Song Battle

Most people have a repertoire of song lyrics in their head. This activity offers the fun of recalling them, the opportunity to belt them out without anxiety about singing "well", and the aspect of learning which songs "everyone" in the group knows and which are familiar to only you.

Objectives

Icebreakers/Warmups | Communication |

Group Size

Medium Large

Materials

Flip Chart and Markers

Set Up

Encourage people to join in even if they "never sing in public" - this is about speed in thinking, and fun - not about perfect pitch.

Directions

• Split the group into 2 or more teams of ~3-10 people per team. It is good to have each team be a mix of demographics, so that members contribute songs of various eras and styles.
• Select a word that is commonly found in songs such as love, baby, rain, etc.
• Each team has 10 minutes to brainstorm as many songs as possible that contain the selected word.
• The team with the most songs, not duplicated by other teams, wins the challenge.
• Once time is up (5 or 10 min), teams come back to together as a group to compare lists.

Sharing and scoring:

• Every unique song is worth 1 point. Team 1 shares the first song on their list followed by Team 2.
• Then teams move on to the 2nd song on the list so that each team shares 1 song and then passes to the next team.
• In order to receive a point, a member of the team must SING the line of the song containing the buzz word, and each team member

must sing at least one song in order for the team to continue receiving points.

• Duplicate songs are canceled out and do not count toward the team total.

Debrief Questions

What did you learn about others on your team from the songs they came up with? Are any of the songs worthy of becoming the group's "theme song"?

Variations

A more rapid back-and-forth way to do the game: One team comes up with a word - they have to have at least one song in mind that includes that word - it has to be a "real" song, not one made up on the spot. Try a unique word that will make it difficult. The other has a very short time to come up with one song using that word. If they can't, the first team sings their song with that word to prove it was legitimate. Another option for any version of the game: everyone on the team joins in the singing - no solos necessary - and once a song is started, the other team too can join in with the singing. Belt it out! The competition can be minimized by continuing with the back-and-forth without score-keeping.