Classical Snap (GAM 1012)

Pop the Question (GAM 1056)

Measure Up! (GAM 1067)

Musical Pairs (GAM 1034)

Fiddlesticks (GAM 1023)

Quartet (GAM 1045)

Music Sales pound;4.95 each

Available through

www.musicroom.com

When the instruments are put away, how about a card game? Classical Snap contains 52 cards featuring 13 composers. After you match their pictures, you read snippets of information. Some is obscure - Mozart “once lodged with a corset maker”. Some is good for provoking discussion - the opening phrase of Rhapsody in Blue “was considered unplayable”. It’s all good-natured and some of it might well stick.

Pop the Question is a quiz with 104 cards. Players have to identify performers from clues about birthplaces, album titles and gossipy trivia.

Measure Up! is quite challenging. Players gain points by creating a full bar from cards representing time signatures, note values and rests. Colour coding gives some help, but you still need to be able to juggle dotted minims and semiquavers. It would be an idea to clap as you play. Musical Pairs is a variation on the memory game. The cards comprise four sets of each note of the chromatic scale, two in the treble and two in the bass clef. You find identical pairs or match lower with higher notes.

Fiddlesticks is a version of Old Maid. There are 33 cards, four pairs from each of the orchestral groups. The object of the game is to accumulate pairs while passing off the last card - the single fiddlestick - to another player. Quartet is Happy Families with instruments. The stylistic range is generous with the Blue Notes (jazz quartet) and Rupees (Indian band) taking their place beside the Crash (percussion) and the Angels (choir). Play the games, then get the instruments out again and transform cardboard semblances into sounds.

* Look out for next week’s 8-page Subject Focus on Music in Teacher