Mallet Exploration and Technique

 

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A post shared by Aimee Pfitzner 🎶 (@aimee_ofortunaorff)

Using iconic or rhythmic notation, various voices, elemental forms, movement, non-pitched percussion, barred percussion, movement, and improvisation, this is a "kitchen sink" lesson using everything in the classroom you CHOOSE to use. You can use this with your first graders to upper elementary, varying the complexity included in the lesson. You can get the full slide set with all of the visuals on my Patreon community.  Add your favorite book about winter and voila! A lesson with no prep!

Enjoy!

Creepy Carrots

I struggle with all the Halloween themed things I used to do and no longer include as I have students who do not celebrate Halloween. I love spooky season and incorporate spiders, monsters, and other "Halloween-adjacent" activities into this time of year but always with a curricular focus. And if I don't have it, I make it. My third graders learn recorder every year and this year's group is just a wee bit behind other years, for whatever reason. Wonderful singers, and wonderful musicians, just not picking up on recorder as quickly as some other groups. So, I needed a quick piece to put together and have always loved the book, Creepy Carrots! Get the full slide set, with the animated book, here (free!). I wrote this yesterday and did the activity with two classes, who walked out the door singing the tune- love when that happens! Easy, accessible, and diversified for students who need to work on EG or BAG passages, or they can play everything, BAGE! 

Enjoy!

If You Find a Leaf

This is such a beautiful book by Aimee Sicuro! The slides are available (FREE!) here!

Esperanza Rising Guest Blog Post

 Crystal Briley is a wonderful friend who also happens to be a gifted music teacher.  Today she shares a lesson for upper elementary to go with the book, Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan.

At my school in Charlotte, NC we value the motto “arts+academics=success.” We are firm believers that the arts enhance and can totally integrate with the core content. The main theme of the book is that “there is no rose without thorns.”  Over the course of the 9 weeks of study, students used that theme to build upon the following arrangement I wrote with the same title.

Because this piece is in 6/8 meter, I began with movement so that the students would be familiar with the pulse. Several ideas of movement that we explored were:

1.  Mark time on the spot

1. Walking in place

2. Walking in place with clapping

3. Walking in place with a hand drum

2. Travel around the room

1. Flowing movement with the teacher playing recorder / melody

2. Rhythmic echo play

3. Clapping freer rhythms

Gunild Keetman has many ideas for movement exploration in her book, “Elementaria.” We tried various exercises from her book to help make the 6/8 meter feel successful.

Upon success with the meter, I moved to the melody of the piece for the students.  We explored singing various patterns of solfege to get their ear in the la pentatonic scale.  Eventually, we landed on the solfege patterns of the melody itself.  Finally, we began exploring those patterns on the glockenspiel and other barred instruments.  I believe this melody would work well on recorder if your students are more proficient and need a challenge.  The only caveat would be needing to play a few of the notes up or down the octave because of the soprano recorder range.

With the additional parts in the arrangements, students created body percussion patterns to help them learn the rhythm patterns.  Here are some example ideas:

• Bass Xylo part-- “Es- per- an- za!”   (Stomp L, R, L, R)

• Bongos-- “Hope will rise! Hope gonna rise!”  (pat clap clap, pat clap clap snap)

• SX / AX-- “We have no fear start again.” (pat pat pat pat, clap clap snap)

After figuring out the ostinatii of these patterns, we put them on the barred instruments and unpitched percussion by rote.

To tie in the literacy standards and writing from their core content, it was important to explore the content of the book itself.  Over the course of several weeks, we went through these steps to integrate the main idea and themes of the book in my classroom.

• Review the main theme of the book: “There is no rose without thorns.”

• Ask them to list the thorns (challenges) in Esperanza's (main character) life.

1. Students should find at least three to four challenges that Esperanza must face and explain how she meets these challenges.

• Finally, they should explain how meeting these challenges changes Esperanza for the better.

• Have students write about the challenges they face in their own lives and how they meet these challenges. Guiding questions I used with students:

1. What are the challenges we face in society?

2. What is something that challenges you at home?

3. What is a challenge you face at school?

4. What can you say to someone who is facing a challenge?

5. How are you meeting these challenges on a daily basis?

• Have students create giant roses. 

1. Using construction paper, cut out large red petals.  Template HERE.

2. On each petal, have the students write down a challenge they wrote down previously.  

3. Create three to four petals, then glue them into the shape of a rose. We spent more time on these and ended up with seven layers of petals.  

Using the challenges from the petal art, we spent time mining for rhythmic building blocks and /or ostinati These ostinati became the alternating sections of our Rondo Form for a final performance. Students created 8- beat phrases using elemental forms such as abab, abac, abba, etc.  

• A speech ostinato.  

• Add body percussion.

• Add unpitched percussion.

The final performance order was decided by my students in order to vary the A section each time and create a flowing theme of their “challenges.” Invite your students to create their own ideas.

A Song – Sing melody

B 

A Song – Xylos melody

C 

A Song – Singing Part 1 & 2

D 

A Song – Playing ALL Parts

E 

Song – Everything

Performance Video

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bjjN3vonSnH4Ee7V6mBJcn34EisXxDoj/view?usp=share_link 

One idea my students had was to go back to the movement exploration and incorporate the rose petal art as props into their movement.  I expect this will be a beautiful addition to their in person performance for their families.  

My goal has been to motivate upper school students with lessons and ideas that keep their interest.  We are on our way to this as we integrate the core content in my room.  The ultimate goal will be to bring their own musical interests in our classroom and continue this pattern of success!  If you are interested in integrating core content with your lessons, all it takes is an intentional conversation with your grade level classroom teachers to make a plan of attack! Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me as well– arts integration is a passion of mine and I’m always willing to flesh out ideas with you!

Bio:  Crystal Briley, a National Board Certified Teacher, received a bachelor of music from Samford University, Birmingham, AL and a master of music from Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University, Chicago, IL.  She is the Kindergarten through Grade 5 general music teacher at University Park Creative Arts Elementary School in Charlotte, NC, and is the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra teaching artist for the Link Up with Carnegie Hall program.  Crystal has completed AOSA Teacher education levels I - III, The Elemental Style: Composing and Arranging, and Developing an Orff Schulwerk Curriculum.  She is an active member and the past president of the Piedmont North Carolina Chapter of AOSA.

The House Around the Corner

 I am always looking for songs that help my recorder students with specific areas - and often end up writing my own pieces to fit their needs. Since switching the starting pitches from BAG to GE I have been delighted that beginning with G and E opens up so much bitonic and tritonic (SM and SLM) songs and once we add low D we have access to some wonderful pentatonic material!  

We are working on some pre-improvisational ideas and so The House Around the Corner was born this week!  My students needed more practice with low E, and they were clamoring for something scary and spooky.  This song can go in various directions - spooky or with a more autumnal/wintry theme. 

I sang this song to them while playing the accompaniment.

Then I displayed these four 4-beat rhythm cards.

As we have been working on something we call the Wizard's Challenge using In the Hall of the Mountain King, I tell the students this rhythm might be familiar. Then I sing it using the word "dude" (which is what we "whisper" when playing recorder) and their little minds are blown that this is the rhythm of the melody repeated over and over.  Then we play the first card (top left) only using "E". Then play through each subsequent card using "E."  Play the top two cards, then the bottom two, then the full 16-beat phrase. 

I change the bordun to quarter notes  E B C B, which sounds very spooky, and we play the full phrase using E. 

Next, change the quarter notes to G. Play full phrase.

Finally, change the 3rd card (four 8th note pairs) to B and have students work on the transition from third card to final card (transitioning from B to E) and then we play the full phrase.

Perform as A (song), B (recorder melody), A again. Students could also play the melody as it is a simple La Do Re Mi song. If you have Carol King's Recorder Routes you could combine this with Who Has Seen the Wind, another LDRM song. 

The students loved it and felt so successful! The next time we will work on improvising beats 2 and 4 of   the third measure and will add zombie movement (as they requested), whistling tubes, flexatone, black scarves, and spring drums. They also want to add gongs, cymbals, and other things so it is sure to be a piece we will record to send home to families. 

Enjoy!

Pass the Pumpkin *Updated!

 Pass the Pumpkin is a fall favorite and I have remade the slides in google slides with some small tweaks to the visuals and the directions. 

Click this link for the google slides - please know this will force you to make a copy. 

Enjoy!

Hike by Pete Oswald

 Hike by Pete Oswald (of The Good Egg and The Bad Seed fame) is a beautiful (almost) wordless picture book. 

Follow a Dad and son into the mountains as they witness the magic of the wilderness, overcome challenges, and plant a tree to give back to the forest. This beautiful book is full of possibilities for movement and vocal and barred instrument exploration (images that move down or up, small and large trees, mountain peaks, hills and of course those beautiful winding trails).  Or, have small groups create movement tableaus for different pages or create 2-beat building bricks about what the father and son are doing or seeing.  

Perfect for back to school talks about summer trips or for Earth Day.  

This would work well with Trees 'Round the Earth from my new book, Singing Waters, Dancing Flames published by Beatin Path Publications.

For a clearer image of the song, click here to download.

Another great tie in would be the beautiful canon, This Pretty Planet.

Or use Seeds of Love by Gemini

Another extension idea using the book Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert, post click here

To see a video of Planting a Rainbow and the Seeds song by Gemini, click here. 

What is your favorite song or activity about nature? Drop a comment below. 

Enjoy!