Teaching Notes, 20111212 (2nd class only)

Today's class would be the first class I would have conducted while being filmed. Music for Minors had asked to film my class for a promotional video that would likely end up on the MfM website, and so I figured, why not. In doing so, I decided to do a lot more preparation than usual, including writing up two pages of rhythm charts for both halves of Jingle Bells. I also had the two lines that I had taped to the floor retaped with 4 different colors so that I could split the class easily into quarters if I had to.

Hello My Friends	Lead class singing, introduce German
Knowing that the class knew that they were in going to be filmed, I this time tried to get the students to sing along with me as they walked in, and it finally worked! We sang through 3 iterations (English, French, Swahili) by the time I had all of the students seated. A few times, I altered the starting pitch one step higher or lower in between languages starting with Swahili, which added a different flavor to the song. I also had all of the lyrics pre-printed beforehand (including an English transliteration of the Korean version), which helped immensely. After singing Korean, I then revealed the next language - German, and we practiced saying it. I also briefly went on a tangent, noting to the students that nouns in German were capitalized. We sang the German version once through, and then I asked the students if they remembered the coda. Some did, and so we sang through German and tried to march back up the language ladder. However, I lost most of the class when trying to sing Korean, and so I had to go over the coda for this particular song. Eventually, we finished the song up successfully.
Rhythm Charts	Have students read rhythms off of a chart
I had the premade rhythm chart for the Stanza of Jingle Bells out, and I had the students practice some of the patterns by clapping with me. Initially it was just a group of quarter notes and quarter rests. When it came to playing a held note (akin to a shaken tambourine), I realized that the students didn't have a good way of playing such a note, so I had them rub their hands, which didn't produce a whole lot of sound. During this time, I discovered that my marker use wasn't wide or dark enough; from the back of the room, students had a hard time seeing the notations. After trying a few measures of the Stanza, I came to a dreaded conclusion - I had charted out the rhythm as if beats were more than 120 bpm! In short, the meter was twice as fast as it needed to be, and so it became a bit comical trying to get the students to play rhythms with such a short countoff. Darn! I had to simply move onto the next exercise; I never really had the students play the entire chart.
Jingle Tone Bells	Introduce Tone Bells, play JB
And so, I moved onto Tone Bells. I had 3 students come up, and after giving one of them a tone bell, I realized I didn't really properly introduce the instrument to the class. I then awkardly ended up talking about the tone bell, and playing it for them, as a hurried way to familiarize the class with the tone bells. The three students then had to practice playing together; at first I had them try to play while watching my hands fall together, but that wasn't as effective as simply counting off. This group of three students had bells that formed a C chord. I then called up three more students, and I gave them bells that made them sound like a G chord. Similar to the first group, we practiced playing together. I then called up three more students, gave them bells forming a F chord, and we practiced the group playing together a few times. I then named the groups C for Center, F for Front (of the room), and G for Green (awning over the windows). I thought that that was really nifty, although since the students haven't been taught the letter names of notes, I didn't go into the real reason I chose those letters. I then tried to get the students to practice playing together, but only when I pointed to them. I proceeded to have various groups play on the downbeat of each 4 beat measure (again. we didn't really go into what comprises a measure), but after a while, I could tell that the students were getting restless. So, I had all of the remaining students sit closer by the front tape line, and I instructed them to sing along if they knew what song I was going to sing. I proceeded to "conduct" the three tone bell groups while I sang the stanza to Jingle Bells. Many students caught on quickly. I kept having the groups play only on that first beat of every measure, but by the time it was time to play/sing the chorus, I then had the tone bell groups play twice as frequently, which only caused some minor disturbannces for the first few tone bell strikes into the chorus. After doing this twice, I had the students exit the class with Goodbye My Friends with a rhythm stomp.

I had spent a decent amount of time preparing the rhythm charts for both halves of Jingle Bells, and yet I hardly used them. I'll have to introduce charts again, although I probably have to get the students to understand eighth notes before I can introduce a song that rhythmically would be interesting enough to keep children's attentions. Anyhow, it was good that we were able to finish the day with a good singalong of Jingle Bells - good for both me and my students, and good for Music for Minors too.

I actually had a lot more planned, including How Do You Dootee and the Austrian Yodeler, but alas we didn't get to them. I'll just have to make a point to using those songs again.