What can we learn from rhythmic chants?

Last Friday I worked with a fantastic group of teachers from DSBN who have committed to working together over the next 5 months to learn more about teaching music at the Intermediate (Gr. 7 - 10) Level with the Musical Futures, Find Your Voice approach.

What struck me the most was how we learned so much from a vocal warm-up written by Gitika Partington.  At first glance, the rhythmic chant, "Lift Off!" seems musically very simple - in fact most of it is spoken rather than sung.  But it is so much fun to perform that it launched us into creating our own rhythmic chants and performing them for each other.  When we discussed "what worked well?" from our performances, the feedback led to some very interesting discussions about what it means to be musical.

Here's just a sample of the big musical ideas that came out of this and what this process made us think about:

• Music Notation - these creations could be written down, including notating the rhythms/pitches of each part.  This opened a HUGE debate about the importance of music notation and when it is best introduced.  Most students can create more complex rhythms than they have the capacity to notate. So, if students limit their creativity so they can successfully notate a rhythm - is that beneficial? or do we want them to explore the full range of their music capabilities? What does our curriculum say? What does our good musical judgement say?
• Timbre - most groups made serious use of the varying qualities of sound of the voices in their group and worked to exaggerate differences and create interesting and unique voice timbres. 
• Form - some groups created interesting beginnings and endings, others had all parts starting and ending together, etc.
• Beat/Rhythm - almost every group talked about the challenge of fitting the rhythms together and maintaining a steady beat
• Movement/Music connection - we noticed that when we had at least one person in the group moving to the beat it served to keep the whole group working together at the same tempo. Also, when people performed a movement to fit with their part, it really helped the audience pick up on their intent and enhanced their message.
• Language/Rhythm connection - we noticed that it's easier to remember and recreate a rhythm when it's connected to words
• Syncopation - when a little bit of syncopation was introduced it added interest to the rhythmic chant (e.g. heart beat rhythm in the Valentine's chant)
• Repetition v. Change - finding a balance of the familiar and the unexpected makes for a great rhythmic chant 
• "Space" - finding that feeling of openness in the music, so our ears can appreciate everything that's going on
• Drama - one performance was referred to as "installation art".  Adding elements of drama enhanced the music and made for a richer performance.
• The Creative Process - What did we start with, a theme, an osinato?  Did we individually create our own parts and then try to fit them together?  Or did we all work together to create all of the parts collectively? How does it feel to collaborate in a group to create something musical? How can we use feedback from our audience to improve and enrich our creative work in the future? 
• Balance 
• Ensemble performance skills
• etc.

Wow - that's a lot of musical thinking from simple rhythmic chants!  Listening to all of the feedback made me think that the elements and concepts of music are so inextricably linked.  We often do students a disservice by trying to teach lessons to isolate and artificially manufacture music with an emphasis on only one of the elements. Even this lesson that seems to emphasize rhythm and vocal timbres is rich with ALL KINDS of music thinking and understanding.

Video examples on our sharing wall:

http://padlet.com/wall/erde8036az