Teaching Notes, 20110316

I was ill the previous week, and so I didn't have class. However, I had already been planning something special for this week's class - today was the day before St. Patrick's Day, and I wanted to try the Irish Jig that worked so well from my class from the previous year. The challenge was trying to get the larger of the two classes to dance well, and so I decided to reserve the gym for class this time, so that I could have more room.

Just in case, I went out the night before and purchased a lot of thick rope so that I could mark out a larger circle on the ground. I also purchased some blue painter's tape and marked the floor for a dance that I ultimately didn't do, but it does seem that the markings on the ground do help the kids. Anyhow, here's how the class went.

Bonanopstekker

Lead class into the room, while dancing. Teach as much of the dance as possible.

I started the song and led the students briskly into the class and around the circle. I then would casually have them copy what I was doing, and I'd walk in order, but not necessarily methodically to the changing of the music, to each phase of the song. After the music stopped, I then spent time talking about each phase, and I walked the students through each section. The dance that I had planned was as such (16 beats for each line): walk to the right, 4 claps walk to the left, 4 claps walk into the circle, wave, 4 claps, walk out walk into the circle, wave, 4 claps, walk out When we were doing the song, it became very clear quickly that having the students walk into the circle was going to generate a mess, and so I reversed those lines, having the students walk out before waving, and walking in. I then had the students try dancing to the recording of the song. The recording is actually pretty fast, and quickly it became apparent that the class couldn't keep up with the music without aggressive prompting. I also had to cut the walking to the right/left down to 8 beats, stop the class, and then have them clap; otherwise, it was just too much to have them do (and too much to prompt). Even walking away or towards the circle required quick thinking, and I had to rely on borrowing time during the wave in order to keep the students in time. After the song was done, there were already some students who asked to sit down, as they were pretty tired. Little did they know they were up for more (soon).

Violin Introduction

Re-introduce the violin, review instrument theory

A few weeks ago, I spent maybe half a minute showing the classes the violin, and so I decided to introduce properly the instrument this time, especially since the next activty was going to feature some music with violin. :) Anyhow, I showed the students the instrument, and I had them strum lightly (once) the strings as I walked around the circle with it. We then discussed the instrument itself - metal strings, wood body, no frets, etc. I showed them how plucking the string made sound that didn't last very long, and it had to do with the fingers on the board. One student, who strummed the strings between the bridge and the chinrest was able to explain why his strums produced such high pitches. (yay!) I then brought out the violin bow. Plenty of students knew that a violin bow contained horse hair, but few knew why, and we talked about the microscopic hooks. I then played the instrument for them, which always grabs their attention pretty well. I then brought out an electric violin that has no resonating chamber, and I asked the students what they would hear if I played the instrument as is. Eventually some of the students noted that they wouldn't hear the instrument very well because of the lack of the chamber. At some point I should probably get myself a small amplifier; otherwise, I'm doomed to end the electrical demo right there.

Irish Jig

Teach the Irish Jig

Last year, the Irish Jig had such great lasting value that I brought it back at least twice after St. Patrick's Day, and I think there was enough success with these classes that I'll bring it back at least once. I had to teach this of course in pieces slowly, and in each case, I only had students do a walk, followed by two arm stars, followed by the leprechaun shuttle. What I found was that in order to keep time, I would have the students do the motion of the moment (see below) in 8 beats, and then spend the next 8 beats trying to get prepare for the next motion. I had a simplified motion set: arm-in-arm-in-arm walk counterclockwise right arm star (clockwise) left arm star (ccw) leprechaun shuttle So that people knew who the leprechauns were, I had those lucky students wear a green sash around their neck. The normal jig has more direction changes, but when students are walking arm-in-arm-in-arm, trying to engineer a quick directional switch is quite a challenge. Just getting the students to line up again facing counterclockwise just so the leprechauns knew which way to go was tough. For the first class, I was able to get perhaps a little more than half the class participating, and for the 2nd class, I did get the entire class going. I think I needed a wider circle for the 1st class should I try this again. I didn't get as much squeamishness as I had in past dancing attempts, although I guess during this day, people weren't really holding hands.

I'd have to say, that actually worked out a lot better than I expected (or feared). I didn't go back and have the students try to pick out the violin in the Irish Jig music, but that didn't matter. (The music coming out of the boombox was low anyway, as I had forgotten to set the volume on my laptop to the maximum.) I think I'm going to try to reserve the gym at least once more this school year.

I had a different set of backpocket items, although I was prepared to use them at any point, not just at the end of class, in case I felt that things were moving quickly. Those items included How Do You Dootee, Thady You Gander, and The Longer The Faster.

Teaching Notes, 20110302

It's nearly spring, and I was determined to get at least a little bit of musical notes on a staff by this time of the year. So, I sort of forced it...

Well Enough Said	Lead class into the room, review bridge
I wanted to lead the class while playing Sweet Honey's version of the song, which is pretty fast, and so initially I had the students try to alternate steps and claps. For neither class was this mini-exercise terribly successful, so I led the students into class while listening to the song. Similar to past classes, I had the students walk in all the way, and then I led the front of the class towards the back of the rows and across the width of the room again. (In the 2nd class, I remembered to remove one of the lines.) I had prewritten the bridge on the board again, and when the recording hit the bridge, I motioned to the class to read and follow if they could, and some did try, even though the recording is actually on the fast side for the students. After the song ended, we spent time reviewing the bridge, and we practiced it a few times before singing it again to the recording at full speed. Now, the second class, despite being short on time due to a major assembly scheduled right after class, actually seemed to be really getting into the song, and so I spent nearly the entire remaining time working on this bridge. We did stop to discuss the word choice ("it don't matter") of the song along with trying to sing the middle lines as a call-and-answer effect. We even got to review the repeat symbol (in both classes) as I wrote the last 3 sung lines on two lines. Anyhow, the second class seemed perfectly happy practicing the bridge over and over until we got it close to the speed of the recording, and I'd have to say, they sounded pretty good!
Somewhere Over The Rainbow	Examine pitch/rhythm for the 1st line, write notes on bars!
For the first class, I walked through the first two lines of SoTR and I had the class recreate the pitch graph while asking them to sing internally the notes of the lines. For the second class, we talked quickly about rhythm, and we created rhythms only for the 1st, 3rd, and 4th measures, mostly for simplicity and mostly because there was so little time. For the 2nd class, I also spent a little bit of time introducing the half note, which they had not seen yet in class. In both classes, I then talked rather quickly about uniting rhythm and pitch. For the first class, I reviewed the half note, and for the 1st measure, I wrote out two half notes, each reflecting the two notes (higher, than lower). In the second class, I reviewed the relative pitches of the notes, and again I wrote out the 1st measure using half notes. Then, in both classes, I overlayed five horizontal staff lines, and revealed to the class how notes are written on a staff. I'm not so sure how well that stuck, and so I'm sure I'll try to sneak in staff writing again.
Violin introduction	Introduce the violin
In the very little time that I had, I introduced the violin to both classes, first by talking about how ukuleles and guitars were played. In past years, I've talked about violins and compared them to electric violins, but I didn't get a chance to even do that. My intention was to play some violin music for them this week, and for next week, teach the irish jig, but I didn't even play for them the music. However, I did get to spend a little bit of time talking about the violin and the role of the bow.

I'm partially set for next week; I'll definitely be talking more about the violin, the electric violin, and with some luck I'll even get the students in both classes to dance the irish jig.

Teaching Notes, 20110223

Ok, I admit it, I didn't really have strict musical goals here; I just wanted to review old stuff and teach cool stuff. :) Well, perhaps I did wnt to try to get some more rhythm theory in.

Hello World	Have kids sing the song upon entry, teach 2nd stanza
I originally planned on having the students walk in and sing at the same time. However, I found that it was just simpler to lead them into class and then sing, while I strummed a few things on the guitar. In past classes, I sort of zigzagged the students into the stadium seating arrangement; this time, I led the students as far as I could into the classroom, across the front of the room, and then I sort of circled around the back; effectively, I walked a 3 parts of a rectangle. It almost worked for the first (and larger) class, and for the second class it worked quite well. I also realized that the 2nd class can all fit on 3 lines instead of 4, and so I'll have to remember to arrange the kids in 3 sections instead. I then proceeded to sing Hello World, and in both classes, a number of students started singing with me instead of echoing me, which was perfectly fine as far as I was concerned. When the song got to the 1st stanza, I slowed down thinking that the students wouldn't remember it very well, but to my surprise, they indeed did remember the words, and sang along without missing much of a beat. After another iteration of the chorus, I then pointed to the board where I wrote the 2nd stanza, and the students were able to manage reading the somewhat less familiar words while singing. Yay!
Seasons	Review, change lyrics
I wanted to get through a quick iteration of Seasons, mainly because at some point later I'm going to try to do the round again. But, as an excuse, I talked about how it was possibly going to snow in San Mateo (really!), and so we changed the 2nd line to "see the snow falling", twice. I also took the (unplanned) opportunity to introduce the repeat symbol to the students; to help them remember, I pointed out that two lines + two dots = two times. Anyhow, we sang the song twice through quickly with the new lyrics.
Rhythm Exercises	Get students to build their own rhythms
I was still looking for a way to get students to think about rhythms and keeping in time, and so I introduced a bit of a point system. I first drew out 4 quarter notes, and we reviewed how the four represented a measure. We also very quickly reviewed 8th and 16th notes. I then gave each note type a point value: 4 for quarter notes, 2 for eighth notes, and 1 for sixteenth notes. (I didn't use the numeric terms in class so much; I kept referring to the notes as ta/ti/tiki when I remembered to do so.) We then started replacing each of the beats with something that was also 4 points - e.g. two ti's, a set of 4 tiki's, etc. At some point, someone asked about putting in only one or two tiki's, and then we started getting into the math of it all - e.g. how to fill the remaining points. Ultimately, we ended up with a beat featuring an eighth and two sixteenths, which also allowed me to introduce the "flagged" eighth and sixteenth solitary notes - something that hopefully gets the classes closer to reading real notes on a staff. The "flag" moniker worked very well - I convinced them that in order to have a solitary eighth or sixteenth, one had to pull a note from its set, and that broke the top bar(s) and left a flag. Every time we modified one of the 4 beats, we spoke the rhythm and then we all clapped the rhythm. I think the maximum consecutive sixteenth notes the class can sustain was 6, and so a few times I had to rearrange the rhythm just a little bit so that the kids weren't clapping in mud. In all, I thought this was more effective than my past attempts to get students to recognize and work with rhythms on the board.
Tuwe Tuwe	Introduce song
I didn't get to cover Tuwe Tuwe for the first class, so I decided to cover the song again for both classes. For the first class, I had to start from scratch, and while I was able to get through the entire song, I certainly have to review the song several more times before I can achieve a quorum of familiarity with it. For the 2nd class, reviewing took a lot longer than I had expected, and while I got to add clapping to the song, I didn't feel like the students still had good command of the song. I did play for them the Sweet Honey in the Rock recording, with the clapping, which inspired a few students.

I had the students exit to a singing of We Shall Not Be Moved. I feel that I definitely have some good areas for the students to grow, particularly rhythms and Tuwe Tuwe. I do hope I can evolve the rhythm writings into musical notewriting.