Body percussion for kids: clap, pat, stomp and make music with no instruments

Your child has come home from music clapping, patting their knees and stomping, and announces it’s called “body percussion”. It’s one of the simplest, happiest ways to make music, and you don’t need a single instrument. Here’s what body percussion for kids is, the sounds hands, feet and voices can make, easy patterns to try, games for home, and what children learn about it at school from Prep.

What is body percussion?

Body percussion means making music with your body. The Australian Curriculum describes it in brackets, almost as a definition: “body percussion (clapping, tapping, stamping)”. The Australian Children’s Television Foundation’s music resource for teachers adds stomping and clicking, and suggests children use “their voices, any available instruments, classroom objects, and body percussion” when they make up music of their own.

That’s the beauty of it. Your child’s body is always there, so music can happen in the car, in the kitchen or on the way to school. As KidStudy’s lesson notes for grown-ups put it, body percussion “needs no instruments at all.”

What sounds can your body make?

More than you might think. Each body sound has its own character, which musicians call timbre. The ACTF explains that “Timbre refers to the unique characteristics of the sounds produced by each different instrument or voice”, and that we often describe it with words that sound like the sound itself, “For example, ‘bangy’, ‘swishy’, ‘tooty’ or ‘woofy’.”

Voices count too. The national curriculum encourages young children to explore “their speaking and singing voices”, and the ACTF asks children, “How else can you show the beat with your body? Can you sing the beat?” If clicking is still too tricky for little fingers, tapping two fingers on a palm makes a lovely quiet sound instead.

Easy body percussion patterns for kids

Start with a steady beat. The ACTF suggests children “pat their knees to create a steady beat”, and points out that “We play the beat all the time without even realising it, like when we clap along to a song.” Once the beat feels steady, turn it into a pattern and repeat it again and again:

1. Clap, stomp, clap, stomp. Two sounds taking turns: the easiest pattern of all.
2. Clap, clap, stomp. A pattern of three. Keep it looping and see how long you can go.
3. Pat, clap, pat, clap. Knees then hands, sitting down. Great for the car or a waiting room.
4. Stomp, stomp, clap. Loud, loud, sharp. Try it softly too, then loudly.
5. Pat, pat, clap, click. Four different sounds. Add a “shh” on top for a voice part.

A repeating pattern like this is a loop, the same idea children meet in unplugged coding games. And once your child can keep a pattern going, they’re ready for the difference between the steady beat and the rhythm of words, which our post on beat vs rhythm for kids explains, with ta and ti-ti.

Body percussion games for home

1. Echo me. Clap a short pattern and have your child copy it exactly. Then swap: they lead, you echo. The ACTF suggests teachers “Clap a series of simple rhythms for your students to repeat.”
2. Body band. Each person picks a sound: one claps, one pats, one stomps. Play your sounds one after the other, then all together.
3. Pat the beat, clap the words. Pat your knees steadily while chanting a nursery rhyme like “Hickory Dickory Dock”, then clap once for each syllable. Swap jobs.
4. Fast and slow. Clap a beat and have your child stomp in time with you. Speed up, slow down, then go very, very slow. The speed of music is called its tempo.
5. Loud and soft. Play the same pattern as quietly as a mouse, then as loudly as thunder (but gently on the floor).
6. Rainstorm. Rub hands for the wind, click for the first drops, pat for heavy rain, stomp for thunder, then go backwards until the storm fades away.

What children learn about body percussion at school

Body percussion is part of music from the first year of school. In Victoria, Foundation (Prep) has its own music band:

• In Victoria, Foundation children “explore ideas for music through play” (VC2AMUFE02), for example “playing games involving rhyme to explore beat and rhythm”. They “use play, imagination, music knowledge and processes to discover possibilities and develop ideas” (VC2AMUFD01), including “creating long, short, loud and soft sounds with their voices or instruments”, and “create music that communicates ideas and explores meaning” (VC2AMUFC01), which can include “improvising rhythmic patterns as accompaniment using body percussion”. In Levels 1 and 2, children use “voices and body percussion” to make music with contrasts such as loud/soft and fast/slow (VC2AMU2C01).
• In the Australian Curriculum (AC9), Foundation includes “improvising rhythmic patterns for clapping or stamping” (an example under AC9AMUFD01), and Years 1 and 2 include “movement/body percussion games that develop skills relating to pulse, beat and rhythm” and “echo clapping” (under AC9AMU2D01).

KidStudy’s Prep Music lesson Body Percussion is about sounds all around us and music made with hands and feet. Children listen and work out whether a sound came from clapping hands, a drum or a xylophone, sort body sounds into hands and feet, and find what comes next in patterns like clap, stomp, clap, stomp. Its 10-minute home activity, Body band, has your child listen to the sounds around them, then make a clap, clap, stomp pattern and teach it to a grown-up.