“Group singing is a communal form of play, a joyful ritual bringing everyone together. A different kind of identity arises- a group identity, a group spirit.” (Page, 1995 p.15).
This weeks music session was all about the voice. As a teacher we rely on our voices, which can often take a lot of strain. This is why it is important that we look after our vocal chords.
After watching a video about beatboxing, this made me aware that the voice can be used to create music in many ways, rather than the traditional style of singing. “Teachers who accept all musical styles convey a positive message.” (Page, 1995 p.14). As teachers we need to accept diversity in the learning environment and embrace a child’s choice of music style as this could be part of their developing identity.
Here is the video all about the variations of music that can be created using just your voice:
The focus of this lesson was on different types of warm ups. To start off with we learned about the importance of warming up our bodies by doing shoulder and neck rolls, before moving on to facial exercises. We then moved on to breathing exercises, such as breathing in, holding it and then releasing it slowly with a controlled airflow. Playing a brass instrument and being part of a wind ensemble, I was already familiar with many breathing exercises such as this one. However, I had never thought about how these techniques could be used as vocal warm ups and cool downs as well.
References
Page, N. (1995) Music as a way of knowing. Maine: Stenhouse Publishers
In our last music input we learned about Figure notes. Figure notes are an alternative way of reading music, instead of reading notes off a stave you read the coloured shapes which represent notes. Many people can struggle with learning to read music, and for people with additional support needs or learning difficulties it can be too much for them to compute. This is why I think figure notes are a great tool to use, as it can break down barriers for people who struggle with reading music and allows anyone to have the joy of playing an instrument.
“Music is communication. Music is play. And most importantly, music is for us of us, not just the specialists.” (Page, 1995). This quote reiterates the point that anyone can learn to play an instrument if they have the right resources and the right support.
This also gives children who cannot read music the opportunity to be a part of a band or orchestra and play alongside children who do read conventional music, with a feeling of equality. Opportunities to play as part of a musical group can also develop the child’s team work skills and develop their confidence.
They can also then progress on to reading conventional sheet music, after building up their confidence and a base of music knowledge through the figure notes.
As someone who has read music from a young age, I found the figure notes quite strange at first, but after seeing how quickly some of my non-musical friends picked it up and managed to play a short piece on the keyboard or glockenspiel, I could clearly see that this is a great tool to start anyone off on learning an instrument.
References
Drake Music Scotland (2016) Figure Notes. [Online] Available: http://www.drakemusicscotland.org/figurenotes/ [Accessed 28 December 2016]
Page, N. (1995) Music as a way of knowing. Maine: Stenhouse Publishers
“The benefits of learning to play an instrument include the development of social skills; gaining a love and enjoyment of music; developing team-work; developing a sense of achievement, confidence and self-discipline; and developing physical co-ordination” (Hallam & Prince, 2000).
This week in music we looked at the instruments which would be used in a primary classroom, in particular we look at the ukulele. I found this to be an interesting choice because when I had class music lessons in primary school it was always either the recorder or glockenspiel. We started off by learning the notes on each string and then went on to learning the 4 chords which make up many songs. After learning the different strumming patterns and fingerings for the different chords, we were able to put all of this together to play ‘Last Christmas’ by wham.
Before todays input, ukulele would not have been an instrument I would’ve thought I could teach to a primary class. After having guitar lessons myself, I know that chord positions and strumming patterns can be very tricky, and I assumed Ukulele would be too difficult to teach to a full class of primary pupils. However, after seeing how quickly everyone picked it up from watching the ‘Axis of Awesome’ You Tube videos that broke it all down step but step, I have now changed my mind. Having online resources like that are very useful, as it would mean that if the class were struggling with any particular area the teacher could go back to the specific part of the video and go over it again with them until it falls into place. It would also allow children to do their own practice at home if they had access to a ukulele.
I found learning the Ukulele to be an enjoyable experience that I picked up quickly, and would definitely consider using it with a class in the future.
References
Axis of Awesome. (2011) 4 Chords | Music Videos | The Axis Of Awesome. [Online] Available:https://youtu.be/oOlDewpCfZQ [Accessed 5 January 2017]
This week in music we explored the music programme “Charanga” (Charanga, 2016). I had heard of this programme before, as it was used in the school I was in on my first placement and I know the class teacher thought it was a great resource. However this was the first chance I had gotten to explore it myself.
It is a website with an incredible amount of online resources for music teachers, it provides them with everything to prepare a music lesson for any stage in the curriculum. There are full lesson plans, which follow a week by week programme making it easy for teachers to track the children’s progression. This is great support for new teachers or teachers who are not confident with music.
It has various interactive activities, sheet music which can be downloaded and printed out for many different instruments and backing tracks for songs. This is practical as the teacher does not have to accompany the children in singing lessons.
Within the vast bank of songs, there is music relating to other areas of the curriculum such as Times Table songs and numeracy songs. This is an interesting way of integrating music into the other curricular areas and it is a great way of engaging children in other subjects. Personally I find putting something into song helps me to remember it better, therefore with the likes of the timetables song, these activities could aid children who are struggling to remember them.
Charanga also has section dedicated to the BBC’s ten pieces programme (BBC, 2015) which I had not been familiar until now. The purpose of the 10 pieces programme is to introduce children to classical music in an exciting and engaging way by getting them to create their own response to the pieces through the arts, whether it be a composition of their own, a dance or digital art. Charanga provides a whole lesson plan and a tool kit full of activities for each of the 10 pieces. Again this is incredibly helpful for teachers who do not have an in-depth knowledge on classical music but would still like their class to take part in this interesting programme.
Overall I thought that charanga was a great resource for all teachers, no matter what their music ability and it is definitely something that I would consider using in the future. I hope that programmes like this encourage teachers who are not confident in music to give these preprepared lessons a try, and allow more music into the classroom.
References
BBC (2015) 10 Pieces. [Online] Available: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01vs08w [Accessed 6 January]
Charanga (2016) Charanga music school. [Online] Available at: http://www.charangascotland.co.uk [Accessed 3 January 2017].
This weeks music input was very different, we were lucky enough to have a class of Primary 6’s, who were part of the Greenmail Strings Project, come in and teach us about their instrument.
The school had formed a strings project where every child in the class got to participate in learning an instrument and being part of an orchestra. I thought this was a great that every child had the chance to learn an instrument because when I was at primary school, everyone was given a musical test and only those who scored highly on the test got the opportunity to receive music tuition. This was presumably down to cost of tuition and limited resources. I also felt it was great that the class had a specific timetabled slot for music every week, as music is often overlooked and seen as less important as maths and english etc meaning it can get skipped if there is “not enough time for it”. As someone who is incredibly passionate about music and knows how important it can be to many children, I feel there should always be a timetabled slot for it. As Eisner states “In education, the arts are considered nice but not necessary.” (Eisner, 2006 )
Having the roles reversed and being taught by one of the pupils themselves was an interesting concept. The little girl who was teaching me how to play twinkle twinkle little star on her violin was very enthusiastic about her instrument, and she seemed to gain a great sense of pride and achievement when watching me pick up what she had taught me. This showed me that the children had a good base knowledge of music and the instrument they were learning because for them to pass this knowledge on, they would have to have a good understanding of the topic. I think this is a great way for children to reinforce what they have learned themselves, by talking about what they have learned and teaching it to someone else.
After teaching us their instruments, there was some time at the end for the children to ask us questions and us to ask them questions. The little girl who I had been working with asked me if I had any previous musical knowledge and if I played any instruments currently. After telling her that I had grown up surrounded by music and still carried on playing trumpet, piano and guitar, she seemed happy and relived that I had managed to keep my instruments up. She told me that she very much wanted to continue with playing her violin when she was older, when I asked her what she enjoyed about it she said that enjoyed being able to play along with her classmates as part of the orchestra and enjoyed the opportunities being in the orchestra had brought to them, such as performing for Prince Charles. I thought I was great to see how this string project had really inspired the pupils and engaged them with music.
I thoroughly enjoyed the music session this week as it was a much more unusual workshop and I enjoyed learning something new.
In the workshop this week we learned bout the music programme Garageband. It is ready equipped with a sound library full of bass lines, melodies and mounter melodies, meaning that all the user has to do is piece the parts they want together to create the sound they want.
Here is a clip of the short 8 bar phrase I created, first by starting of with a basic dance beat, then adding synths and a trumpet melody.
“There are some simple and amazing programmes that allow children to compose exciting music with little or no instruction” (Page, 1995 p.26)
I thought this was a great tool as it allows anyone, no matter how in depth or how little music knowledge they have, to create a piece of music. It also allows children who may not play an instrument but still have an interest in music, to express their musical creativity through technology. It also developed children’s independent learning, as once they have been shown how to work the programme, the rest is up too them. There are endless possibilities for the type of music they can create.
I personally feel that the current music curriculum should be updated. Although there are many children who have an interest in learning classical music and traditional composition, there will be some pupils who have more of an interest in dance and electronic music, or who want to learn more about the production of music rather than learning to play an instrument. Therefore I think it is important that teachers vary how they teach music, and it would be beneficial to introduce programmes like Garageband into the curriculum.
References
Page, N. (1995) Music as a way of knowing. Maine: Stenhouse Publishers
In our second music input we looked at alternatives to traditional notation on a stave. First of all we looked at a normal stave and discussed note length and time signatures. Using drum sticks we beat out a simple rhythms of minims, crotchets and quavers.
This then lead us on to talking about how shapes can be used represent notes, in our examples we used a circle to represent a 1 beat note and a square to represent a 2 beat note. I think this is a good way of starting children off with music as it allows them to gain a sense of rhythm, without having to read music off a stave right away, which can be tricky.
We then talked about a 5 note scale, and improvisation. We were all given a glockenspiel and using the five notes we were given and any rhythm we wanted, we all took turns improvising a short 8 bar piece in front of the class whilst the lecturer accompanied us on piano to ‘Hit the road jack’. I think this would be a good exercise to do with children because by it would increase their confidence in performing and it would introduce them to learning about scales (by sticking to the 5 notes). Improvisation has also been proven to increase children’s creativity:
“improvisation activities significantly supported the development of creative thinking as opposed to the didactic teaching. To enhance general creativity music lessons themselves need to be based on creative activities.” (Hallam, 2010)
“Music is a moral Law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness and life to everything.” –Plato
In our first music workshop we discussed the importance of Music in education. We discussed how music can enhance childrens learning in a variety of ways such as helping to develop their brains facilitating academic achievement and developing creative capacities for life long success.
As someone who has had a passion for music from a young age I completely agree with this. I took trumpet, piano and guitar lessons from the age of 7 and was in bands, orchestras and vocal ensembles the whole way through my school life.Music has taught me many lessons, such as the importance of team work. Playing as part of a group teaches you about the importance of listening to each other and not just focusing on yourself. Hallam states that music “helps individuals learn to support each other, maintain commitment and bond together for group goals” (Hallam, 2010, p279)
Music has taught me resilience and how to pushing through a hard situation, often when learning an instrument you come up against challenges in the music which can make you want to give up and quit, but this then drives you to keep going because the satisfaction of completing something you thought you couldn’t do is so much better.
“Success in music can enhance overall feelings of confidence and self-esteem, increasing motivation for study more generally” (Hallam, 2010 p278). Music has given me much more confidence. I used to be someone who would have been petrified to get up in front of an audience and do a presentation, but I often got made to perform solos at school concerts. The more I got used to performing in front of people, the easier it became to present my self without hiding behind an instrument. These are just a few of the many things I have gained from being involved in music.
Part of the workshop was to listen to different excerpts of music and discuss how they made us feel and how easy it is for music to alter our mood. Then we listened to a piano concerto by Shostakovich, which had various different sections to it and in groups we had to create a storyboard that went along with each section of the music.
My group came up with a circus story and drew a different part of the show to go with each different section of the music, e.g the lions being tamed and the loud music diminuendos, the gymnasts swinging from trapezes as the music accelerates etc. We then presented our stories to the rest of the class and I found it very interesting to see how different each groups story was, one group had a story about pirates, another group had a story about a cat and mouse chase. This just shows how each individual can have such different creative ideas from the same stimulus.
I thought this would be a great task to use with children as it not only gets them engaged in the music, but it is also a a great task to integrate music, literacy and art together. Some children can struggle to come up with ideas for a story or a drawing, so I thought this idea of using music as a stimulus to think creatively about literacy and art was a great idea.
This task also meets the expressive arts outcomes:
“I have listened to a range of music and can respond by discussing my thoughts and feelings. I can give and accept constructive comment on my own and others’ work.” EXA 1-19a / EXA 2-19a
“Inspired by a range of stimuli, and working on my own and/or with others, I can express and communicate my ideas, thoughts and feelings through musical activities.” EXA 0-18a / EXA 1-18a / EXA 2-18a
Overall I thoroughly enjoyed the session and I think this is a lesson I would definitely consider using in the future.
