3 posts tagged “teaching”

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Whole hog music education with PreK through 2nd grade.

The Abreu Fellows of El Sistema model came to play with the ORCHkids all week. 

The kids had quite an experience.

What I've been doing with the ORCHkids, my inner city children.

Singing songs in all tonalities: major, minor, dorian, mixolydian, phrygian, etc.
Singing songs and chanting rhymes in all meters: duple, triple, 5/8, 7/8, etc. 
Some are multimetric (switch around among meters)
Singing in tune with a light voice. Singing tonal patterns individually with each child.
Chanting rhythm patterns in the meter and style of songs just sung. Again, individually with each child.

Hearing the changes (chords that go under the melody) to "On Top of Spaghetti" by singing 
the roots and listening to that the IVchord sticks out if you already know the V and I chords well enough.
--Yes preK knows tonic, dominant and subdominant, but we're not calling them that yet.

Oh, and for real fun, we're moving expressively to music. Really jamming.
C'mon music teachers. Get up and really groove. Stop it with clapping TA TA TI TI TA. 
**That's so STOOPID—way below the rhythmic "intelligence" of school-age children.

We were scarf dancing to Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band "Hit the Ground Running."
I love it. I could do it all day. SO I do. Learn that tune folks. It's fun.

Some say that's not PreK appropriate.

Yeh, and what was Coltrane or Parker or Tatum listening to when they were 4?
So, why not??

Post a comment Tags: music, teaching, singing, dancing, education, movement, gordon …

Teaching music to Pre-K, K, and 1st grade in the inner city

That's what I'll be doing twice a week this fall. I plan to keep you updated on the children's musical progress after we start the school year. The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra started their ORCHkids outreach program last year (http://www.bsomusic.org/main.taf?p=3,17). Now most of the kids have moved to a new school where I'll be teaching their younger schoolmates musical readiness skills. This will be hard-core ear training for the youngest.


The kids from last year (2nd and 3rd graders now) know major and minor tonalities, duple, triple, combined and unusual meters. They also started reading tonal and rhythm patterns that were too difficult for me after 3 or 4 years of private instruction in a privileged environment. 

I'll be using this blog to bust open any misconceptions about what children can learn if they're taught in a manner that challenges their musical potential.

2 comments Tags: music, teaching, kindergarten, education, teach, pre-k, teacher training, inner city …

How early can you expect students to hear I, V, IV and V/V?

How about 6 years old?
I'm not kidding!

Children as young as 6 hear these harmonic functions, name them, and discriminate among them.
I've done this in minor too.

I've had 4 and 5 year olds hear tonic, dominant and subdominant. We don't call it that, but they can discriminate among them when presented to them in context and WITHOUT the theory.

In fact, I believe that the theoretical approach, in which most of us music teachers were trained in, actually inhibits ear training.

What's that mean when young children can do what some college music majors can't?


Post a comment Tags: music, teaching, children, harmony, education, music education, ear training, functions …