Based on my previous post, I am not ashamed to admit that I was thrilled when I was able to help my students travel through a composition process that got them to where they could create work that looked like this. However, when I consider this work I can see room for improvement in the lesson I present.
1. This composition is randomly rather than musically produced. At this point in the process only a few of my students demonstrate any notion that their piece should start or end on tonic. This happens because even though they have an instrument (the recorder) that they can use to hear their piece, it is not something they can use well because recorders are loud and they are composing in a room filled with other students also using the recorder to test out their compositions.
2. This composition has not been placed on the staff. When I first started taking students through the process of music composition, once my students were able to compose 16 beats of rhythm and then attach a pitch I would hand them some staff paper and hope for the best.... Well.... I didn't get the best... I caused frustration and then we would be out of time, and there wasn't really good way to move further through the process.
In order to address the first problem I plan on including a mini lesson about the relationship between the scale degrees and the importance of ending on "do" . I also plan waiting for the full project until my students can play low d, low e and f sharp on the recorder so that we can compose in D Major pentatonic. If a particular class isn't ready to move that far on recorder, then I will have them create their compositions for xylophone in C Major.
To address the second problem, I plan is to invite my students to take their chart and transfer their work to the chart below that has a staff.
I plan on testing both charts and hope to report back here about which one had more success.
I was working on my blog the other day and I had a chance to revisit some of my old posts. When I came across THIS post, I realized that even though this post is a few years old, it still rings true for me. Not only have I continued to begin my composition lessons just like this, but this lesson has allowed me to prepare my students for additional work in composition. Look out for additional posts about composition in the weeks to come.
Below you will find the original post from February 2012.
As a song writer, I compose new music almost every day. Ironically, despite the fact that I LOVE writing music, it is very difficult for me to teach music composition to my students. In this area of instruction I consider myself a novice because I think I can do better.... MUCH better! It's like an itch I can't scratch or a puzzle I can't solve.... I know how I do it, but it is difficult to find the right way to get others started.
Well today, I sort of had an epiphany. Here it is....... Are you ready? You've got to prime the pump!
All of the awesome teachers reading this blog with go...."Yep..... we know.... that is not news! Everyone knows that." Well, I'm telling you that I knew it, and I've lived it in so many areas of my teaching, but I just didn't really get it where music composition was concerned.
Today was the first day of teaching in a new rotation, so I was THRILLED to be starting off a new lesson on a Monday, so I planned and prepared and prepared and planned. Then when my 5th graders walked in my brain had one of those teaching "SHAZZAAAM!" moments and I realized that I could do teach a much more interesting lesson that would still hit all of my objectives if I just went with my moment of inspiration.
Here is what I did as I flew by the seat of my pants into a lesson I can't wait to teach again tomorrow!
1. I first had my students fold a regular piece of copy paper into 16 squares. I have them fold their paper in half 4 times.
In Houston because of the humidity, sometimes open reams of copy paper go bad and I find myself with 30 sheets of random colored paper. It's perfectly fine, so I choose to up-cycle instead of recycle. It's amazing how much buy-in you can create for a project when there is colored paper and folding involved.
2. Then I had my students students create this chart as a review for rhythm duration and relationships. Each square is equal to one beat. Since this was 5th grade and I knew I wanted to compose with them, I really pushed them to work quickly. I explained that this chart was only going to be for their reference, so they should be accurate, but that they didn't have to copy verbatim. I had other notes that this student didn't need.
THIS was my epiphany about priming the pump....
I took the time to remind them of what they already know
In the old days, I might have stopped there and moved onto something else.... OR I might have turned it into a reading lesson...... Instead....
3. I asked the students to turn their papers over and we created a small blank staff. Then as a class we reminded ourselves of the notes we already knew very well how to play on recorder.... We've introduced some of the other notes, but these notes were the notes that the kids in this class felt like they knew....
This class feels comfortable playing GABCD and E.....
I realized that when I compose music, I use words that I KNOW!
4. I had them quickly fold a 2nd piece of paper just like the first.
5. Before they were allowed to write anything on their paper, we filled out a "blank song" as a class. They were told to use the rhythms that they knew into the squares in any pattern they wished. Their only limitations were to make sure that they had room for the notes they chose.... (i.e. no half notes beginning on beat 4).
It was fun to see them figure out that eighth notes were the same
regardless of whether or not they had a bar or a flag.
6. Once we got to this next step they go really excited. While they were working, I had quickly passed out their recorders so that they would have them on hand. They assigned each rhythm a pitch......Almost all of them got to the point where they were trying to play what they had written.
7. Next time they come to class they will have a chance to edit their work using their recorder. Because we were beginning to run short on time by the time they were assigning pitch there wasn't time for very much exploration. So next time they come to music, they can edit their work, share it with other students ad write it on the staff. MAYBE we'll have time to add words.
I'm looking forward to seeing how well this works with my class tomorrow. I have high hopes! As I said, I still feel like a novice at teaching music composition, but I felt much more successful having taken the time to remind my students of what they already know. Creating something original wasn't nearly such a leap when we remembered all that we knew before. They were SUPER proud of themselves!
What fun!
The 16 square rhythm chart is a way to review rhythm that I borrowed from my colleague Pablo Ocañas.
Last year I made some of these rhythm cards to use as manipulatives for a meter unit.
Now, a year later I have expanded the collection and use them constantly for all sorts of assignments.
My favorite thing to is to give my students combinations of these cards including the new rhythm we are learning that day.
First students work with a partner to create a chart of the rhythms they already know. This chart reinforces the relationships between the various notes and gives them a chance for a quick review before moving on to new material. This is also a great way for me to quickly assess where we are.
I then give my students the new rhythms and ask them to compose measures containing the new material.
I typically provide enough cards for them to compose 4 measures of rhythm. As the measures are completed, the students are asked to perform the rhythms they have composed. Everyone then travels from group to group in a sort of "gallery walk". The students perform the rhythms as composed by their peers.
Once we have read and performed each composition I ask the students to go back and choose their two favorite measures. They share their two favorites with a neighboring group and work together to perform the new combination.
Finally, the students are asked to choose their favorite measure and then ALL of the rhythms are set out so that we have a new class composition.
If you want to print them, I recommend using a variety of card stock. If you laminate them they will last for a long time. I also put magnets on a set for myself so that I can use them as models on the board.
It feels like I haven't given a YUMMY AWARD! in AGES! And the truth it that it has been six months, so I am well over due! This one was especially fun to write because the minute I put my hands on this book I had lots of lesson ideas.
I'm always looking for books that lend themselves to the development of music literacy. I especially like books that provide a variety of uses for the same book. Often these books will work with multiple grade levels depended on the simplicity or complexity of my ideas. In any case, I found this book at TMEA and I've been looking forward to incorporating into my bag of tricks!
The Yummy Award for July 2013 goes to
Chicky Chicky Chook Chook by Cathy MacLennan
Ideas for Younger Children:
I think that after the children are familiar with the book it would be fun isolate a page of the book and then either play or post a rhythm and ask the children to identify which set of words goes with the rhythm. For example. One short except from the book goes like this,
"Chicky Chicky Chook Chook
Chick Chick Chick,
Chicky Chicky Chook Chook
Peck Peck Peck."
I could post several known rhythms like and then ask the students figure out where in the page those rhythms happen.
Wouldn't it be fun to have students write a rhythm we were working with on a small post it note and then place it in the places when that rhythm happens? I think they would love it!
We could extend our work by orchestrating our book for various instruments. Each page is composed around a different hard consonant sound. Perhaps the "Ch" sound could be played on the sand blocks while the hard "k" sound was played on the woodblock. The possibilities are endless!
Ideas for Older Children:
Wouldn't this be a fun way to approach rhythm dictation? If students were well versed in rhythmic patterns they might enjoy the challenge of figuring out the rhythmic pattern. It's a new twist on the "what rhythm am I playing?" game. Students attempting this would need lots of aural discrimination practice under their belt, but I think that they could puzzle it out.
An extra challenge might be for older children to compose another page for the book. I think this would be an excellent opportunity to create a class book filled with original compositions that we could then play and orchestrate.
What about melody?!!! This book has such a wonderful rhythmic pattern that it might be the perfect opportunity to ask older students to take known pitches and compose an original melody. Imagine this book played as an original composition!!!!
MY! MY! MY! - This is starting to sound like an entire semester worth of study and it's just 1 book! - LOVE IT!
Want to see what other books have received a YUMMY Award? Click HERE!
Like everyone else, I'm in the last few days of school. My students last day is June 5th and we have a workday on June 6th. One of my chores is to get my computers in order. As part of that chore, I found these pictures taken earlier this year (sometime in February/March) My second graders were writing a rhythm composition using quarter, eighth and rests.
I made a BIG deal about being composers, and gave them special paper. We folded the paper four times so that we had 16 boxes (beats).
I then told them that they could draw a quarter note in any 8 boxes of their choosing.
Then I told them to write 4 sets of eighth notes in 4 boxes of their choosing.
I made a BIG deal about the "blank" spaces and suggested that they could either fill in the remaining four boxes with quarter notes or eighth notes OR they could draw a rest in each empty box.
They were so proud of themselves and took great delight in sharing their rhythm compositions with each other.
Sometimes you just stumble upon the right thing and inspiration occurs!
That is exactly what happened when I visited Hobby Lobby over spring break.
I looked over and noticed this bag of soft geometric blocks...... The price was reasonable and it seemed to be something that I could easily replicate if I liked it.
I sorted the blocks and found that I had enough cylinder blocks to make one game and enough rectangle blocks to make a different game.
Today I'm going to tell you about my cylinder game because that is the one that has worked best. Based on the number and size of the blocks I decided to create a center that started with whole notes and used half notes, and quarter notes. I also created blocks that were half rests and quarter rests.
Then I took some 8.5x11 sheets of craft foam and got out my marker. I measured and discovered that my masking tape was just about the same width as the cylinders, so I cut it into the correct length and started tracing.
I realized pretty quickly, that I would need a way for these rolly polly cylinders to stay in place, so I added Velcro. I put four soft Velcro "beats" inside each outlined "measure". Then I put the scratchy Velcro dots on each block. I'll admit that I was pretty skeptical I really didn't think that the Velcro would last past the first class. I thought for sure that my students who are pretty hard on materials would tear this center up the first time I got it out.
I'm so pleased to tell you that it WORKS! These Velcro pieces have been handled with all of the energy my students can dish out, kindergarten through 5th grade, gentle and rough handling and we still have a perfectly intact center with all of it's parts. I think that maybe the foam blocks and the foam sheet have an easier time adhering to the Velcro than if I had created this center using laminated tag.
In kindergarten this center is a "pre-skill". I want them to understand that it takes 1 or 2 or 4 blocks to fill in the square. Although I tell them what the notes are and although they have practice with quarter notes, I'm trying to "play" them into the relationship between the notes. The placement of the Velcro helps reinforce this.... it makes it difficult to overload a measure. When the students arrange their "songs" to their satisfaction then they bring them to me and I read them. They love love love love love it!
1st grade is similar, but with more independence and with the expectation that they will read what they know.
By 2nd grade, I can go two different directions with this center I ask the students to either dictate a rhythm pattern from a known song, or I ask them to create something original. If they create something original, then they have to copy their work onto a piece of paper that they then turn in for a grade.
In 3rd, 4th and 5th, it would be nice to have sixteenth notes, but it also is really great practice for them to revisit some rhythms they've known for a while. Also, with the older students, I challenge them to see how many different patterns they can create. Since they don't stay in centers very long, this keeps the motivation high even at this simple center that doesn't have the same "curb appeal" that some of the others have.
Here it is, another favorite center from the last several days of center reconstruction!
Compose a rhythm!
First I wrote quarter notes, quarter rests and eighth notes on foam sheets. Using foam sheets instead of cardstock in need of lamination saved so much time! The best part about this center is that it is very easy to differentiate for the instructional needs of each grade level AND interest can be keep alive simply by changing the instruments used while reading the rhythm. Before introducing this center I considered creating some sort of 4-beat frame. For now I decided against it in favor of flexibility.
Kindergarten:
Before opening this center I asked students reviewed the rhythms and asked students to help me create a rhythm pattern. I guided them through the process of choosing six cards and we practiced counting them together.
Outcomes:
Their favorite part was mixing up the cards and putting them in order. They did pretty well reading and playing the rhythms. It was amazing to me how many different configurations they came up with. Some students made long "rhythm snakes" while others automatically arranged their rhythms into 4-beat patterns without any direction from me. This center will
1st grade center:
I set this center up almost identically to kinder. I made a much bigger deal about the rests and we practiced before they worked independently.
Outcomes:
This center seemed to catch first grade at just the right place to really enjoy it. One group decided to arrange their composition in a long line. Then they lined up at one end and hopped down the line with one foot on each side. When they landed on a card they played it. As my friend Randy would say "It was as if they knew what they needed!"
2nd grade
The set up for this center started similarly in that I reviewed the rhythms. However, just like in the melody center, it seemed wise to use a song to facilitate their play. In addition to giving them time to create their own rhythms, I asked the students to find the rhythms for Rain Rain Go Away.
Outcomes:
2nd grade was truly intrigued by the idea of composing and were excited by everything. They took turns composing and conducting their patterns and really could have stayed at this center longer. In order to keep the challenge of the center relevant, and to make them feel like their compositions matter, I'll provide a way to write down or record their work.....Nothing motivates like the opportunity to share.
It's that time of year when novelty and creativity are the key to happy students and teachers. Everyone is weary of the year and ready for summer. Yet, summer is a VERY long way off. So it's at this time of year when I pull out every trick I can think of in order to keep my students on task and learning something that will make them a little more musically literate every day.
I'm busy enough that I don't have time for a long post, but then, all of the teachers I know are too busy to read a long post, so I'm going to let my picture speak for me today.
This time of year, stores like Hobby Lobby stock a TON of summer craft items at really low prices and it's a great time to stock up on items that you can throw into your manipulative bag of tricks when your lessons need a little spice.
I recently came across, a good price on that foam board stuff, pipe cleaners, puffy balls and Popsicle sticks. Someone somewhere on your campus already has all of these things, and they are just crying out to be used...... When I got these materials out for my kinder and first grade students to work with this week, I knew I had a big hit. They were thrilled to show me what they knew as they practiced being composers. It was so much fun!
kinder demonstrating high, medium and low
We added a line, but we found that the little puffs didn't want to
stay on the line.... I decided not to use pipe cleaners in following lessons
Here they showed which sound happened first, second and third, the high medium or low sound
We collected several patterns and at this point kinder students chose which
pattern to use, then we sang each pattern in turn.....Here you see a high high low, low, high high and
then a high low high pattern
in first grade we added Popsicle sticks and used sol and mi to create new music
Next time I'll use yarn for the lines because it doesn't hold it's bent shape
I think that the students will have an easier time keeping it straight.
This first grader wanted a rest at the end and improvised one even though
I had only passed out four sticks.
I ordinarily just have one size stick, but the small ones make great bars!
Having two different sized sticks makes it more interesting. :)
For as long as I can remember, I have written music for pleasure. I write for myself, I write for my friends and I write for my family. I write as an expression of my faith in Jesus Christ.... but as much as I write, only occasionally do I write music for school.
THE NEED!
The thing about writing music for school is that it is typically born out of necessity. When you NEED a song and you don't have the right one, sometimes a new and original song just happens.
Special Occasions
The VERY first time that I had the need to write a song for school was actually upon the death of a dear friend and colleague who was killed in a tragic car accident. Our school was stricken by the sudden loss and my students needed a way to express their love for this popular teacher they had lost. I was new enough to writing music that I wasn't very quick at music dictation, so as I wrote my co-worker drafted what I was playing and singing. The song I wrote that afternoon has turned into my go to "occasion" song. I gently shift the words here and there so that when most people hear it they would never guess it was intended for a memorial service.
Since that time there are a couple of things I've realized about writing music for school.
Keep it Simple! - Ask yourself, Is it universally singable? Writing a song for the entire student body is not the same as writing a song for your honor choir. (in terms of range I would stay between b-d'')
Can you play it? -If you can't play your song while one hand is directing your chorus and you are "eyeballing" the talker on the back row, it's too hard! You might like to rely on a recording, but what if the power goes out? We call them "special" occasions because they are "special" and weird stuff happens.
School Songs
Every school ought to have a school song..... PLEASE, even if you don't have time this year, PLEASE at some point at least try it or at least commission a piece. My first school where I was music teacher at for 10 years has a beautiful original school song that was already in use when I became music teacher there. That song is both singable and simple and all of the students, teachers and parents know it by heart. It brings the entire school together. It's a wonderful way to begin or end school events of all kinds.
When I came to my current school I was utterly dismayed to discover that a school as old as mine had never had a school song of any kind. How sad! I decided to take my time and for the last two years I've written a "class song" for my graduation 5th graders. After this year, I'll have accumulated 3 songs about my school. I am going to teach all three of them to my choir and then do a scratch recording of the students singing the song. THEN next year, I'll introduce them to all of the students and staff and we will all vote. After-all, it's not MY school song, it's OUR school song. PLUS, my hope is that by giving myself 3 chances to get it right, my compositions will improve. Remember since a school song is an "all-sing" , make sure that you follow the rules for specials occasion songs. Content Buster Songs
Everybody knows that declarative knowledge (the names of things) and to some extend procedural knowledge ( how things work) is easiest to remember if you use a song or an acronym or other memory device. When my students are struggling to remember key vocabulary, sometimes I will be asked to come up with a "diddy". Just this last week, my team of art, music and PE had a meeting with administration to see how we could help with improving vocabulary that held confused our students on the latest benchmark. I'm always very intentional about integrating all of the other subjects into what I do, but sometimes even a little explicit intentionality goes a long way. So I brought the vocabulary list home with me so that I can see what I can come up with over Spring Break....(man it sounds like my spring break will be 3 months long.....) Ideally, these little "diddies" should go back to the classroom WITH the students, especially since knowledge application and transfer are the REAL problems....... SO it helps if the classroom teachers you are supporting can sing the songs too..... wait...... you have teachers at your school who are afraid to sing? ME TOO! So a pre-made CD then...... There are some good ones...... Sometimes you can find these songs already created and recorded by someone else which means that all you have to do is make sure that your teacher friends have legal copies. OH..... wait... you mean spend money?..... OK, so now we're back to composing our own little "diddies". You can still put them on a CD for moral support, but if you write them yourself then you have the rights to them.....
The BEST and MOST useful chants are the ones that we write WITH the students, BUT if you don't have time. then......
I HIGHLY recommend enlisting the help of the teachers whose classes will benefit most. This is critically important in order to clarify definitions.
Chanting is plenty! - don't worry about melody, rhythm is enough!
Here is an excerpt from a 1st grade chant that I created with my first grade team a few years ago....They were studying the states of matter and wanted to introduce both vocabulary and conditions.....I've looked EVERYWHERE for the whole thing which I can't find, but here is the part I remember.......
Sometimes liquids are viscous (repeat 2 times)
( ta --- ta --- ti-ti ta --- ti-ti )
With a SLOOOOW STICKY FLOW
(ti-ti taaaaaaa ti-ti- taaaaaaa)
Speaking of well done, pre-composed chants...... In my search for vocabulary support I found this great site. I've got my free 14-day trial and I expect to be listening to some of these chants so that I can see if it's worth my $5.00 a month......
If you are like most music teachers that I know, you've had your share of professional development in language arts and math. I'm finding that one of the most useful aspects of these processes of teaching literacy is the cognitive transparency that occurs. A teacher reading to her class will share her thinking about what she is reading. A teacher writing in front of his class, will share his thought process about word choice or voice. I feel like literacy is literacy is literacy, so I thought I'd give it a try in music. So, I got my guitar out and composed a song transparently in front of my students using the kids names and what they were wearing. THEY LOVED IT! Some of the verses I wrote were funnier than others..... One was about wearing a white shirt on spaghetti day, while another mentioned something about wearing green must mean that you love trees. I brought transparency into the process by guiding them through my melodic choices and pointing out how the rhythm of the words informs how I create the rhythms rather than the other way around.....I was working more with aural discrimination and even word choice in terms of rhyming. I wanted the students to hear when the song was finished. On this particular day, I didn't worry about notation, I was primarily concerned with sparking the conversation about composition with the students..... we'll use their own compositions to notate as this one would be rather complex. This is a practice I want to continue to develop.
Songs of Encouragement!
If you are like me and you teach music at a public school, your school life is dictated by whatever standardized test your state uses so show that your students are progressing compared with everyone else.
If you've ever taught at a school with a significant population of "at-risk" students, then you understand the obstacles that these children face just getting to school, let alone succeeding in school. Making a full year of academic growth is a huge accomplishment when by February you've gone to your third elementary school for the year. Passing a standardized test is an even bigger achievement because for most "at-risk" students. In order to pass the test, these students must bring their "A+++++ game" to school and then show up with it on test day too!
It doesn't matter that last night, after your mom got off of the evening shift at work, your family had go to the store to buy milk at 11:30 p.m....... It doesn't matter that because your family had to go to the store so late, you have to wear yesterdays uniform that has lunch stains and a rip in the seat. It doesn't matter that last weekend your aunt moved out, so now your mom doesn't have enough money for the rent and you just busted out of your only pair of shoes....... It doesn't matter.... those tests, like real life....... will wait for no student.
However, since I GET to be the music teacher, I can encourage and support my students to do their best on those pesky tests.
Just before spring break my help was enlisted in organizing a TEST pep rally..... not my favorite thing to do, but I know my students will love it........ My biggest problem is that over the years different "alternate test day lyrics" have cropped up for whatever popular song is currently IT.....Rather than being put in the awkward position of being "copyright shady".... Isn't it better to create something original and meaningful that can be adjusted to the specifics at your school? Time is REALLY the key.... so first I'm going to suggest that you subscribe to Music K-8 because they have a great collection of songs that will fit the bill for most folks.
However, when you set out to put something both encouraging and fun together for your students for an event like this, play around with looping and sequencing. It's a skill that if you don't use it for a purpose, then you'll never learn how to use it.
This summer I got 3 Macbooks for my classroom that have Garage Band on it. I took a 3 hour class this summer and have been on my own ever since. Without a project to point toward, I've not really learned anything. But I decided to bring one home over Spring Break because I knew that this testing shindig was in my near future and I want it to be good because my kids need LOTS of support!
So this afternoon I started playing around with some of the loops and I found one that I liked and in about 45 minutes I had this track recorded. I'm sharing it with you because I think that for the time I spent on it (not much) is sounds pretty good....I think my students will be impressed and amused. Plus I'm amused by the fact that I now have a track of ME rapping..... that is really funny.....I also figure that it's a pretty safe track to put out there because unless you are a Wildcat, you can't steal it...... and no one wants to hear a recording of a almost 35 year old lady rapping..... yeah.... I'm not worried.....If you do decide to share it, let me know, and give credit. Maybe you'll even enjoy it enough to laugh with me at the simple joys of teaching elementary school music and all of these creative ways we can support the learning of your students.
As a song writer, I compose new music almost every day. Ironically, despite the fact that I LOVE writing music, it is very difficult for me to teach music composition to my students. In this area of instruction I consider myself a novice because I think I can do better.... MUCH better! It's like an itch I can't scratch or a puzzle I can't solve.... I know how I do it, but it is difficult to find the right way to get others started.
Well today, I sort of had an epiphany. Here it is....... Are you ready? You've got to prime the pump!
All of the awesome teachers reading this blog with go...."Yep..... we know.... that is not news! Everyone knows that." Well, I'm telling you that I knew it, and I've lived it in so many areas of my teaching, but I just didn't really get it where music composition was concerned.
Today was the first day of teaching in a new rotation, so I was THRILLED to be starting off a new lesson on a Monday, so I planned and prepared and prepared and planned. Then when my 5th graders walked in my brain had one of those teaching "SHAZZAAAM!" moments and I realized that I could do teach a much more interesting lesson that would still hit all of my objectives if I just went with my moment of inspiration.
Here is what I did as I flew by the seat of my pants into a lesson I can't wait to teach again tomorrow!
1. I first had my students fold a regular piece of copy paper into 16 squares. I have them fold their paper in half 4 times.
In Houston because of the humidity, sometimes open reams of copy paper go bad and I find myself with 30 sheets of random colored paper. It's perfectly fine, so I choose to up-cycle instead of recycle. It's amazing how much buy-in you can create for a project when there is colored paper and folding involved.
2. Then I had my students students create this chart as a review for rhythm duration and relationships. Each square is equal to one beat. Since this was 5th grade and I knew I wanted to compose with them, I really pushed them to work quickly. I explained that this chart was only going to be for their reference, so they should be accurate, but that they didn't have to copy verbatim. I had other notes that this student didn't need.
THIS was my epiphany about priming the pump....
I took the time to remind them of what they already know
In the old days, I might have stopped there and moved onto something else.... OR I might have turned it into a reading lesson...... Instead....
3. I asked the students to turn their papers over and we created a small blank staff. Then as a class we reminded ourselves of the notes we already knew very well how to play on recorder.... We've introduced some of the other notes, but these notes were the notes that the kids in this class felt like they knew....
This class feels comfortable playing GABCD and E.....
I realized that when I compose music, I use words that I KNOW!
4. I had them quickly fold a 2nd piece of paper just like the first.
5. Before they were allowed to write anything on their paper, we filled out a "blank song" as a class. They were told to use the rhythms that they knew into the squares in any pattern they wished. Their only limitations were to make sure that they had room for the notes they chose.... (i.e. no half notes beginning on beat 4).
It was fun to see them figure out that eighth notes were the same
regardless of whether or not they had a bar or a flag.
6. Once we got to this next step they go really excited. While they were working, I had quickly passed out their recorders so that they would have them on hand. They assigned each rhythm a pitch......Almost all of them got to the point where they were trying to play what they had written.
7. Next time they come to class they will have a chance to edit their work using their recorder. Because we were beginning to run short on time by the time they were assigning pitch there wasn't time for very much exploration. So next time they come to music, they can edit their work, share it with other students ad write it on the staff. MAYBE we'll have time to add words.
I'm looking forward to seeing how well this works with my class tomorrow. I have high hopes! As I said, I still feel like a novice at teaching music composition, but I felt much more successful having taken the time to remind my students of what they already know. Creating something original wasn't nearly such a leap when we remembered all that we knew before. They were SUPER proud of themselves!
What fun!
The 16 square rhythm chart is a way to review rhythm that I borrowed from my colleague Pablo Ocañas.
In order to address the first problem I plan on including a mini lesson about the relationship between the scale degrees and the importance of ending on "do" . I also plan waiting for the full project until my students can play low d, low e and f sharp on the recorder so that we can compose in D Major pentatonic. If a particular class isn't ready to move that far on recorder, then I will have them create their compositions for xylophone in C Major. 
