Wednesday, November 14, 2018

Candles Glow Speech Piece

Planning holiday concerts is always tricky. I want to have all of my students diverse celebrations represented.  I struggle with finding music that represents everyone and isn't too much Christmas, but just enough, or too much Kwanzaa, and not enough Hanukkah, or too much ________ or not enough ______.  It is a tough balancing act made tougher by the limitations of the theme of holiday.  It is not a "winter" concert as it happens right before we break for the holidays and most of my families celebrate Christmas or a combo of Christmas/Hanukkah or Christmas/Kwanzaa and a few families are Muslim, which is difficult.
Candles are a theme that is inclusive and not exclusive.  This year our theme is "The Warmth of a Winter Candle".  We are performing "Just One Candle", from Music K-8, which is really love and accessible to all. Students are also performing one of their favorites, called Give Light, in addition to several other pieces. I blogged about Give Light- an incredibly beautiful song, a few years ago. The music and post is here.


I wanted to put together a speech piece with several ostinati performed vocally and with non pitched percussion.  This could be used to create movement, or as a drum canon, or as an A Section with small groups performing question and answer improvisations on Orff instruments in a pentatonic key as alternating sections to create a rondo, or it could be used to create a melody.
I am going to let my oldest grade -4th, decide how to perform it.  I can't wait to see what they come up with! 
I love seeds of ideas.. let me know how you use it. It is presented a couple ways below- one with speech only, the other has a possible idea with body percussion.

3 comments:

  1. The theme of lights/ candles is one of my favorites! There are several good easy 2-part choral pieces I love that fit this theme too that I love using with my elementary choirs. This is a great starter idea that could go so many directions- thanks for sharing! I might use this in December for some of my general music lessons- there are so many ways we could go with this!

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  2. Thanks for this! I love this theme and how inclusive it us!

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  3. Thanks for this! I love this theme and how inclusive it us!

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