Youth Ministry Games : Name That Tune

The basic premise of the game is to have the two teams bid on who can name the song and artist played in the least amount of time. Before the bidding, I usually give them a couple of categories such as, for example, the type: Christian/Secular/Country/Etc., and skill level: Easy/Medium/Hard, and occasionally, the time frame: year/decade/etc. One team starts the bidding, through their captain, by saying they can name it in, for example, 45 seconds. The other team then has the opportunity to bid below that time, and so on until one team is not willing to bid below the other. I set a bottom bid limit of 2 seconds (which they still usually get). I found it works best to have all bids/answers come through the “captain” so no confusion is created by someone blurting something out. I also require that there is a team majority to bid below 5 seconds so one person doesn’t get the whole team into trouble.

Once a final bid is made, I play the song from the beginning for the bid time. At that time, the team who has the bid has 20 seconds or so to submit their guess through the captain. If they guess correctly, they get 3 points. If they cannot guess it or guess incorrectly, the other team has a chance to steal for 2 points if they can guess correctly at that time. If neither team gets it, I play the song for 30 seconds more (or longer if needed) and take the first hand I see during that time for an answer. If guessed correctly, that team is awarded 1 point.

You can play for a certain amount of time or up to a certain point level. The rules can obviously be changed as necessary for your group.