Quarantine Musical Activities

by Alyssa Cowell, The Catoctin School of Music

More Music Activities for Quarantine! While we are all hanging in there waiting to go life as it was before COVID-19, here are a few more stay-at-home music activities to fill up the time!

Music Scavenger Hunt: Look around the house and see if you can find instruments from different musical instrument families – look for household items you make musical sounds with or on. How many different sounds can you find throughout the house? Look for items that you can tap, shake, pluck, or blow into and see how many you can find.

Challenge your friends to a song playing challenge: pick a song and challenge your friends to learn it! Set a time limit and see who can learn to play the song fastest! Post a video of yourself on social media or play for each other over a video streaming platform. Give each other critiques on the musical performance – try to stay positive and encouraging.

Play Music for Your Neighbors: If you can, set up in your yard, on your porch, or in your driveway and make some music for your neighbors! Pick out a few songs and put on a little outdoor concert – bonus points if you can put together a song with family members perform in a family band!

Make some DIY Musical Instruments: Grab the paper towel rolls, shoe boxes, rubber bands, and duct tape! There are a lot of instructions online for building some fun homemade instruments including, but not limited to: rubber band guitars, paper towel roll rain sticks, paper cup maracas, plastic water bottle guiros, drinking straw pan pipes, and more! Design and make your own musical instrument combining some of these other instrument ideas!

Try out some of these stay-at-home activities as we are (hopefully) entering the home stretch for staying at home – let’s stay strong and make some music!