Music Form!

Next week in order to get ready for the Luck of the Irish Limericks the students need to learn about different forms in music.  What is ABA form? ABCA? AABAA? etc.

To do that I've created a PowerPoint that will show the kids how to take patterns, which they can already see thanks to their awesome classroom teachers!!!, and turn them into musical form.

 The first things that the students have to be aware of is that music is in fact made up of patterns! Patterns that repeat and patterns that sound different! Their job is to listen to the music and see if they can hear the patterns.  That comes later though, the first step is to make sure the students can see the difference. Having something tangible to see, at first, is a lot easier to get the point across then starting straight out with listening.

First the students start with something that they already know how to do, spot the pattern! After the pattern is identified they then have to guess what would come next in the pattern!






Then we turn the pattern into what the musical form would be. Whatever the song starts with we call "A" if the rhythm repeats then we say "A" again, when the sound, or rhythm changes then we give it the next letter in the alphabet, or in this case "B" When we hear the same thing we hear at the beginning we go back to that letter "A" So, this pattern, ball, ball, racket, ball, ball, would be A, A, B, A, A!

When looking at this piece of music we want to look at each bar of music (this is a great time to reinforce what bar lines are!!) The first bar of music is always "A" so we know we can give that the letter A. When we look through the rest of the music we have to see if any other bar of music looks the same. When we find the notes that are the same we give it the same letter, A. The first DIFFERENT bar of music we go to the letter B, so on and so forth







Here's what the patterns look like in the song all together. You can get the full 21 slide PowerPoint at my store at Teachers Pay Teachers







After seeing how form is different it's time to hear how form is different.  After the PowerPoint I play different songs, such as Old MacDonald, Here we go LoobyLoo, etc. and whenever the "A" section is on they dance or move one way, and whenever the "B" section goes on they have to move or dance in a different way.

Finally the students then take the song, "Scotland's Burning" and compose their own lyrics to it, with their own movements to show the different movements between A,B,C form.

Luck of the Irish-Limericks!

So for St. Patrick's day coming up I thought it would be fun to work with our national standards on composing music.  My students are learning to be lyricist, for Irish related Limericks! 

 The first question that came to mind was "What is a limerick?" To answer that question I've given an example of a limerick (one that I wrote which stars my husband and his cat).

 Second I wanted to explain to the students what a limerick was, since they do not get this in Language Arts class I wanted to make sure they understood the poetry end of the assignment.  Then I bridge the transfer of knowledge by showing how Limericks have specific forms, just like music has forms (ABA) for example.

Then the students listen to my limerick that I wrote the words to, and the music I set it to. They will have to be able to find words with the right amount of syllables, to the right amount of beats in the song so that they match up!

Finally the students will have a chance to compose their own lyrics, and plug it into the music.  My goal will be to make a bunch of Shamrocks and have the students glue their music to the centers of the shamrocks and then use these for a bulletin board in the classroom! I'll post pictures as soon as they're done!







If you would like to see the entire powerpoint, or would like to use it in your classrooms, please visit my store at Teachers Pay Teachers

5th & 6th Grade Chorus at the Jackals Arena!

Exciting news from the 5th and 6th grade chorus programs here at Snyder Elementary!! Our 2 chorus groups will be combining for a one night only performance at the Elmira Jackals Game on March 23, 2013! The chorus will be singing God Bless America, before the hockey game starts!

All students in Chorus will be able to get in for free! If families would like to come and see the game and hear the chorus sing the Elmira Jackals are offering discounted tickets for only $10.00/ ticket.

I hope everybody is as excited as I am about this opportunity for the students! I can't wait to see everybody there! If you have any questions please feel free to email me at agillette@sayresd.org.  A permission slip and information will be going home to the chorus members by the end of this week!