Week 11: Music

Today we also began the art strand of music – this is in the form of a weekly 2-hour workshop. I was also super excited to begin this part of the course, I LOVE music! I thoroughly enjoy playing music; I played the piano and saxophone for the HSC and as of this year I have been teaching piano for 8 years. I have found teaching music to be such a rewarding experience; to watch my students improve week by week and develop a real appreciation and passion for music brings me such a great sense of joy. I also enjoy listening to music, whether it’s a CD of a favorite band of mine or turning on to my favourite radio station, smooth 95.3. Music, I believe, is so special. There are dozens and dozens of reasons why music is so important, and should be taught to our students from a young age. And that is why I am so excited to be doing this art strand; to be encouraged to ensure that music is taught at schools and to learn how we can be teaching this in the most effective manner.

The workshop began by watching a youtube video of a child prodigy – Jonathan. At 3 years of age, he exhibited a great musical talent in conducting. Below is a video of Jonathan conducting to the 4th movement of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony. In the first few seconds it appears to be just another cute kid waving his arms to a recording of a symphony. But before long, it is apparent that he is uniquely gifted – he is locked into the music, expressing himself with his full body, frowns, smiles, rolling of eyes. He glides from mood to mood, from being possessed to jumping with joy at Beethoven’s percussive blows and syncopations. It’s amazing! (I spent a good hour this afternoon watching many other video’s of Jonathan; he is now 6 years of age and has already conducted a symphony!)

Throughout our music workshop, we learnt the names of a variety of percussion instruments (e.g. tone block, cow bell, tambourine, bongos, etc) and attempted to create two different sounds with each of the instruments. We briefly examined the five musical concepts (pitch, dynamics, tone colour, structure, duration), before moving on to learning about note values. We then examined Vanessa Amorosi’s hit ‘Absolutely Everybody’, and broke the song up into intro/tag, verses, chorus, bridge, coda etc. To conclude the lesson, each student in our workshop were provided with a glockenspiel or xylophone and played ‘Purcell Canon’. It was absolutely beautiful! 

Whilst I was on professional experience, I had the opportunity to teach a music lesson on body percussion. Below is a copy of the lesson plan.

Body Percussion

- Music -

LESSON DATE:  Monday 9 September 2013

LESSON AIM: Students learn and appreciate the music that can be produced through ‘body percussion’, and produce their own rhythm in a small group. 

SYLLABUS OUTCOMES:

- [MUS3.2] Improvises, experiments, selects, combines and orders sound using musical concepts.

·      by responding to music through performing and organising sound activities and identifying features of this music

• understanding, appreciating and evaluating their own work and the work of others

LESSON OUTLINE:

RESOURCES	- IWB (Youtube)
Introduction 15 min	1. Introduce lesson: Body Percussion - What is body percussion? ·       Body percussion involves using the body creatively to generate percussive sounds. - Traditionally, there are four main body percussion sounds. What might they be? ·       Stomp: Stamping the feet against the floor or a resonant surface. ·       Slap: slapping either the left, right or both thighs with hands ·       Clapping hands together ·       Clicking fingers - What are some other possibilities for body percussion sounds? ·       E.g. hitting chest, clicking with the tongue against the roof of the mouth, etc
	2. Simon Says - Play Simon Says using body percussion sounds. Once the class has the hang of it, allow a student (who is engaged/actively participating) to take over and continue.
	3. Show class examples: 1.     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sb-2VsE2y-U - (stop at 1.15min) Ask students: What was good/effective about the rhythm they produced? (steady beat, etc) 2.     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3XBNvPLWMs - (start at 16sec) Tell class this is a performance. Ask students: What was good/effective about the rhythm they produced? (many layers, variety of sounds, etc)
Body 20 min	Activity: Make your own rhythm - Groups of maximum 5 students - Create a body percussion rhythm ·       Important to keep a steady beat (suggest four) à keeps it going/doesn't get awkward ·       Introducing the idea of layering* as an option ·       Inform students to use dynamics* where possible ·       Tell students that there is an opportunity to perform your groups rhythm to the class J  * define terms with students - Tell students that they can write/notate their rhythms if they can - Whilst observing/5min remaining, warn students to start rehearsing the whole rhythm
Conclusion 5-10 min	Performances - Ask students what they enjoyed about each group’s body percussion performance

ASSESSMENT:

- Observe: In groups, students create a rhythm using only body percussion.

To wrap up the first music entry for my blog, I thought I would share another child prodigy; Emily Bear. As a composer and pianist, she has played with orchestras in the U.S., Europe and Asia, at such venues as Carnegie Hall and the Hollywood Bowl. By the age of eight, she had composed more than 350 pieces. She is incredible - there are no limits to the musical heights that she can reach. Below is her first appearance of the Ellen Show back in 2007 (fast forward to 3min35sec for the performances).