At my school, we have a
three year rotation of composers, with a different one each month. As a Kindergarten through 3rd
grade building, this ensures that the average student will learn about each of
the composers while at the school. When
it comes to the composer lessons, I am always trying to explore new ways to
teach them. I don’t merely want to give
my students facts about the composer’s life, birthplace, family, music, etc. –
not that those aren’t important. They do
have their place, but I want my young students to appreciate the music of each
composer and to have a deeper appreciation for that music because their life,
family, etc.
David Elliott, in his book
Music Matters, uses the word
“musicing” to refer to musical doing. He
uses this word in the “collective sense to mean all five forms of music making:
performing, improvising, composing, arranging, and conducting.” He also calls the people making the music the
“musicers.” If we spend too much time talking about music (i.e. facts, dates,
definitions), then, I believe, that our students will miss out on the enjoyment
of “musicing” and being a “musicer.”
When active listening and performing to music is effectively used in the
lesson, the music, “musicing”, and “musicer” are woven together into a
wonderful musical experience. *If
interested in reading Music Matters, you can find it here.
So, when teaching a composer lesson, here are a few activities that I use to encourage creative thinking
and active “musicing” in my young students.
1.Listening Maps: Anytime you can use (or create)
a listening map for students, they help in so many ways. First, they keep students on task and all at
the same place in the music. They
provide the visual students in your classroom with something to focus on while
the music plays. Also some maps may show
the form, themes, instruments, and dynamics used in the piece. This is a great way to encourage young kids
to analyze the piece, noticing similarities and differences. Other maps may show a story-like picture
relevant to the piece. I have even used
some animated listening maps for The
Nutcracker, and my students absolutely loved them!
2.Using Graphical Scores: If you’re not
familiar with graphical scores, they are basically just videos that show the
sound in different colored and sized bars that match the music. I came across a few by searching with the
added tag of “listening” or “graphical score.”
My students just love these. It gives
them another one of their five senses to use – not only their ears. I love how the colors even show the different
instrument families heard. It can
provide a great discussion with elementary students, connecting what they hear
with what they see.
Here is one of my favorites for you to check out:
3.Adding Instruments: Students love playing instruments, and I
always try to provide them some time to play along with the composer’s
pieces. Depending on the piece, I will
either plan to add certain instruments to match the form or to possibly match
the instruments in the recording. This
obviously needs to be planned out ahead of time, however, there’s always those
times where you have a brilliant idea on the spot! My preference is to match the form with
different instruments. Here is one
example that I recently used with Mozart’s Rondo
alla Turca. On the A section, I had
tambourines play their rhythm, displayed on the board. The B section belonged to the triangles, and in
the C section, all played (tambourines, triangles, and rhythm sticks). Then D section was only rhythm sticks. This encourages listening as they must follow
the piece and listen for their theme to come in again. In this particular piece, it goes back and
forth so many times.
4.Listening Glyphs: Listening
glyphs are another great way to encourage meaningful listening to all types of
music. Basically, students listen to a
piece of music, identify key attributes of the music, and color according to
the directions. I used these with my 3rd
graders studying The Nutcracker in
December. It was a great review of
dynamics, tempo, instruments, and form, and the kids enjoyed doing it! If you’re interested in these, a quick search
of ‘listening glyphs’ on TeacherspayTeachers.com will probably provide you with
many choices.
5.Movement: Movement to Baroque, Classical, and Romantic
music can come in a lot of forms. Folk
dancing, mirroring games, and scarf routines are just a few. I have found a lot of great ideas by
searching YouTube for videos, and I also really enjoy making up my own.
Several years ago, I took a class with John Feierabend, and I was so
inspired by his movement to classical music.
With my students, I call it mirror time – as compared to echo time (do
it after me). I love watching the kids’
faces as they watch me. I will try to
pass my teacher’s cap onto a student who would like to be the “mirror
leader.” I just tell them to make their
hands and feet feel and be the music. It
also works well to do in pairs, with partners taking turns being the
leader. With this activity, I could tell
that the leaders are really listening to the music.
Folk dances work really well with short simple compositions or dances,
such as Mozart’s 12 German Dances for
Orchestra. Use simple repetitive
steps for Kindergarten and 1st grade, and then you can add a more
complex step for your older students.
I will normally wait to use these movement activities until after we’ve
listened to the piece a few times with some of the other above methods, and
they already have an aural grasp of it.
Listening to music is so
important in music education and to young children. I hope that you can benefit in some way from
these ideas. Feel free to e-mail me if
you have any questions or comments. Also
I’d love to hear about how you encourage active listening in your music
classroom. Thanks for reading!
