Black and White Musical Dice – Randomise for Tons of Fun

I put up some colourful musical dice a while ago, and I recently had a request from some black and white versions. Jessica’s clever students had memorised the colour for each note!

Below you can download these updated black and white versions. There’s a 7 sided music alphabet die, and 6 sided treble and bass clef dice. Just click on each image to download the pdf.

(Click on the image to download the pdf.)

(Click on the image to download the pdf.)

(Click on the image to download the pdf.)

Musical dice can be used in so many games and off-bench activities, but here’s a few ideas to get you started!

• Play all the “blank”s is great for beginning students. Try setting a timer and challenging them to get as many as they can in 60 seconds!
• Find all the “blank”s in a new piece of sheet music. Especially good for sight reading skills!
• Scales! If the student has already done all the white key scales use the musical alphabet die to randomise them. You could ask for major or minor, arpeggios or contrary motions, whatever you want them to work on.
• Roll it twice and then identify the interval, either at the piano or away from it, depending on the student’s level.
• Improvise using the scale or chord of the note you roll.
• Play the piece you are currently working on, omitting all the “blanks”.
• Roll two dice and use the notes as the starting inspiration for a new composition.

How to assemble

1. Download the treble clef dice and/or bass clef dice and print it out, on card ideally.
2. Cut around the outside.
3. Score along the edges of the tabs so they will fold neatly.
4. Attach the tabs to the inside of the adjoining square using either glue or double-sided tape (how it goes together will make sense once you start!).
5. Enjoy all the possibilities!

How do you use dice in lessons?

Do you use them in any games or practice incentives? Please share all your creative ideas for these versatile objects!