| 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.
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