The Many Layers of a Song

Learning is a complicated business.  Each element of the music curriculum can be studied on it's own, but in real life all of these elements are interconnected and work together to create the magic of music.  We honour this reality in the music classroom.  Every song, poem, dance or instrumental piece is full of different things to learn!

This week, the Grade One students are working on a song called "Tick Tock".  It may sound simple, but there is so much hidden inside!  First, students are working on matching pitch so that each voice sounds the same.  But as they learn the melody of the song, they also notice that the first and third phrases are the same.  This helps us understand musical form, or how a piece is organised into similar and contrasting sections.  As students sing, they are also learning how to clap on the beat, a skill which will soon be transferred to playing the wood block.  Finally, we are learning how to handle our first instrument, the "boomwhacker".  As we hit these plastic tubes on the floor, each child can hear that their instrument sings better when it bounces, which is foundational to effective percussion technique.  

The Grade Two and Three students are learning a song about Liza Briggs.  This piece is centred around our first two melody notes "so" and "mi", and offers a chance to practice showing these pitches with our voice, hand and notation.  We not only learned how to match pitch with those around us, we have also started working on using deliberate expression to portray the mood of the music.  We have also noticed that his song also has repeating sections, which helps us to understand the form of this piece.  Now that we know the song well, we have also added a repeated spoken pattern to perform at the same time, which teaches us how to perform our own part, while listening how it fits with a contrasting part that someone else is performing.  This spoken pattern will soon be transferred to instruments that will accompany our voice.  

"Mi" is a low sound.

"So" is a high sound. 

These pieces are short and simple, but they pack a punch!  When we are deliberate about our teaching and learning, one little song can teach us so very much!