A Canadian Elementary Music A to Z

Thanks to my Twitter friends @JackieSchneider  https://primarymusicmatters.wordpress.com and @DrFautley https://drfautley.wordpress.com for their wonderful A to Z lists that have inspired me to create my own Canadian Elementary Music version. Happy New Year!

A is for ArtsCan Circle 

My favourite charitable organization working to bring music education to mostly Indigenous youth in remote Canadian communities. http://www.artscancircle.ca

B is for beatboxing and bucket drumming!

Grade 5's excited about their upcoming performance

C is for cowbell - if you teach bucket drumming you gotta have more cowbell! 

D is for doumbek 

Wish I had a class set of these Arabic drums. What a great way to welcome Syrian refugee students being integrated into Canadian schools.

My new doumbek on the rocky shore of Georgian Bay

E is for ear learning. 

All musicians need to learn music by ear - notation is way over-rated.

F is for fearlessness. 

Pushing yourself to try new things and letting go of the fear of looking or sounding stupid in front of students is a liberating experience.

G is for grades

 ...wishing every year at report card writing time that I didn't have to give, especially 5 and 6 year olds, an evaluative grade for music class.

H is for harmonica. 

Thank you Mike Stevens for your inspiration.

I is for Indigenous. 

If you teach in Canada you need to educate yourself about Indigenous culture. Follow @WabKinew, read the Truth & Reconciliation Commission Report, go to a workshop by @EddyRobinson   - doing nothing is not a neutral act.

This package came in the mail from my Dad.

J is for the joy of music class.

K is for Katie Wardrobe 

who is my invaluable resource for all things technological in music http://midnightmusic.com.au

L is for Music as a Language 

Thank you Victor Wooten for the best TedTalk on music ever.  L is also for legacy - what do we stand for and what kind of musical legacy do we want to leave?

M is for Musical Futures

Dr. Lucy Green, informal music learning, Find Your Voice and the wonderful teachers that I have met - some exclusively online - in this global MF community have transformed my teaching for the better.

N is for the nae nae and any other dance craze that comes along.

O is for open mic sessions 

Every so often I set up a mic and amp and go around the circle to give students a chance to do their own thing - Kindergarteners love this! You never know what kids can do until you just let them do it.

P is for performance  

Give students opportunities to develop confidence and pride in what they do.

Golden Beats perform their original hybrid beatbox/dance at School Board Meeting 

Q is for quiet

Try Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer's lesson of passing a piece of newspaper around the room without making a sound.
http://www.artsalive.ca/en/mus/greatcomposers/schafer/index.html#teaching_videos.
Listen, listen, listen.

R is for research

I have returned to school late in my career to study a Masters in Music Education (2 courses away from completion!). More work needs to be done to translate good quality Canadian research into practice in schools.

S is for space 

Every Canadian school should have a designated space for music! I didn't realize how important that was until I lost my music room this year. We study sound and we need a place to make it.

My friend Victoria Simpson's music room in Calgary, Alberta

T is for technology

I agree with Jackie Schneider about the iPad - the absolute best tool for teaching music and every school should have a class set.

U is for the amazingly wonderful ukulele! 

James Hill is right (sorry Denise Gagne) - ukes have a strong advantage over the recorder because you can sing while you play. You can listen to their debate here: Should music teachers ditch recorders for ukuleles?

Gr 7 & 8's at rehearsal for Remembrance Day Assembly

V is for variation

My husband also reminds me that V is for vacation!

W is for winter in Canada 

Cold weather means a full music room at recess breaks - kids playing instruments, jamming, writing songs, or just listening to their favourite music.

X is for xylophones 

Every child should have the opportunity to play an instrument.

Y is for saying "yes" to students' choice in their music learning

Z is for remembering to keep it zippy! 

My internal metronome has slowed a bit in recent years, so daily reminders that my students are buzzing at around 130 - 140 mm helps me to keep in sync with them.

caught up in a struggle...

Here's some inspiration from Us3 - check out the chorus at 1:10

Grade 7 and 8 students are caught up in a struggle...

a songwriting struggle.

They have been working on creating original songs, individually or with a partner, for a couple of music periods. Students were free to choose their own way in to the process - lyrics, melody, chord progression, rhythm/beats - whatever worked to get the ball rolling. 

This web from the Musical Futures Guide to Songwriting document helps us to visualize the complexities of the process. You can find this and other helpful resources on their website: https://www.musicalfutures.org/resource/27359/title/songwriting

It was immediately evident that the majority of girls gravitated to paper or whiteboards to explore lyrics, whereas most boys began by playing on instruments and music apps. I'll be interested to see if this trend continues. In my attempts to capture some of the early stage work, I took a few photographs and video, but found that many students, while happy to discuss their progress with me, were reluctant to have it documented. They want more time to process things on their own. Fair enough. 

This group did let me share a peek into their work in progress. 

Students, such as these girls, who started creating with lyrics, stated that they only had lyrics and did not yet have any other aspect of the music worked out. I recorded these girls so they could play it back to hear other aspects of the music that were clearly starting to form. They were amazed to hear that they were actually starting to develop a melody! Also, the chorus seems to be firmly in place. When completing their Songwriting Reflection #1 they considered starting with "lyrics" and "rhythm/beat" to be a success and now need to find the right chords and instruments to help support a melody, so they can "sing it together".

Many other students are still at the very beginning stage where they are testing out their ideas - rejecting most of them - still trying to find a way in to what they have to say. 

Spreading like wildfire!

Whenever I start something new in one or two classes, it inevitably spreads like wildfire throughout the whole school. Students hear about new music work from siblings or neighbours and convince me to let their class give it a try. 

So, I also opened up this project to a Grade 6 class who has done some fantastic work recreating songs this past term and are ready for a new challenge. After the first class one of the students arrived at my homeroom class door the following morning to tell me about his experience the night before. He has never knocked on my door before and has never really shown an interest in music. In fact, he almost refused to learn the ukulele when we were doing so in class because he just didn't like the instrument. I was surprised to hear him describe his night - not being able to sleep - hearing a song in his head and grabbing his phone to write it down. This assignment inspired him to share his love of rap/hiphop and allowed him to be creative in new ways. His creative burst on a sleepless night has given him a great start on this project and he can't wait to get to the next music class to start "making some beats" to go with his song.

Working with Mentors:

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of meeting and having a Skype chat with James Miles from Urban Arts Partnership in New York. It was exciting to learn about the fantastic programs they are running, such as the Academy that works with high school students to create their own music while also providing skills needed for college and career readiness. This is an afterschool program where the students come to the UAP office, located in SOHO, and work with professional artists in the studio;  rapping, singing, and making music to accompany the lyrics.  As a Musical Futures Canada school, we have an opportunity to partner with the Academy. These high school students will mentor my students and teach us about how to make hip hop music, through Skype lessons and sharing our music together online.

In preparing for this work, I have asked my students to think about the concept of legacy. 

When asked to write about their own issues and passions, my students often have a difficult time identifying what those are. My hope is that the exposure to an inner city culture, in contrast to their own experience in a small southern Ontario city, may help to illuminate their own unique place in the world and start to shape their personal stories. 

Mostly, we still have questions:

What does legacy mean?

What is our legacy?

What do we have to say?

What do we care about?

What is the best way to express our thoughts, feelings, ideas through music?

So, we are all caught up in a struggle right now.

Grades 7 & 8 Songwriting

Songwriting:

Students in grades 7 & 8 classes will be challenging themselves to write their own songs over the next few months in 2015. My students have music twice a 10-day cycle, so this means a 50 minute music class usually once a week, except for the Gr. 8 class that is scheduled on two consecutive days and consequently have a long two week break without music class.

My plan is to use this blog to document my observation of students involved in this process. My hope is to become a better music teacher and facilitator of the creative process.

Throughout my music teaching career I have rarely assigned students the wide open assignment of writing a song. Mostly because I would personally be terrified if someone asked me to write a song, as I suspect the majority of music teachers would also feel. So, instead I have usually designed creative tasks to be smaller and more "manageable", placing creative constraints on the assignment so students manipulate only parts of the music.

Go Big or Go Home!

Since joining the Find Your Voice 2013 pilot project of Musical Futures, I have become more fearless in my teaching. I'm realizing that a BIG shift is needed in the way we teach music if our goal is to align school music experiences more closely with how our students experience music in the world outside of school. I want to welcome all students equally into the process - not just those who have taken private music lessons outside of school, or in my district, those whose parents pay for them to join an instrumental music program. In the real world, songwriting can be messy and convoluted, idiosyncratic and enigmatic. I want to give my students a chance to delve into music and explore the world of songwriting. I want them to have a chance to express themselves through their music.

What do students think about songwriting? Words from a quick brainstorming session:

Students put stars beside the words they would first think about to get started on this project.

Any surprises? How about "failure" or "embarrassing to perform"? I need to consider that some students' fears and possibly past experiences are holding them back from even approaching this assignment.

Inspiration:

I always like to start any new work with a few ideas that are "Challenging and Inspiring" to get the creative process moving. Here's a diagram of one conception of the creative process from the Ontario Arts Curriculum, 2009:

So, we watched Mark Ronson's TedTalk about sampling music. I know he has a certain cache with my students because of his work with Bruno Mars on the recent hit song Uptown Funk.

Our favourite Mark Ronson quotation:

"In music, we take something that we love and we build on it" 

Do you have to be a musician to teach music?

In thinking about the question for this week's live Twitter chat on Wednesday #mufuchat - I found that for once I truly did NOT have a quick answer.  The question posed by @MusicalFutures is a question I have been struggling with for the past few years, "do you have to be a musician to teach music?"  At least once a week I work with teachers and adult students who are becoming teachers, to help them gain some skills in teaching music.  Most of them are self-described "non-musicians".  If I didn't truly believe that music could be taught by "non-musicians",  I would not be investing so much of my time and energy in this process.  But, to come up with a well-constructed answer to this question seems a daunting task.  

Instead, I decided to share the questions that plague me as I try to construct an answer. Even as I read it back, more questions are emerging...

Do you have to be a musician to teach music?

How do you define musician? 

Am I a musician because my parents put me into piano lessons when I was 5 years old and I stuck with it and am trained to play the piano?

Does that make me a musician?

Is being proficient at playing the piano proof that I can teach students?

What does it mean to teach music? 

Does it mean training students to sing? play instruments? read and write the language of music notation? understand the rules of musical composition? listen and interpret music? 

What are the essential qualities of musicality that we need to teach? 

It ALL comes down to the essential question – what does it mean to be musical?

Can you be a weak musician and be a good music teacher? (Definitely Yes – I have seen it)

Can you be a great musician and a terrible teacher? (Absolutely – I’ve seen that too)

So, maybe the question is, what does it take to be a good teacher, no matter what the subject content?

And to refine it – what does it take to be a great music teacher?

Is the teacher who calls him/herself a musician and commits to learning about music alongside their students the best teacher?

Is being a musician a self-imposed definition?

Or does our society and culture define who is a musician?

Have we allowed only the elite, trained musicians to carry that title?

Will we also allow popular musicians who have acquired fame and a following to use the title,  “musician”?

If I sing to my baby and make up songs to calm her cries and help her fall asleep – am I a musician?

If a child picks up a toy and repeated plays a rhythm with it on the floor – is that child a musician?

At what point does one become a musician?

Are we ALL musicians, since music is so primal?

Can a musician simply be someone who makes music?

Do we need to understand the structure of music in order to call ourselves musicians?

Or is every musician who shares his or her music, in a way, teaching us something about music?

Can ANYONE who makes music, TEACH music?

Oh, gosh – I think I’m back at the beginning…

What We Learned from the Process of Recreating a Song

Last Wednesday, Teacher Candidates in the Junior/Intermediate Music class sorted themselves into groups based on friendships or interest in a particular style of music and worked for one session to recreate a song to present to the class.  They were encouraged to use their voices and any of the varied instruments available in the music room.

At the end of their performances they took a few moments to write a reflection about the process of collaborating in a group to do this task.  I usually give them a hard time about their reflections and the need to think more deeply and specifically, but after this work they had lots of worthwhile things to say.

Here are just some of their wonderful statements about their work:

• it really brought out the complexity of the music
• really made me appreciate all of the layers and textures that make up a song
• made us deconstruct songs to their skeletons and rebuild them back up one instrument at a time
• a challenging activity that requires thought and critical listening skills
• made me appreciate all that goes into creating music
• made us listen in a different way than "casually listening"
• felt like we were dissecting a frog - we dissected the song
• the song choice was definitely an important part of the activity
• when we thought we were finished, we realized we had to refine our song even more
• then I heard 4 more notes in the glockenspiel section that we decided to incorporate
• having one individual keeping the beat was important
• the song grew and changed as we spent more time rehearsing
• my respect for songwriters and all performers has greatly increased
• each performance was so unique
• helped me to face performance anxiety
• showed us how creative we all are
• working collaboratively was a complex task
• working collaboratively takes patience
• in the end you can really be proud
• an amazing experience 
• fun yet frustrating
• creative differences make for a creative masterpiece

Here's a link to our sharing wall to see our group work:

http://padlet.com/wall/yec2zmjz7

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

My Edublog Award Nominations

Finding great on-line PD is really important. Reaching beyond the colleagues in your building to connect with teachers all over the world can challenge you to think differently and sometimes give you the support you need.  Check out these great websites and blogs!

Here are my nominations for the Edublogs Awards 2013 http://edublogawards.com/category/blog/

Best Open PD: https://www.musicalfutures.org

Best Group Blog: http://musicalfuturesblog.wordpress.com

Best Teacher Blog :http://teachertomsblog.blogspot.ca 
(Learning through Play and lots of great teaching philosophy)