Teaching Notes, 20111208 (2nd class)

There were only two more classes before the break for this group of students, and so I wanted to do more holiday stuff with them.

I had the students in two lines again; this seating arrangement seems to be working well.

March of the Toy Soldiers	Examine and recognize forms of the march
With the march playing in the background, I had the students quickly walk into the room and find a seat. Students commented that they knew that the song was from The Nutcracker. I then stopped the song once the students were settled, and we talked about the fact that music has a lot of patterns. I then proceeded to play the first pattern, and after playing it, I asked the students to tell me how they felt. Some noted that they felt happy, while others felt like they needed to be marching. I then played the second pattern, which led to students saying that they felt more angry or serious. I then had them describe how the two were different, and at some point students noted that the first version was definitely happier and higher, while the second pattern was lower and more serious. I then played the third pattern, which elicited a lot of surprise from the students - they noted it was faster, more hurried, and made them either nervous, scared, or feeling like they were being chased. I had three students come up, and I assigned each of the three students one of the forms. I then proceeded to play the whole march, and I asked the rest of the students whose musical pattern was currently playing. As the students shouted names, I wrote the first initial on the board, thus eventually forming the form of the song by the time the march had ended. I converted the three patterns to A-B-C, and that led to the duplicate-reduced pattern of ABACABA. Now, ABACABA is a bit complex, so I asked students to think about the forms of songs that we had sung before, such as "Hello World" (ABA), and "Jingle Bells (AB) and even Sarasponda (AAB).
I Think You're Wonderful	Try to sing the song with a split "new" (3rd line of chorus)
Knowing that the students were reasonably familiar with ITYW, I quickly had the students sing the song with me. Unsatisified with the way they were singing it (they were mostly disinterested), I had them echo the chorus with me, one line at a time, which perked the students up. I had pre-written the third line on the board ("It makes me want to say the same thing to somebody new"), and I after having them repeat just that one line with me, I had them describe the relative pitch of each syllable while I wrote a corresponding pitch graph (keeping steps and larger jumps in mind). Focusing on the last syllable, where "new" drops, I then asked the students what would happen if we changed it so that "new" went up. Of course a few students decided to try to sing "new" super-high, and so I refined my criteria - what would happen if "new" was just a tiny step higher. I then split the class into two, with one group in front taking "new" in the original direction (down), and the back line taking "new" in the new direction (up). I practiced with each group a few times, and then we tried singing it together. Unfortunately, it didn't sound very good, and most students did not remember how little to go up (or down). I wonder if this exercise would have been easier had I split the group left and right instead of front and back; a left/right split would have meant that the students singing the same note would have been closer together. Hrm.
Blocks, sticks, and rhythms	Introduce sand blocks, and do more rhythm patterns
I wanted to introduce sand blocks like I did with the other class, and so I passed out the blocks to the front row, and I quickly passed out sticks to the back row. We spent some time talking about how to play the two instruments in two different ways, and then I had them copy me in a few simple rhythms. I wanted to have the students play rhythms with rests in them, so I had to introduce the rest symbol and talk about what we should be doing during a rest. We practiced then written rhythms composed of quarter notes and quarter rests, and that actually took a lot longer than I expected before the students mostly felt comfortable doing nothing during a written rest. I then had the students play to simple rhythms (such as |_|| |_|| |||| |___), which ended up consuming the majority of the remaining time! We practiced a bit more, but we didn't match the rhythm to any song. (It was going to be the stanza of Jingle Bells.) With the few remaining minutes, I then stopped the class, and we talked about the special part of next week's class - how we were going to be filmed for a video for Music for Minors. We finished the class with a quick rendition of Goodbye My Friends, and the students quickly scooted out of the room.

Indeed, next week's class is going to be filmed for a promotional video for MfM. For the first time, I'll probably write up some rhythm charts on paper. We'll see how that goes.