Teaching Notes, 20110216

Last week was a pretty good week, and so I wanted to continue building on the same material from that last week's class. I also wanted to try to get in some exposure to alternate melodies of familiar songs.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow	Review song, introduce bridge
I had the students walk into class again with me just strumming my ukulele a bit, and when they were seated, I had them sing with me SOtR at a pace that was a little faster than the previous week. However, because the song starts with that octave interval, I had the students match my voiced pitch, and I bounced back and forth from high C to low C. After singing the two stanzas that we covered last week, I then sang for them the bridge ("Someday I'll wish..."). I didn't expect the students to know the bridge; I just sang through it, but when we got to the last stanza, I then told the students that it was the same melody that they had been singing earlier, and so we all were able to sing that last stanza together. I didn't really go back to have the students learn the bridge; it's a totally different melody and I'm sure I'll be returning to this song several times over before the year's end. One side note - I actually gave myself only a few minutes to figure out the chords to the bridge, and I had to fake it a little bit when I sang it for the students. The next time I revisit this song, I really should try to reverse-engineer the chords in advance of the class.
Rhythm recreation	Introduce half and whole notes, recreate rhythm to 1st line of SOtR
I first had the students clap beats while singing the 1st line of the song (up to "Way up high"). I then discussed with the class what it meant to have a note span two beats (or claps). I then had to review with the students how most measures had 4 beats, and ta's were "quarter" notes because we could fit four of them in a measure. I then was hoping that students would organically realize that if we only had two notes spanning an entire measure then each of those notes were half of a measure, but that didn't quite happen. And so, I introduced formally the concept of a half note. I didn't remember the kodaly notation for a half note, and since eventually I wanted to have the students be able to read notes on a staff (with heads), I simply wrote a half note as a stick with an open circle on it. So far, to get this far took a lot more time than I had hoped, so I quickly had the students try to figure out what other measure in this first line also had half notes, and eventually they got it. I then moved to the last measure ("high"), and I introduced the concept of the whole note (which I just drew as a circle). I didn't make the pun of calling it a "hole" note. I didn't have enough time to really talk about the 2nd measure, which would have been at least somewhat interesting (fitting 5 notes in 4 beats). This exercise was something I did only with the first class, as I realized that the exercise was a lot more difficult than I had originally imagined. In retrospect, I also probably should have had noted the difference between a half note and a quarter note with a quarter rest.
Pitch Investigation	Review pitches of the scale, write relative pitch (graph) of 1st stanza of SOtR
Knowing how difficult rhythm recreation was for the 1st class, I decided to switch gears for the 2nd class and have them recreate a relative pitch graph for the entire 1st stanza of the song. However, since I hadn't really reviewed pitches this calendar year with the 2nd class, I did that with them quickly - I set up four chairs, spaced in a line. I then had the students sing with me the Kodaly scale. After hitting that high Do, I raced back to the start of the scale, and I had the students sing the low Do. I comically went back and forth to get the students singing that octave interval again, and then I asked them what that interval was. (No one remembered!) After a few hints, I had to offer up the answer, and then I had the students count with me as I walked up the scale so that they saw all 8 notes in the scale. We then embarked on creating the pitch graph of the first stanza. I did the first two notes for them, and then I had students guess whether the following note was higher or lower. I use the word "guess" here, because for the most part, many students were just guessing, rather than singing, and so I had to have the students sing the stanza from the beginning to the note that was in question, and as a result, we sang that first stanza a ton of times! (Side benefit: they really knew that first stanza well now!) I was hoping to have the students try to sing the entire first stanza as a descending scale, but I forgot to do that.
Alternate Song: SOtR	Play Iz's rendition of SOtR
Part of my goal for the year is to have students feel comfortable singing in their own way, and so I thought it would be helpful to give them real examples of alternate ways to sing familiar songs. Since the students knew how to sing SOtR, I played for them Iz's version, which starts similar, but then quickly diverges from the traditional version - in both pitch and lyric order. But, I think the students understood that the song still worked. Amusingly it seemed that students responded as if they were more familiar with this version than the original version.
We Shall Not Be Moved	Review, zipper in student submissions
I had the lyrics again written on the board, and we first sang through the lyrics as written. I then asked the students why I had the 1st and 3rd lines in a different color, and none recalled that those two lines were (1) substitutable and (2) alike (with respect to each other). In order to hammer home these two bits, I simply sang one of the many alternate lyrics (e.g. "when we sing together..."), and then the students realized what was happening. I then asked the students what they did during recess, and so I would then sing an equivalent of the ideas that the students provided. For the first class, I got through about 3 examples before I ran out of class time. For the 2nd class, however, I had plenty of time, and so we went through 3 examples before I started having the student who provided an idea come up and try to start the song - singing in solo (although I'd sing with the student to get it going). I didn't originally plan on having students get used to singing in solo, but hey - it worked out great. I had to remind each soloist to face the class instead of facing me, and that's going to be something they'll get used to as we have more solo opportunities.
Tuwe Tuwe	Introduce song
What is this... a backpocket item coming to life? Indeed, I had extra time with the 2nd class, and so I proceeded to introduce the song lyrics to them. The students were really captivated by the words, and I actually managed to have them echo the entire song line once (in pieces of course) before really running out of time. However, I did ask them to think about what language the song was sung in. I'm sure no one is going to come up with the right answer for next week.
Alternate Song: We Shall Not Be Moved	Play Sweet Honey in the Rock's version as students exit
Only the 2nd class had heard this version of We Shall, and so since we already covered one song sung in a different way, I wanted to expose the 1st class to this song as well while the students exited the room. I played it for the 2nd class too as they exited, and that definitely brought a smile to the students' faces.

The 2nd class activities seem so much more successful that I think I may try to do those for the 1st class for the following week - particularly the pitch graph and the solos. Tuwe Tuwe is definitely also coming back; I want eventually to have the students sing that song in a round.

Teaching Notes, 20110209

The school is actually sending a small troupe of students to the SF Chinese New Year parade, but that event isn't scheduled for nearly another two weeks, and so I wanted to keep having some element of the class relevant to CNY. At the same time, I wanted to sing another song that perhaps should be part of their repertoire at some point.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow	Teach class first two stanzas after entering class
Just about every week, I had the students sing/chant/step to something as they came in, and oftentimes the singing or chanting was never terribly effective, as students were more focused on entering the room and finding a place to sit. This time, I decided to just lead the students to their seats while just strumming the tune to Over the Rainbow on my ukulele. One or two students I think sort of knew what I was playing, but most didn't recognize the strumming quite yet. I billed the song to the students as something that most of them have probably heard at some point, and so then I then just sang the two stanzas to them while playing ukulele. I then proceeded to teach the song to them by echo, line by line. I had the lyrics already written on the board so that they could focus more on the music. "Somewhere" actually spans an octave, and so I spent an bit of extra time just trying to get the students used to the interval. We also reviewed the word "octave" and its significance. It's worth noting here that at the start of the year, most of the students wouldn't have been able to sing an octave interval, and now, they were all able to do the jump after I sang it for them. After we sang through the song's first two stanzas twice, I asked again who recognized the song, and fewer than half of the students said that they recognized the song, although that was more than the original one or two students who said so before we started singing as a group.
Rhythm Practice	Practice Rhythms found in Lion Dances
I wanted to revisit the same rhythm practice that I did (albeit rushed) last week with the 1st class, and so this was largely a repeat of that same exercise, with the same progression. This time, I spent more time trying to get the class repeating what I was doing, especially during the easier rhythms so that I knew I had everyone's attention. In particular, the first half of the rhythms all have a rest on the 4th beat, and I emphasized trying to get the students to do nothing during that 4th beat - which was surprisingly difficult! (I did allow them to count verbally '4'.) It seemed to help when I reminded the students about the 3-step walk that we did for the GongXi Ni march.' I also made sure to illustrate the rhythms using Kodaly markings on the board; to introduce the "next" rhythm, I simply added another vertical line and adjusted the horizontal lines as necessary. When we finished the 4th rhythm (before the addition of the sixteenth notes), I then passed out rhythm sticks, and we started to do the same rhythm list from the top, until again we finished that same 4th line. (I whipped out Everybody Oughta Know while passing out the sticks - the response rate was probably about 50%.) Then, I had them drum on the ground instead of tapping the sticks in the air, and that was a ton of fun for the children. (All kids like to drum.) I did have to make sure that the children had sufficient room in front of each other so that they wouldn't be rapping sticks on each others' backs. With the kids now drumming on the ground, I was able to then move to the fabled 5th lines, with the sixteenth notes! This is as far as I got with the 2nd class, but with the 1st class, I was able to get through until the 8th line (before adding a second set of sixteenth notes). I was sort of rushing the additions at the end of the 1st class, but I wanted to get to to a point where they could play continuously; when they tried, well, it sounded ok but quickly morphed into mud. I finished the day with the 2nd class with a quick singing of We Shall Not Be Moved, which left the kids quite happy.

I thought both classes did pretty well with the sticking and rhythms; near the end of each exercise, I had most of the students paying attention, and just about everyone was heeding the 4th beat rest (when we had it). If the children continue to respond well to the sticks, then I'll just keep introducing more and more with them.

My hope with Over The Rainbow was to provide another example of a song that can be sung in different ways; I'll be playing for them the Iz version soon.

Teaching Notes, 20110202

Happy Chinese New Year! This year, teaching music at a Mandarin immersion school, I was... totally unprepared for Chinese New Year. Well, maybe not entirely unprepared, but I didn't really have a grand plan for it, nor had I been building up relevant material with the students for CNY. Instead, I found myself doing the typical scramble the night before - this time, I wanted most everything I covered to be related to CNY.

I was, however, bailed out a little bit thanks to a CNY assembly at the school which was scheduled to start right when my 2nd class ended. As a result, I had a slightly shorter first class, followed by a significantly shorter second class. In short (no pun intended), I didn't have to provide an long list of CNY-related material for the students.

Gong Xi Ni	Teach a variant of the dance
So, the last time I did this song, in both classes the attempt was a minor disaster. The students couldn't really pull off the double circle, let alone the switching of partners. Plus, the students were hyper-squeamish about holding hands. And so, this time, I wanted to take things deliberately slowly. First, even before the students walked into the room, I had them practice outside taking three steps and clapping on the 4th beat. I emphasized the need to avoid stepping on that 4th beat, even though I figured it would be impossible for some students to get used to. After practicing this about 4 times outside, I then had the students follow me in, still doing the 3-step/clap pattern. I had the ropes arranged in a big circle today, and I led the students around the outside of the circle. After everyone was inside, I stopped the class, reiterated the need to try to stay still during the clap, and we tried doing the pattern first in place, and then ever so slowly (there was hardly any room with the 1st class) marching around in a circle. Finally after a few more iterations, I had the entire class take a step away from the circle. I then invited one better behaved student to come with me and try demonstrating the partnered march around the circle. However, instead of holding hands or arms, I used a single rhythm stick and held onto one end while the student held the other end. I then positioned the student on the outside of the circle (while I was inside), and I informed the class that the job of the marchers was to make sure that the stick was always over the rope. My hope was that this would mean that (1) students would always stay on their side of the rope, and (2) the students were paying attention to the rope and the circular path. I then proceeded to demonstrate with the student how to do the 3-step around the circle. However, clearly we could not clap, so I implored the rest of the students to do the clap. After a few iterations, I had another student come up and take my place for a few iterations. I think that having a few selected students raised the interest of most (not all) of the remaining students, although it was oftentimes still a bit of a struggle to keep everyone paying attention. Anyhow, I proceeded to add a pair, followed by more iterations, a few more times. Once I had 4 pairs of students, I then decided to introduce the partner switch. During the last time we tried this, I tried doing the double swap (both rings of students moving), and that ended in utter chaos. This time, I instructed the inner circle people to let go of the stick, and I then had the outer students freeze, but with the sticks out. Then, I had the inner circle students continue (in the same direction they were walking) to the next partner. I reminded the outer people that having the sticks out was important so that the inner people knew where to go; that seemed to keep most of the outer people from moving. We practiced this by doing one iteration of 3-step, followed by the switch. I then added another pair of students, and we practiced continuous 3-steps until I announced it was time to switch. For the first class, I added about 8 pairs of students, leaving about half the class on the outside clapping; for the second class, which is smaller, I added all of the students (12 pairs), which made for a somewhat cramped inner circle. The teacher was the last one clapping, so I gave him a pair of small Chinese cymbals which made his 4th beat clap a lot more pronounced. After practicing continuous 3-steps and me announcing a switch, I then had them march to a recording of Gong Xi. It worked! Well, at least the students kept their circles reasonably well, and there weren't any collisions. Gong Xi has stanzas that span 8 bars before "Gong Xi" is sung, and at the 7th bar, I would announce it was time to switch. That provided enough time for the switch and for the students to reposition themselves for more marching. Yay! Compared to the previous time I tried this, this was a complete success - the students were marching in pairs, with a bit of a challenging rhythm, and they were able to do a partner switch. Gong Xi is supposed to have students face and bow, but I figured that would be something for another day.
Rhythm Practice	Practice Rhythms found in Lion Dances
I suspected that the CNY assembly would feature something along the lines of a lion dance or some other traditional Chinese music, so I wanted to get the students used to following me in a rhythm that resembled some common drum rhythms featured by lion dance troupes. I didn't have much time for this in the 1st class (and I didn't get to do this with my 2nd class), but here was the progression that I had planned with the students: Q R Q R Q re Q R Q ee Q R ee ee Q R ess ee Q R ess ee Q re ess ee Q ee ess ee ee ee ess ee ess ee Q = quarter R = quarter rest e = eighth r = eighth rest s = sixteenth Each of the progressions adds only one more clap/hit. Naturally, we were practicing these at a really slow tempo. I only got to the 4th line before I ran out of time, but with that, I demonstrated what that line sounds like if we were to repeat the first line at a brisk tempo, and when doing so (on a large Chinese war drum), many students realized that they had heard something like that before. In order to usher the class out, I then played a short (about 24 second) recording of an actual lion dance troupe, complete with drum, gong, and cymbal.

So, that was really only one and a half activities for a day, but I thought the students actually got a decent amount out of it, and it was CNY relevant. Not all students in the 1st class got to dance, but I think that was probably ok, since the room that I have can't accommodate 16 pairs of students, and there were a few students who really could have caused some major disruptions had they been dancing along with everyone else.

I know I'm going to try to go back to the rhythm for the next class, since in that 1st class the students seemed very eager to learn more. During past classes when I had the students use rhythm sticks as drumsticks (while drumming on the ground), it seemed like I could get the students to follow me pretty well, and if I can get them to do that last line of the progression (above) at a good speed, it's going to sound awesome.