Inventing Songs

Children create songs naturally, and should be encouraged to share them in class.  This is a common procedure for creating songs:

1. Choose a topic, maybe create a word bank or poem of words generated by the students.
2. When the poem is created, the teacher should have them chant it together so they get the rhythm and flow.  The teacher can play a tonic chord and have them sing different melodies for the first line.
3. After some trial and error, the children can select their favorite melody and sing it together.
4. The teacher can provide the underlying chords to support the melody that the children are singing.
5. After recording, the children can listen to the entire song and suggest changes.  The finished song can be recorded again, and the teacher could notate it later, then share it with the class.

This procedure reflects the process that many professional song writers go through, first creating lyrics, then melody and accompaniment.

Aural Plans and Notational Systems

The first stage of formal composition involves forming an aural plan for the piece.  They will work together to refine, select, or reject different ideas until they finally reach a consensus on the end product.  No graphing or notation will be used to record their work.  Aural plans are almost improvisational because even though children may rehearse their piece many times, the unexpected still happens often.

Children grow gradually when it comes to notation.  They generally move from pictorial or iconic representations to symbolic mans of notating pitch and rhythm, using numbers and letters.  It isn't until the next stage that they use actual or discrete notation.  Children as young as three years old have been known to represent music visually.  Notation can be introduced after the aural plan, and children should be free to create their own systems of notation.  The initial system should represent a piece they have already created with an aural plan.  The systems should be able to be understood by other people, so they should share their notation with other children to see if they can interpret it.  As children experience standard notation through reading music, they will incorporate it more into their own compositions.

Composition

Composition is a more planned implementation of the creative process.  It is similar to improvisation, except it can be crafted, reflected on, and then revised, and is not instantaneous.  Composing and arranging is the focus of National Standard 4.  Though composition contributes greatly to a child's cognitive and musical growth, not enough teachers spend as much time on composing in the classroom as they should.  A teacher should set parameters and a good environment for composing.
This includes:

1. Creating a space in the room or adjoining rooms for groups and/or individuals to work.
2. Deciding which sound sources will be available and how they should be distributed.
3. Deciding whether students will word individually or in small groups (if groups, preferably groups of four or five).
4. Decide the amount of time the students should have to complete their assignments.  They assignment might have to span several days.
5. Decide the limits of the composition, and give them a problem to solve.  More freedom comes when the students are more confident composers.
6. Establish a means of getting the class's attention quickly. Example: clap a rhythm for the class to clap back.
7. Tell the students that you will answer questions and help, but won't interfere with the composition process.  The teacher should not impose their own musical ideas on the students, though they do help the students evaluate their work.

For younger ages, the teacher may participate more in the process, pulling ideas from the group and helping students refine their thinking.  Around first grade though, the children can usually work in groups to solve the composition problem.

Improvisation

Improvisation should occur often throughout development.  Improvisation should be spontaneous, not formalized, refined, or repeated.  At a beginning level, it should allow children to play with sounds and with musical syntax.   National Standard 3 is dedicated to improvisation and should ideally be included in every class.

There are two types of improvisation: free and structured.  Free improvisation encourages children to experiment with the sounds of different instruments or their voices.  It goes beyond exploration because they are actually improvising a piece from beginning to end.  They are making clear music, not just exploring sounds.

Structured improvisation involves prompting the students in some way.  There are many different ways of doing structured improvisation.  Orff-Schulwerk, Kodaly, and Dalcroze all have different methods of improvisation.  With Orff-Schulwerk, the children might improvise in an ABA ternary form.  They would listen to the A section, then improvise a B section.  They could be asked to invent a melody on a C major scale using a xylophone or another orff instrument.  For Kodaly, children will first invent a steady four beat rhythm either by clapping or singing syllables like sol, mi, and la.  Once they build an internal collections of rhythm and pitch patterns, they can improvise a longer pitch or rhythm pattern over it.  Dalcroze is similar to Orff-Schulwerk in the way that they listen to something, then improvise a continuation to it.  In this case, the teacher improvises on the piano, then the children are expected to improvise with the same style.  They can respond rhythmically, with drums or movement, or with pitch, using the piano or voice.  Kodaly differs from Orff-Schulwerk and Dalcroze a bit because the students are creating from scratch, versus building from a model.

Creative Thinking

When students are asked a question with one specific answer, they must think convergently.  When children are performing a piece, they have to play the correct pitches and rhythms written on the page, which is also convergent thinking.  Creative thinking is divergent thinking.  Divergent thinking is when there are many possible answers.  For example, a child could be asked to find different as many different sounds as possible that they can make with a drum.  Webster's theory of creative thinking outlines three qualities of divergent thinking:

1. Musical extensiveness- how many ideas are generated
2. Flexibility- the ease of shifting within parameters such as high and low or loud and soft
3. Originality- how unique the musical ideas are

The goal of the teacher should be to facilitate the development of these various skills and understandings.

Listening Sequence

A listening sequence contains several steps, and can be completed in one day, or across several days.

1. Prepare: Always prepare children for the listening.  The purpose dictates what kind of preparation is required.  The teacher could first give the cultural background of the piece, tell the story behind it, show the region on a map in which the piece was composed, give some history about that region, show a piece of art that reflects the mood of the style, tell the background of the composer, etc.  The important thing is to give the children something to listen for and give them a way to show that they hear it, preferably a quiet response such as raising a hand or pointing.
2. Listen: Play the recording and note the students' responses through class discussion.
3. Activate and Participate:  Play the piece again, while actively involving the students in performing or moving to the music in some way.  This helps build a work into children's internal repertoire.
4. Question and Discuss:  Discussion should take place throughout the sequence, and can cover the music, portions of the music, the activities the students are doing, and emotional responses.
5. Listen Again: Listen quietly, notice familiar points, expand insight, and reestablish the work.
6. Extend the Listening; The listening can be used to inspire the children to compose music in similar forms, listen to other music by the same composer with similar or contrasting styles, listen to music by other composers with similar or contrasting styles.

Deep Listening

Deep listening requires teachers to use their abilities in analytical listening, conducting, performing, arranging, and communication to engage students in understanding music on a more in depth level.  Whatever music is used should be played in its cultural and historical context for students to get the most out of it.

There are three phases of deep listening:

1. Attentive Listening- The teacher uses diagrams that highlight points of interest in a piece to focus the students' listening.  With each listening, the students should be prompted to note something new, like themes or motives, melodic shape, dynamic changes, timbral changes, or sectional forms.
2. Engaged Listening- The listener participates by tapping the beat, playing an ostinato, singing a melody, or performing a groove.  The students have to listen to the piece carefully, multiple times, to discover patterns in order for this to work.
3. Enactive Listening- Involves the students in deeper levels, for example, learning and performing pieces in the style of a work of music.  It takes repeated focused listening in order for this to be successful, and because of the sophistication, it is most appropriate for middle school to adulthood.

Teaching to Actively Listen

Teachers cannot guarantee that students will enjoy a piece, though there is evidence that as humans, we:

• Are drawn to complexity
• Tend to prefer the familiar and feel uncomfortable with the unfamiliar
• Can learn to focus their perception of subtle changes
• Can change their attitudes through learning, despite enculturated preferences

This evidence helps teachers develop an approach to active listening during which students:

1. Regularly listen to music that is more complex and challenging than the music they usually listen to
2. Listen to pieces enough to know them and be familiar with them
3. Gain the conceptual tools to analyze, discuss and respond to the music
4. Discuss their preferences and attitudes without being told they're wrong
5. Engage in listening activities that allow them to reflect and document their feelings and perceptions about a piece

When a student expresses an opinion about a piece, whether negative or positive, they must be encouraged to go further and explain why.  The teacher should play the piece again, asking the students to think about what makes them like or dislike the piece.  This way, the students will be actively listening to the piece, searching for specific things to describe.

Developing Attitudes Toward Music

Sometimes, in an effort to get students to love music, teachers will play pieces that they know the children will like, but doesn't really teach them anything in the long run.  There are many factors that contribute to the development of attitudes toward music, many of which are out of the teacher's control.  Anything from gender, ethnic background, age, personality, socioeconomic status, and the resulting beliefs, feelings and values that emerge contribute to a child's attitudes toward music.  Other strong influences include teachers, families, peer groups, the media, and adult authority figures.  

From preschool to age eight, children are very open to different kinds of music. During this time, it is a good idea to introduce them to as many different types of music as possible.  Around the ages of nine and ten, being cool becomes very important to children, and peer influence and the media tend to dictate what children want to listen to.  Studies show that children of this age are generally drawn more toward loud and fast music rather than soft or slow.  Regardless, teachers need to encourage children to be receptive to music they don't necessarily prefer, and help them understand and appreciate it. 

Development of Perceptive Listening

The auditory sense develops remarkably early in children.  Infants can differentiate pitches and identify their mother's voice at birth.  During the babbling phase, babies demonstrate their ability to hear pitches by matching them to a certain extent.  Children as young as three months can match and sustain pitches, and gain a sense of musical phrase as young as six or seven months.  By eight months, they generally have the sense of a melody.  By preschool ages, children have a vocabulary to describe what they hear.  The concepts that develop early include tone color, dynamics, tempo, and style, and later comes pitch, rhythm, and form around the age of four.  

Anyone can identify hundreds of pieces and describe details about them, even attaching personal meaning to them.  Our task as music educators is to help students understand and appreciate what they are hearing.

Barred Orff Instruments

Barred Orff Instruments are wooden xylophones or metal metallophones and glockenspiels with bars of different lengths that produce different pitches when struck with mallets.  The bars can be removed by a teacher so that children don't play the wrong pitches by accident during the lesson.  They are placed in front of the player with the larger bars to the left and the smaller bars to the right, with the player sitting cross-legged or on their knees.  The mallets are held comfortably, like a toothbrush.  Hand-eye coordination is critical, and children should be encouraged to pull out the sound as opposed to hammering it in to get the best resonance.  A lesson with these instruments could include having the children play a simple drone on two notes, probably the tonic and dominant, and then having them play different rhythms with those pitches.  They can play an ostinato with one hand, them eventually two hands.  A combination of ostinati can create colorful textures that engage children and work on their listening skills by playing in an ensemble.

Non-Pitched Instruments Continued- Skins and Metals

Skins

Hand Drum-  Held at the rim and struck on the head with the other hand or a mallet.  This is useful for keeping pulse while playing rhythm patterns.

Bongo Drums-  A pair of drums, usually connected by a piece of wood, and played with the fingertips, the palms, and the thumbs to produce different timbres and volumes.

Conga Drum- A long upright drum, shaped like a barrel.  A wide range of timbres can be produced by striking the center, edge, or even the sides with either the palm, fingertips, or even sticks.

Djembe Drum- An instrument found in Ghana, this drum has a wide head and a narrow base.  It is played with the fingers and palms, often in groups.

Goblet Drum- Middle Eastern instrument with a wide head and narrow base, about eighteen inches high, played with the fingertips or palm.

Timpani- Similar to a symphonic timpani, and is usually tuned to tonic, dominant, or subdominant.  They come in various sizes.  

Metals

Cymbals- Two concave metal disks, played by striking or rubbing together.  Children enjoy the crashing sound they can make.

Finger Cymbals- Smaller cymbals that can be attached to the middle finger and thumb, they can produce either muted or resonant sounds.

Triangle- Held by a string and struck with a metal or wooden stick, it makes a "dinner bell" sound.

Tambourine- Drum head with metal disks attached to the rim.  Can be struck or shook.

Jingle Bells- Small bells on a plastic ring that can be played by shaking.  Children enjoy the joyful, Christmas like sound they produce.

Gong- Flat brass instrument that is struck with a mallet to create a big resonating sound that children enjoy.

Cowbell- Produces open, lower sounds when struck with a mallet near its opening, and higher sounds with struck by the handle.

Double Iron Agogo Bells- Two different sized iron bells which sound at two different pitches when struck with a mallet.  They are good for working with polyrhythms.

Non-Pitched Instruments

Non-pitched instruments are rhythm instruments and they are generally the first instruments a child will play.  They are easy for them to pick up quickly because they usually only involve a striking or a shaking motion, which they have been able to do since their first stage of development.  These instruments provide a wide range of timbres that are perfect for improvisation with young children. These are the families of non-pitched percussion instruments.

Gourds

Maracas- From Latin America, these are dried gourds with seeds inside, played by shaking.

Woods

Sticks- Played by striking one stick against the other.  Rhythm sticks with ridges can be rubbed together to produce a different sound.  Young children can use them to play accurate rhythms.

Claves- Thicker sticks, played by cupping one in the hand to make a resonating chamber in the hand and striking it with the other.  This playing position could take some development to master.  They are typically used in Latin rhythms.

Woodblock- Partially hallowed block of wood that produces a resonant sound when stuck with a mallet.  If it has ridges, it can also be rubbed with a mallet.

Sandblocks- Two blocks of wood covered in sandpaper that make a swishing sound when rubbed together.  They are good for feeling the pulse of a meter, and appeal to children because of their unique timbre.

Slit Long Drum- A box shaped drum with slits in it producing lower and higher sounds depending on the length of the slits.  Children are intrigued by the resonant quality.

Guiro- Ridged instrument played by rubbing with a wooden stick.  It helps develop rhythm and physical coordination in children.

Body Percussion

Body percussion can be viewed as a musical instrument, and used as a precursor to other musical instruments.  It involves clapping, slapping, tapping, snapping, stamping, and patting.  It is very fun for the children and gets them up and moving during the lesson.  It also has the advantage of producing different timbres, allowing for more creativity.  It improves rhythm skills as it is so good for internalizing rhythms.  This makes it a good tool for preparing children to play both non pitched rhythm and barred instruments.  If a child learns a rhythm through body percussion, they have the feeling of the rhythm inside them before they even start playing, which makes it easier to concentrate on things like pitch and technique.  A child can pat the rhythm on their legs, then when they play it on the xylophone, they can much more easily figure out the notes because they don't have to think as hard about the rhythm.

Development in Ability to Play Instruments

A child's ability to play instruments is closely related to their physical development.  While rhythmic skills develop as early as the first year of life, the muscle coordination required for playing an instrument doesn't come till much later.  Something as simple as playing a short melody on the piano requires enough motor skills and coordination to use the eyes, ears, and muscles in the fingers, hands, and forearms, all in tandem. 

This is the developmental sequence for Playing instruments:

Children of less than two years can rock, nod, and sway to a beat.  They have the ability to grasp objects, making them able to play rattles and jingle bells.

From ages two to three, children start having short periods of rhythmic regularity.  This gives them the ability to play the hand drum and rhythm sticks.

From three to four, children have longer periods of rhythmic regularity, a sensitivity to pulse, and can sway their arms.  They can now play the claves, woodblock, tambourine, guiro, maracas, gong, cowbell, and play the rhythm sticks by rubbing them.

From five to six, children start to be able to maintain a pulse, alternate their hands, and have basic eye-hand coordination.  This allows them to play the finger cymbals, bongo drums, timpani, cymbals, triangle, and even the keyboard with one hand.

From seven to nine, children have developed eye-hand coordination.  This allows them to play a wide range of things, including different pitched instruments such as the xylophone, the keyboard with both hands, the recorder, and the autoharp.

From age ten to twelve, eye-hand coordination has become much easier, as well as finger flexibility and control of the breathing apparatus.  They can now play melodies on the xylophone and keyboard, more notes on the recorder, chords on the guitar, and even orchestral winds and brass.

Teaching Notation for Reading and Writing Rhythms

Sound before symbol is always how rhythm should be taught, but eventually there needs to be a connection to notation.

Dalcroze uses "dash-a-note" to begin to introduce rhythm notation.  Children can draw horizontal dashes demonstrating what they hear and feel.  The longer the dash, the longer the sound.  These dashes are eventually converted into notes.

Kodaly starts notation by only writing stems instead of the stem with the head.  This allows for quick notation because the students don't have to take time to fill in the head, so more rhythms can be taught in a class period.  Teachers can use popsicle sticks, rhythm sticks, or wooden dowels to demonstrate these stems as well.

During kindergarten, rhythm notation should be mainly experimental.  However, by 1st grade, students should be able to match rhythms to different representations of the notation.

Rhythm Mnemonics

Mnemonics are rhythm syllables with no semantic meaning that are used to teach children rhythms and help them internalize them.  They are associated with specific rhythmic durations, and are similar to speech so they are easy for children to remember.  One frequently used system is word-chant, which uses words that the children already use in everyday speech.  In this case, different fruit names are assigned to different durations.  For instance, pear would be a quarter note, apple would be two eighth notes, boysenberry would be four sixteenth notes, and so on.  These are very effective because it uses the natural rhythm of the English language, which children are already accustomed to.  Two other common systems are the Kodaly and Gordon method.  These both use syllables that aren’t real words, but are good for solidifying rhythms.  The Kodaly method uses the syllable “t” mainly, because of it’s crisp, decisive sound, proving helpful for internalizing clear rhythms.  Similarly, the Gordon method uses a crisp “d” sound for the same purpose.  While these methods don’t use real words that children already know, syllables like “du-ta-de-ta” (Gordon sixteenth notes), are easy to spit out quickly and remember.

Detecting and Understanding Meter

A meter can be detected by listening for a strong pulse followed by weaker pulses.  The understanding of meter enables the listener to perceive the flow of musical ideas.  Some children respond naturally by rocking, swaying, singing, and chanting rhymes but most need a model to help them sense the loud vs. soft pulses.

One way to help children find meter is to play them a piece, and ask them to pat their knees on the strong beat only.  Then, play it again, and ask them to pat their knees on the strong beats, then clap softly on the weak beats.  Then, lead them in a chant while patting the strong beats and clapping the weak beats, so they can further internalize the rhythm by putting it in the context of speech.

Rhythm in Movement

Movement is a must in all lesson plans for children, and it's only natural to use it while teaching rhythm.  Using movement internalizes rhythm and develops a deeper conceptual understanding.  Dalcroze Eurhythmics is based on this concept, and Orff uses this concept as well.  Kodaly uses popular folk dances also to solidify rhythms.  Children become familiar with quarter notes because they have walked to them.  They are familiar with eight notes because they've clapped them.  No notation or counting is needed for children to sense rhythm naturally.

Rhythm in Speech

The English language is very rhythmic, and naturally lends itself to teaching students rhythm.  There is a universal pattern of rhythmic flow and stress of language, which children are presented with every day. 

Words become musical when:

1.   They are spoken over the foundation of a set pulse.

2.   Their sounds are transformed into chants of longer and shorter musical durations.

3.   Some words in a group are emphasized over others.

Words can be associated with durations based on syllables.  One syllable words, like "blue", or "pear", can be used as quarter notes.  Two syllable words, like "yellow" or "tiger" can be used for eighth notes.  Words like "pineapple" are used as triplets, and "boysenberry" for sixteenth notes.