| Pay Me My Money Down | Lead class while singing the song |
While playing uke, I led the class in while I sang the chorus; it only took two iterations of the chorus to get the class inside the room. I then tried teaching them the chorus to them, which I had prewritten on the board. They sang it with ease. (I need to make sure more lyrics that I actually get to are on the board.) I then took about 30 seconds to talk about what the song was about, and how while no one was really going to jail, the workers really wanted to get paid. I then had them respond back to me with the 2nd and 4th lines of the chorus as I sang the first stanza. I also pointed to the board when it was time for the class to respond, which helped, I think. I then followed up the first stanza with another iteration of the chorus. I then sang the third stanza with the same prompting for an answerback, and then another iteration of the chorus. Next, I asked the class if this was a happy or sad song. I hadn't really talked about major vs. minor, and I wasn't going to yet, but I was curious to see what the class responses were, since this was a song with hard (as in life-hard) lyrics to a major tune. There wasn't any real right or wrong answer here. I then asked the class if the song sounded happy or sad without the words, and few could disassociate the song from the words. I then made up bogus lyrics talking about ice cream and such to the tune, and that of course made the class believe it was quite a happy song. I then followed up with singing the 4th stanza, while prompting the class to respond. And of course, I ended with an iteration of the chorus. If you're wondering about the 2nd stanza, well, here's the whole song: 1. Well I thought I heard the captain say, [pay me my money down], tomorrow is our sailing day [pay me my money down] 2. Soon as the boat was clear of the bar, [pay me my money down], the captain hit me with the end of a spar, [pay me my money down] 3. I wished I was Mr. Howard's son, [pay me my money down], sit in the house and watch the work get done, [pay me my money down] 4. It's been 40 days and nights at sea, [pay me my money down], the captain worked every dime from me, [pay me my money down] I figured I'd skip the 2nd stanza and not have to explain why I was hit by a spar. | |
| Still Gotta Get Up | Teach a little more of the song |
I used the familiar "Well Enough Said" as a transition, but then I then introduced the group response, "Still gotta get up in the morning". We practiced this for a bit, and then I played the song on the boombox. While the song was playing, I passed out one rhythm stick to each of the students. (I wanted to keep their attention and make the 2nd stick a dangling carrot so that I could cover more material.) Each time the song featured "Well Enough Said", I prompted the students to do the extended response. After the song ended, I asked the students what the tempo was of the song. I also had to consequently review what "tempo" meant. I then reviewed the other 3 tempo terms that we had covered in previous classes. I then passed out a second stick while replaying Still Gotta Get Up, although I didn't let the song complete for time considerations. | |
| Rhythm Sticks | Practice simple patterns |
After a quick stick review, I had the students follow me just keeping a beat, which still takes a little longer to do than I hoped. Once I had the students all together, I then wrote four Kodaly ta's on the board to represent the even stick hits we were doing. I offered to the class that musicians like to count in four, and when we have four lines/parts/beats, we have a "measure". Each one of the beats represents a quarter of the measure, and so each of those taps is a quarter beat/note. Yay math. The first rhythm I had the class play was simply 4 quarter beats. In keeping with the theme of "4", I counted to 4 before starting, as I wanted to get them used to also counting with me. Then, I replaced the second beat with a pair of eighth notes, and I drew them connected in Kodaly fashion. We then played the rhythm together (4 beats on, 4 beats off), until it was reasonably together. Next, I changed the 4th beat also to a pair of eighth notes, and we practiced again. Next, I changed the last beat to a set of 4 sixteenth notes. I don't recall talking about sixteenths, but the though of squeezing all of the notes in one beat was an exciting thought for the students. They never really got it down cleanly, even when slowing down the rhythm, but it was a lot of fun. For the last few minutes, I had the class do rhythm echos similar to what I did a few weeks ago, where I played about a measure's worth of stuff, and the class repeated what I played. I eventually migrated the class back to the Kiakahi rhythm that I taught a few weeks ago, which some remembered. Then, I played Kiahaki while cleaning up the sticks. | |
If I had more time, I was going to try to introduce a triplet - that may be something that I do the next time I have the class work with sticks. Speaking of sticks, this class was far more successful than last week's class, and so I may just have to do more sticks earlier. I'll also have to find a way to sneak in other percussive instruments, as I think it would be interesting for the students than to just play with sticks all day.
I had Agadu ready just in case I needed more material. To no surprise, I didn't need it.
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