Composing and performing a short musical motif in a third grade music classroom

Abstract

In my lesson demonstration video, I share a story with my students about the wind, “The Wind Blew” by Pat Hutchins. I first read the book from the piano and improvise short musical responses to each page of the book. This idea grew from the example Dr. Gurgel gave last summer, when she improvised to the children’s book, “Where the Wild Things Are.” I then share the story a second time by showing an iMovie version of the book that I had prepared in advance. This step served three purposes: it allowed all students to clearly see the pictures, it saved my voice from re-reading for multiple classes, and it showed students where they would add their short musical motifs. I had set up carts labeled with pictures from the book, each with several instruments. The students were then assigned to a cart to create a motif for a page from the book. After some improvising, students were asked to finalize their motif, and prepare to perform it with the iMovie. Following our first performance, students share ideas to improve their performance before trying it again. The Master’s Program has impacted my teaching in many ways, large and small. I learned many things in Dr. Gurgel’s classes that have directly impacted the way I teach. Learning about the four major methods in elementary music education, along with many great resources and examples of how to use them, helped me to understand the purpose and best uses of my resources and lessons. Additionally, the improvisation class had a big impact on me, and I have since had my students do more improvising than ever before. I was inspired by one of the first lessons Dr. Gurgel gave us where she used the book, “Pout, Pout Fish.” I have since created many lessons using children’s books, including the two lessons in this report. Dr. Gurgel’s overall emphasis on imagination and creativity have become my most treasured and important goals in every encounter with music and students. Another important development has been that Dr. Payne’s research, philosophy, and history classes helped me put my experiences into perspective. As I have reflected on all the past and present musicians, educators, philosophers, and researchers, it has truly been eye opening and inspiring. At this point in my career, I really needed and appreciated the perspective and inspiration. There were other important developments for me. In the very first class, I realized that I needed to learn Garage Band. I have done a lot more with Garage Band since, including using it to make backing tracks for an iMovie of student-composed rhythms, which my classes used to practice rhythms. In Symposium my first year, I was introduced to Little Kids Rock. I have since used their resources several times to find good lessons and songs for my 6th grade guitar unit. The experience we had of writing and performing a song gave me the inspiration and confidence to have my students do something similar as part of our guitar unit.