Elementary General Music
Watch me teach a short song to a Kindergarten class here!
This lesson aimed to help students develop their ability to hear and perform in major tonalities and improve their tunefulness through echoing.
If I could reteach this song to the students, I would first of all be sure to bring a tool that I can use to remind myself of the starting pitch. One easy option could be to keep my TE Tuner next to me so that I can check to see what our starting pitch is to keep the octave age-appropriate. I would also like to think of better transitions when passing out the scarves, as this was a chaotic point in my lesson. Setting up our transition conversations (like what seeds they imagine they are planting) before I start moving to pass out scarves will help. I also accidentally interrupted the students multiple while they were speaking and needed to practice listening instead of guessing what they would say. I also would give positive feedback while singing and doing the movements.
I learned about several different music-learning pedagogies and philosophies. Read about Orff here!
The philosophy behind the Orff Approach is that students are inherently musical and movement-oriented and can unlock their potential through facilitated play and exploration. Orff believes in using culturally relevant materials (children's songs, rhymes, folk music) to awaken rhythm and tonal information already learned from existing in the world. The Orff philosophy is that elemental music is as valuable as traditional classical music and that students who discover elemental music through exploration, imitation, improvisation, and creation will gain confidence and collaboration skills through the process. Joy and choice are two necessary facets of music-making and movement-making in an Orff classroom. Orff teachers do not necessarily subscribe to standard musical notation. Teachers focus more on developing aural skills around patterns and tonality, often through moveable do solfege and repetitive “approachable” modes. Teachers may communicate rhythmic patterns through nonsensical syllables (takadimi, blue jello). Musical parts may be communicated with iconic notions, like showing clapping hands to represent the sound and having images closer or farther apart to represent rhythmic expectations. I find it interesting that so much of the Orff method was written to work in a culture where children's musical and movement tradition was homogenous and centered on Western music theory tonal centers. In modern-day classrooms, the musical knowledge students come in with may not be centered around sol-la-mi.
