Teaching Notes, 20101215

It was the last class before winter break, and so it was really important for me to get something that was somewhat holiday related. At the same time, it was becoming apparent that the students were responding well to the instruments, so yet again, I had more instrumentation going on.

Jingle Bells	Lead class while singing
I suppose I took a minor risk thinking that most students knew the song, and so I told the students before entering the class to sing along, even if they didn't know the song. Fortunately, I didn't notice anyone who didn't know the song, and most sang with gusto that I hadn't witnessed in a while.
Drumming, rhythms	Continue working on rhythms, try to get in more instruments
This time, I had four lines of rhythms already written on the board: drum: quarters on 1st and 3rd beats blocks: 4 quarters bells: ti-ti-ta, ti-ti-ta triangle: quarter note on the 4th beat I first had the students warm up by clapping a measure of quarter notes. Each time, I counted 1-2-3-4 and then we all clapped together. I never extended past one measure until much later. Then, I had the students practice just the first line. I had quarter rests written on the board so that the students understood that there was still something in place of notes for those beats. Similar to the previous week, it took a little bit of practice to get the students to do nothing during the rests, and some resorted to the same arms-wide-apart to avoid clapping during rests. After the students were able to play the drum part correctly, I had two students placed behind chinese drums, and we all played or clapped together once, followed by the drummers playing their part while the rest of the group clapped quarters. Next, I had three students play blocks on the quarter notes, since that was actually their part. I still had the rest of the students continue to clap quarters while the block and drum players played their parts. At this point during the first class, I noticed that the drummers weren't all that loud, so I doubled up on drum players (two per drum). Next, I had the noninstrument students clap the bell part. (I had one lucky student demo it for the class.) After a few practices, I then had 4 students come up and play the bell part while the rest of the seated students clapped with them. Then, I had the other instrumentalists play their part. Finally, I had a student come up and take a triangle, but for time reasons (and since we sort of covered a similar triangle part the previous week) we didn't practice this, but I checked to make sure that the student knew what to do (e.g. play on the 4th beat). I then had the instrument players (the "band", as one teacher called them) practice a bit, repeating the measure. I then told the rest of the seated students to sing with me. I then broke into Jingle Bells, and the students sang reasonably well with the band. For the first class, after singing, I tried to do a wholesale swap of students to the instruments, but that turned into chaos. We never did get a chance to play the instruments, and so I ended up just having the class exit as we ran out of time trying to do the swap. For the second class, I had the class sing one more time while having the band again start, but this time significantly faster than before. That got the class rocking. The students had so much fun that after the instruments were put away, they wanted to sing again, so as they were lined up to exit, we all sang Jingle Bells one last time.

The second class was a whole lot of fun, and I realize that I probably should have used holiday material in earlier classes. The students really do respond well with songs they know, and so I may end up bringing in some additional common songs, which I've avoided in past years, thinking that they'd know them anyway.

Teaching Notes, 20101208

Today's class was held in the middle of a bit of a rainstorm, so I wanted to get the students into the classroom as quickly as possible.

Palo Bonito	Lead class while immersing the students in the song
I repeated the chorus twice while trying to get as many kids into the classroom as possible. I may have had to whip out one of the verses, but I don't quite remember if it was required. After all of the students were in, I tried to teach them the chorus, which turned out to be pretty easy. After teaching them the chorus, I did sing a stanza, and then had the students come in with the chorus. This was the first time that I sang anything significant in Spanish... to a class filled with native Spanish speakers. I recall a few comments from the kids on the order of "he speaks Spanish?" It was amusing, and I'm glad I survived. To help me with the song, I did have the ukulele with me this time around.
Drumming, rhythms	Continue working on rhythms, try to get in more instruments
Yet again, I wanted to have the students practice rhythms with instruments. We spent a decent amount of time reviewing last week's concepts around quarter/eighth/sixteenth notes. Then, I passed out rhythm sticks to the students while practicing some additional patterns on the board. I had two students trade in their sticks for places behind the drums, and they were assigned the first beat of each measure. I then had the rest of the group delete the first beat of each measure. I also eventually added a second measure to the pattern, allowing for some slightly greater complexities. Next, I added three triangle players, who were responsible for playing the 8th beat of the 2-measure pattern. With the little time I had left, I deleted one of the beats in the 8 measure pattern, and I had the students try to keep with the rest i the middle. It took a little while for the students to get this right, and I had to have the students gesture with open arms so that they wouldn't accidentally play on the rest.

Now, all that doesn't sound like much, but it was quite a full class, enough so that I spilled a little into the next class' time. I still had Longer/Faster ready, and some holiday songs just in case.

Teaching Notes, 20101201

I only have 3 more classes before the end of the calendar year, and so far I really haven't done a whole lot that is seasonal, and so I wanted to provide something that was related to the holiday season.

March of the Toy Soldiers (Nutcracker)	Lead class listening to music, have students move to the music
Before I led the students in, I asked the students to show me how they'd move to the music. "Show me, don't tell me" I asked. That wasn't terribly successful; many of the students recognized the music, and as we walked in, there was still a lot of chatter. A few would move a little bit, but not a whole lot. After the students were in, I then played the three patterns of the song, and then asked a student to illustrate how he or she would move to that part of the song.
Music Forms	Have students recognize the patterns to the March of the Toy Soldiers, and to Hello World
The March of the Toy Soldiers has 3 different patterns to them, and I had pre-cut the three parts (each about 13 seconds) and played each back. I then had students try to describe the parts. The first one (which starts the song) was described as "high". The second one was described initially as "lower". I then played the third pattern, which was also described as "high", which allowed me to explain to the students that oftentimes "high" and "low" aren't enough. The students then added that the first pattern was "happy" or "stepping" or "marching", the second pattern was more stern or serious, and the third pattern was fast and sounded like someone was frightened or running away. I chose one of the students who provided descriptions and named the pattern after them. Using the students' first initial, I then replayed the entire song, while asking the students what pattern they were hearing. The pattern on paper is AABAACAABAA, but for the kids' sake, it was reduced to ABACABA. That still is not usually the first form that one sees when extracting forms from a song. I then spent a little time ad-hoc reviewing Hello World, and I had the students try to deduce the pattern of the song. To my delight, there were several students who remembered both the chorus and the first stanza, and when I wanted to show how the stanza pattern showed up again, a few were able to remember the words to the second stanza too! I told the children that Hello World's ABABA is more typical of kids music.
Drumming, rhythms	Continue working on rhythms, try to get in more instruments
Similar to the previous week, I first had the students try to follow clapping 4 beats, and then we worked through the same concepts with 4 steady beats as before - 4 beats in a measure, 4 ta's, 4 quarter notes, etc. I then moved onto eighth notes, and talked about the speed between eighth notes and quarter notes. Finally, we reviewed the sixteenth notes and the mathy relationship between sixteenth notes, eighth notes, and quarter notes. This week, the large Chinese drums to be used for the school's entry in the 2011 Chinese New Year Parade had arrived, and so I had a student come up and play the 1st beat of each measure while everyone else kept beat clapping. I then had the students delete the first beat (i.e. the drummer had a 1-beat solo) while everyone else kept clapping the latter 3 beats. It actually took a bit of effort on my part to keep the drummer hitting consistently on the first beat, and I had to employ a combination of gestures + counting. I then had a second drummer come up, which, similar to last week, meant that the drummers had to pay attention to each other in order to sound like one drum. I really did want to get in the other instruments, but I never got the chance.

I had a few other things in my back pocket this week, including potentially the Longer the Faster, which the students have been asking for.

Teaching Notes, 20101124

This was the class leading up to Thanksgiving, and so I wanted to have something fun for the students, and that meant.... instruments!

Everybody Oughta Know	Lead class singing quickly
I wanted to get the students into the room as quickly as possible, so I used Everybody Oughta Know. The energy in the classes wasn't terribly high, so I had to go through the song at least 3 times before I felt I had command of their attention.
Rhythms on Board	Review simple Kodaly rhythms, up to 16th notes
Before diving into rhythms and terms, I first started clapping and stepping in a slow-ish (Andante, as someone noted) rhythm and I got most of the class to follow me. There are always some students ready to start rushing the beat, and so I had to be quite deliberate in keeping things at a regular, slowish pace. I first started talking about quarter notes/ta, and then I immediately drew 4 lines. I reviewed the usual things ("most important number in music", 4 beats = 1 measure, 1 ta = quarter note as it's one quarter of a measure) with the ta's. I also had the students practice clapping the 4 even beats and nothing more (which took some practice). Next, I moved to ti-ti's, and I drew a set of 8 of them. I then went through a similar exercise, backhandedly focusing on the math of the matter. Getting the students to clap just the 8 notes also took a little bit of practice. Each time I would give them a count of four before clapping, emphasizing that most important number. Finally, I drew out ti-ki-ti-ki's, which only a few students really remembered from several weeks ago. I then asked the students the same sort of mathy questions. Clapping this was amusing, and I had to slow down the beat in order to make it not sound like a mess. I then reduced the sixteenth notes back down to eighths, and drew a second measure of quarters. I then had the students clap the two measures in series, after answering questions about the total beats, notes, etc. We even played the two measures repeated once in succession, which the students performed easily. It was helpful to have the 2nd of the two measures straight quarter notes, as it seemed to bring the students back together, especially during the repeats. (I didn't write out the repeat notation (:||)).
Makeshift drumming	Get selected students to start drumming
There are no drums in the school's music room, but I really wanted to get some sort of rhythm instrument playing that could allow students to lead the rest of the group. And so, I took some of the plastic bins used to hold sticks and other instruments, turned it upside down, and used it as a makeshift drum. I used a glockenspiel mallet as the drum mallet, which was strong enough to produce a sound without causing any damage. I first had a student practice hitting on the downbeat on my cue. I then had the students clap 4 beats along with the drum, while the drummer played on beat 1. I then stopped cueing, to see if the drummer could maintain a steady beat. While I anticipated some speed-up from the students, the drummer's acceleration had a more dramatic effect on the rest of the class instead of the reverse. I repeated this exercise with another drumming student. Next, I had two students come up, and they tried to keep a beat together, which required suddenly an extra level of concentration between the two of them. That turned out to be pretty difficult, especially when I stopped cueing the students.
More Parts	Introduce rest, triangle
With two measures already in on the board, I erased the 3rd beat of the 1st measure, and then I had the students try to clap it. It took a little while to get the students used to playing "nothing", but they got the hang of it after a few tries. I had to keep stomping to note that the beat was still going; we just weren't playing anything while at rest. I wanted to eventually get the students playing to "The Longer the Faster" with drums and triangle, so I sort of forced upon the students an introduction of the triangle. We spent about a minute talking about the proper way to hold a triangle, and why we grip a loose handle, rather than the metal triangle itself when playing. I then took a red marker and wrote a line (ta) at the 4th beat of the 2nd measure, and when the students clapped the rhythm, I played the triangle. I was curious if any of the students remembered that the song - none did (even though they knew that they played some sort of game walking across the room), and so I had them repeat the pattern, but counting 1 through 8 (not 1-4 1-4), and at that point, they remembered! I told them that we'd play the game... next time.

It was good to have the teachers and not me choose who got to play the drums. The students clearly keyed on the fact that the better behaved students were being rewarded, and I think that certainly helped the students pay attention more. I even had one student in the first class who typically never engages the class pay attention and respond to my questions this time around.

I spent probably the entire class time using my feet to illustrate the beat. That was a lot of stomping.

I actually had a lot more prepped for the students, as I had triangles, shakers, tambourines, and little cymbals out for everyone. But, alas, I didn't get to them.

Teaching Notes, 20101117

Unfortunately, I'm writing this nearly 3 weeks after I conducted this class, so my memory is a little hazy. I know I wanted to revisit Still Gotta Get Up with the hopes that the classes would be able to perform the song one day.

Still Gotta Get Up	Lead class into the room w/ song, teach bridge
Similar to what I did in a past week, I had the class walk into the room as I was playing the song. The song is pretty loud and it kept the students chattering as we walked in. Once the class was in, I stopped the music and then asked them to listen for something constantly repeating ("still gotta get up..."). I then resumed playing the song and kept playing until a number of students seemed to recognize the ostinato. Of course, I introduced that term to them, although I doubt any of them are going to really remember that term. I started teaching the bridge, which I had prewritten on the board ("well it don't matter..."). I had the lyrics written out in different colors, with the first line in brown, the next two lines in red and blue (first half red, second half blue), followed by a line in brown. First, I tried to get the students to feel comfortable with singing the chorus slowly, all in one order. (We spent just a little bit of time also talking about the word choice of "don't" versus "doesn't".) We then spent some time rehearsing the chorus in parts - with everyone singing the first line, and the having the class split the next two. The entire class then sang the last line of the bridge together. I had to get the students familiar with the separate parts before trying to sing the song at tempo since the split lines actually overlap, and in order to illustrate this, I simply had the students follow my visual cues as to when to start singing their separate parts. We rehearsed a few times, going faster each time, until we were close to tempo. Then, we tried singing the bridge to the music, with again me cueing the class as to when to start the bridge. (I started the music about a minute into the song.) The first attempt was pretty messy. The second attempt was a lot better, and I had the class try to sing along with the rest of the song ("Still Gotta Get Up..."). The end of the song ends with an exclamatory "Get Up!", which caught the attention of some students, and so when we tried the bridge a 3rd time, I had the students shout out "Get Up!"
Agadu	Review, re-dance
Agadu was pretty successful last week, and so I wanted to do it one more time, especially since I asked the students during the previous class what language the song was in. I simply started with some hand motions in order to get the students' attention, and then I started motioning the Agadu signs that I used during the previous week. As usual, I asked a few questions in order to get a feel of what the students remembered from the previous week. I had to remind the students again about some safety rules about movement, as some students during the walking portions still had a penchant of walking too far, or worse, crashing into things or people. We practiced Agadu once, and then I asked the students about the language again. Nobody was able to determine that the song was in Hebrew. We sang the song about halfway through before I motioned the students to march out of the room.

I'm pretty sure I did something else this day, but unfortunately my notes regarding doing unplanned things are a little scant. Oh well.

This was the first time the principal watched the class, as she stopped by to get something out of the room. She seemed quite pleased.