While exploring various music concepts with the children, inevitably they point out patterns they hear or see, and I say, "Math is everywhere in music, so Music is Math!" During these past few weeks we have been exploring some specific patterns in music.
- pentatonic scale
- transposing music into different keys on the xylophones
- exploring how notes move up and down the staff and how it matches our fingering when playing recorder.
- Creating a dance using a certain number of beats.
Students in grade 1/2 have been working on learning how to play the song,
Star Light Star Bright, on the xylophones. Once they were able to play it, then we added a bordun, (a rhythmic pattern played in the bass line). We talked about how the notes sol and mi are always a skip apart and then transposed the song and played in the keys of F and G Major. Sol and mi were still just a skip apart! We then transposed the song into the key of a minor, and still the notes sol and mi were just a skip apart. The children enjoyed singing and playing in A minor because the music sounded mystical. Then I asked what other songs they knew that were about stars. All the children shouted
Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. We listened and moved to
Ah, Vous Dirai-je, Maman by Mozart
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BTvoqVK420&list=RD7BTvoqVK420&start_radio=1
which is the melody of Twinkle Twinkle and discovered that there were 12 different variations, one of which was played in a minor key. They loved the minor variation so we created a short dance. Circle to the left 8 steps, circle to the right 8 steps, forward 4 back 4 ( a student then pointed out 4+4 = 8) turn around for 8 and repeat. Another child stated that he could hear the counting in the music. He was feeling the pulse! We then created a performance where they played and sang Star Light Star Bright in C major, a small group performed the dance and then we played and sung the song in A minor.
Students in grade 3/4 and PLP have been working on developing their ability to read music. We have discussed how the notes step up or down from a space note to a line note, or they skip from a line note a line note or space note to space note. Then they discovered that when the music steps up or down, they lift a finger up or put a finger down. When the notes skip, the put up or down two fingers. We have also been looking at how music is organized into measure of 2, 3, or beats depending on the time signature. The number of beats is always the same. Then a student asked, "But what if the composer wanted to make a sound longer than the number of beats available?" So then we looked at ties and how composers use them to join notes together to create a longer sound. So we are now adding to know how long to a hold a note for.
Here are a few of the songs we worked on this week that your child can practice at home.
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| Fais Dodo without the note names written in |
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Fais Dodo with the note names written in
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Students in grade 5/6 have been learning about the pentatonic scale. They knew that the prefix
penta meant five (math creeping into our music again!) so then the scale must have five notes; do, re, mi, sol, and la. We then broke up the scale into 3 smaller components (ask your child what these mean)
- Bi-tonic (sol-mi)
- Tri-tonic (sol-la-mi)
- Tri-chordal (mi-re-do)
We sang them and created harmony, and then we transferred this knowledge to the xylophones. We found where these notes were in C major, and then we began to improve and explore these various parts of the pentatonic scale. We had a bass beat on the contra bass bar, a bordun (rhythmic pattern on C and G - do and sol) then the the alto xylophones would play bi-tonic, the soproano xylophones would play tri-tonic and the glockenspiels would play tri-chordal. The students had to create a rhythm that would fit in 4/4 time and they could play their given notes in any order. What resulted was beautiful music and lots of fun. The students were able to explore playing all 3 components of the pentatonic scale and then the next day we looked at how could we transpose this into another key? They learned that the note
do can move and then the other notes move along with it and
mi-re-do are still just stepping down and that we still have the same patterns happening on the bars, but just in different places. Then they were able to improvise and transpose their playing into the keys of F and G Major.
Overall, it was an exciting and busy week in the music room, filled with music and math!
