography, dynamics, and rhythm note values.
Alison’s instructions are really clear and the teacher accompaniments are really charming, so this is a great way to inspire your youngest students into improvising.
Halloween Composing Printable by Andrea Dow
Disguised as a Halloween piece, this is actually a really accessible instruction sheet for how to write a memorable melodic motif. Your student follows a 5-step process to write their motif, then inserts it into a pre-written piece. It’s very effectively done and would suit elementary students who are familiar with the C minor pentascale.
