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.