Suddenly ideas for new projects started coming today. I thought I would try to write them down here.
Idea #1: Students will think about different musical styles that interest them. They will then work in groups of 5-6, and decide together which style to pick out of all of the styles. They will (with guidance) find examples of the style that interests them as a study of the musical style they have chosen. They will write down common characteristics of the style. They can now either compose their own song in that musical style and perform it for the class, or they can take a well known song such as a folksong and re-imagine it with their style they have chosen. I can think of fantastic examples of music that has been re-imagined in this way. Here are a couple: Old MacDonald Had a Farm… Back in January, the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra had a concert entitled “A Symphonic Night in Havana” at which the group Tiempo Libre performed pieces inspired by Johann Sebastian Bach and re-invented with Cuban rhythms. You can listen to some examples here. Very fun music! On my YouTube channel, I have a section called Mary Had a Little Lamb with various different versions of the song as well. Fun to take familiar ideas and see what they can become. I had this idea because I was about to select music for students to perform, but then thought that perhaps they could pick their own song styles and create them by themselves to perform for the rest of the class, instead of having me be the person who gets to choose the song style.
Idea #2 – I like the idea of students hearing music from many time periods, and then choosing a one of the time periods from which they would select an upcoming piece to learn about and practice. In this way they will be taken out of our time period to listen to examples from other time periods, which is a good experience. Because we will look at various time periods, we can compare and contrast music of different time periods as we consider from which time period to select our piece which we will use for class. Based on studying music of the time period, we can select instruments for accompaniment as well…
Another idea just flew into my head right now!
Idea #3: I guess because I was thinking of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, that got me thinking about one of the pieces I had the pleasure of hearing (among all the others) at the New Music Festival this past Monday. The Elmer Iseler Singers, along with the talented bass clarinetist, Jeff Reilly, performed “Lamentatio Jeremiae Prophetae”. As described in the Winnipeg Free Press review: “Reilly’s masterful performance saw his instrument growling, grunting, wailing and soaring up to the heavens reflecting the anguished prayers of Jeremiah.” It was really incredible to listen to and watch. Using the instrument to reflect feelings reminded me of some activities that Doug Goodkin shared with us at an elementary jazz course offered in summer several years ago. The activities were used to help students develop freedom on their instruments as a precursor to improvisation – a very high level of achievement on any instrument. Perhaps starting with some of his activities, I would then like to move on to getting students to use music and drama together to create their own role playing plays with which their way of communicating with others in their play is done through the mood expressed through their instrument. Then taking this idea further, I would like them to find a piece (perhaps I would find a selection of pieces to choose from) with which the mood expressed in their play could now be expressed THROUGH the musical selection. As a reflection, they can explain how they brought in their mood from the play into the playing of the musical selection. They could also (in the reflection) have time to think about how a musician needs to be somewhat of an actor to truly get the mood across of the piece they are playing. To see an eleven year old who mastered this skill… check out this amazing video that I had the chance to see at SAGE a few years ago: Nathan Chan, Cellist, plays The Swan from a documentary entitled “The Music In Me”
I like to use the computer (and projector) in my classroom in pretty much every class. I use it in many different ways… My students themselves usually are engaged in playing traditional instruments, with the computer being used as a tool to help them de-code how music works.
Here are a few:
To help students de-mystify a song we are about to learn how to sight read, I like to start with actually creating the song right in from of them, with Sibelius, so that they aren’t overwhelmed by 25-50 or so little dots on the screen. You can see an example of how I do this in the video below:
I find students can relate to this much better when each note is placed in front of them, one at a time, helping them to track the notes left to right.
For a pre-reading activity, I have created a Power Point that gets them used to differentiating between lines and space, then notes on lines or in spaces… then naming the line notes and then the space notes so that they are ready to start reading our new song. I created it for older students who seem to need extra support with de-coding what they are seeing: helping them see notes on a line or a space, then using Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge, or FACE as a method. I think I might make another one using the idea of going up and down the alphabet as another method. What works with some doesn’t necessarily work with all so it is good to have many ways of visualizing something.
For even earlier music literacy development, I like to connect reading words with reading notes with students in Grade 1 as working on reading words is something they are doing at that time. Here is an example of a visual that we will work with in Mimio to help them develop their understanding of music notation:
I quite often like to refer to the Music Curriculum that I have saved on my bookmarks bar, so that students can immediately see criteria that we need to see for whatever we happen to be working on. For example, when students are creating music in small groups, we talk about what a student should be doing in their small group as they create their song. I decided it looked quite overwhelming to see this information in the curriculum itself, so I pasted the SLOs into a Mimio Notebook file. However this still looked quite busy, so I picked the main words in the SLOs and put them into Wordle and came up with this:
We talk about what the words mean. Then, as the students are working together on their compositions, I will type in some phrases I hear them say to each other during their practices. I’ll make some up: “When I play my xylophone part, you should come in right after I finish the melody.” “One, two , ready, go!” “Should we have 2 sections to our song?” At different points during the class, I may get everyone to see some of the phrases I have “collected” and ask them to think about which sentence could potentially go with which criteria element. I find this helps them think about all the skills they are accessing as they go through the process of creating music. Many of the words above don’t have to be for music class, which I point out as well. Many of the skills listed above would be needed to work on any project, in many workplaces.
I like to use the Mimio Notebook program to quickly capture song forms, in particular the song forms of these pieces that they create, so they can see a visual example of what it is they created. I love the songs that emerge, that just naturally use forms such as canon, theme and variation, ABA form… when we move to analysing the pieces at the end of this project, it is interesting for them to “discover” these song forms through this creative process:
Back to sight reading… I will take a screen shot of a song I create in Sibelius, and place it in the Mimio Notebook program. Then, we will sight read in a different way… by finding all the Gs one at a time and highlighting them with one colour, then all the Bs with a different colour, etc. This helps to de-mystify a song as well, to realize that in a song they are about to work on there may really only be 5 notes to think about:
I am fond of looking into other curricula for music themes (and in fact this is one SLO in the Manitoba Music Curriculum: “experiment with music to communicate ideas derived from a variety of stimuli (e.g., visual stimuli such as artworks or an aquarium; a remembered or an imaginary experience; a poem or a story; music-listening experiences; themes or concepts from other subject areas)”. Looking at the math curriculum, I looked into the learning outcomes and found “5.N.7 Demonstrate an understanding of fractions by using concrete and pictorial representations to create sets of equivalent fractions.” Because there is a natural connection between fractions and music, I created manipulatives that students work with to create rhythms. It improves their rhythm creation (they end up being much more syncopated and varied as they try different combinations and clap them as a small group), their rhythm reading ability, and helps with their understanding of fractions. I found a way to create moveable manipulatives for Mimio Notebook, which they use as a rhythm centre sometimes. I also use it simply to collect the rhythms they have created:
All of the items you see on the screen are moveable, so they can drag them on and off of the middle circle. I’ve used this for various different projects: creating polyrhythmic drumming compositions, creating rhythms to be used with homemade instruments (connecting to the classroom when they were working with the science of sound), sightreading more complicated syncopated rhythms for songs we might be learning…
For younger grades, it helps for learning vocabulary in a song. I will create Power Points with songs that have several verses. Or, I might draw the pictures myself. Students look at the pictures and tell me what they think is happening, and I will repeat it in French:
A useful way to use Mimio that I have found is that I am able to use slide after slide to track where we are in a composing project. Because of the visual from the slide of the previous class, students can quickly remember where they were in the project and continue on to the next step. EAch class that walks in has their slide pulled up on the screen, so I don’t need to pull out posters or re-draw things on a white board as I used to need to do before I had a projector and the Mimio.
The following idea is very helpful for students learning about chords… the green bars are moveable, and have been linked to move as a group so they can see which notes would create a chord. The roman numerals at the bottom move as a group as well to indicate which chord is being highlighted (I, IV, V etc). The bars on the right are not linked together so that I can show how there can be inverted chords. I will use this notebook page to explain chords we are about to use, or to help them discover and select chords they might use for a song they have created:
Creating non-traditional notation works well with the Mimio Notebook program as well. When working as a group with the class, students can contribute to the creation of a notation, selection of instruments, then find it very easy to follow when the final piece is played and recorded.
I often have videos that will connect to a project we are working on, such as Tan Dun’s Paper Concerto when we are working with paper compositions in Kindergarten (another connection to the science curriculum… more on that another time). I catalogue these videos on a YouTube Channel: youtube/ifucantalkucansing . I play videos through my channel so that I have more control on what students see when I open YouTube. Instead of seeing whatever is on the main page of YouTube that day, they just see my channel categories.
When the students are not in my room, I will create videos to help them practice at home. These pieces, and links to helpful music websites, can be seen at ifyoucantalkucansing.com .
As I mentioned in my first post, I also continue to search for new ideas for music education on Pinterest. My Pinterest boards are at: http://pinterest.com/prairiemusik/
There are occasions where students use the computer directly in class as well, such as with centres:
– A Garageband centre: students travel through the centres in groups of 4-5. Each group creates a layered song with Garageband loops. Group 1 creates first, then when group 2 comes, they ADD ON to group 1s piece (if group 1 feels that their song wasn’t finished). This is a centre I have at the end of the year for fun, and to think about how different people can have different ideas of where a song might go when we analyse the piece at the end of each centres class ( in fact this is a music curriculum SLO: “respect and acknowledge that individuals may have different interpretations and preferences regarding musical works and experiences”… in fact all of VM2 and VM3 would apply here) . When I use Garageband as a large group to create a loop piece, we tend to work more on musical form: thinking about how to structure a piece using sections, bridges etc, so that is a bit different.
– music learning website centres
There are so many ways that technology can be helpful in music class so that students can move quickly on to composing, playing and appreciating music…
I am a music specialist in Louis Riel School Division. I am interested in ways to create deeper learning through inviting students to use their creativity and problem solving skills to learn about the world through the arts, and particularly music. I aspire to create projects that have a sense of flow between one activity to the next, which would weave a tapestry of connection through a common overarching theme, all the while working on their playing skills.
I find that our Manitoba Music Curriculum has been one resource that has given me the inspiration be interested in creating such projects. The curriculum is created around the theme of a butterfly, with 4 wings with the idea that each of the wings does not work independently; they work together in an interconnected fashion. As it says in the centre of the butterfly:
“Just as real wings work synchronously with each other, the essential learning areas are intended to function in an integrated way. Rich thematic music-making experiences will invariably integrate learning outcomes from two, three, or all four essential learning areas.”
When I first saw this curriculum, I hadn’t always been using the ideas in an integrated fashion. As my teaching practice transforms to that of working with this new curriculum, I have become much more comfortable with envisioning ways to incorporate each element into new learning.
I look forward to sharing ideas, and learning some new ones as I join the already rich community of educators around the world who connect through blogging, and various social media platforms.
One area I can share is my Pinterest boards, where I have found so many wonderful ideas and blogs of educators who are passionate about teaching and learning.
♪ ♫ ♩PrairieMusik: Education Through Music and the Arts ♪ ♫ ♩ 