Creating Song Maps

In my music classes, Grades 7 & 8 students are creating song maps for the songs they are working on in their "recreate a song" projects. Students are collaborating in groups to recreate their favourite songs using their own voices, vocal instrumentation including beatboxing, and any of the instruments available to them in our music program - ukuleles, hand drums, bucket drums, 2 keyboards, an electric guitar, an electric bass guitar, one digital drum kit and various auxiliary percussion such as, tambourines, maracas, etc. (see Music Futures for more detailed resources on recreating a song)

Ideally, song mapping would work so well to launch "recreate a song" process because it involves listening intently and repeatedly to a chosen song to create a visual conceptual map of whatever you hear - lyrics, rhythms, elements of form, such as intro, verse and chorus. There are no rules as to what visual tools you use to represent parts of the song - it could be colour, line, pattern, images, words - whatever. This can help students to hear the various parts of the song that they may choose to recreate.

This year, however, I gave in to my students' initial enthusiasm to get to instruments right away, so instead of using mapping to begin the process, we are using it as a little "time out" in the middle, because I noticed that students were getting away from focusing on listening to the music to direct their recreation work. I wanted to find a way to encourage them to listen, listen, listen, and then listen again.

Song mapping can take many forms and is very open-ended. The beauty of this activity is that there really is no right or wrong way to map a song. I am frequently surprised by elements of the songs that students will choose to represent visually. Also song maps can be on-going and groups can add to their own map as they discover nuances of their song.

Here are a few examples we looked at before we started our own maps:

First we checked out this website and watched the video below:

The Art of Mapping Music - Open Culture

Students were suitably impressed but a bit overwhelmed by the detail and precision of these schematics. So, I shared a few simpler song maps which we discussed. These were created by teachers involved in a Music Learning Group in my district school board.

Questions to think about:

• Can a song map ever be wrong? or is anyone's visual interpretation of a song valid?
• How can song maps help students to develop a conceptual understanding of their song?
• How is visual song mapping a way to consider form more closely?