GENERAL MUSIC GEMS...
Turn General Music into a Creation Station Karen Stafford, MMEA General Music Vice-president
First of all, I would like to start by saying what an honor it was to serve as your general music vice-president for the past two years. I would like to thank everyone who participated in our sessions (there will be a “Double Dream Hands” YouTube test later…. Just kidding!), sent constructive ideas, and submitted audition recordings. I would especially like to thank our general music Missouri clinicians Tracy King and David Cunningham, two prime examples of music educators’ creativity and inspiration. Finally, a thanks to the great board, with special thanks to Vanessa Miner (my Northwinds cohort in crime), Paul and Elaine Swofford (for dealing with many questions on forms, money, and other niceties), Marty and Sally Hook (for dealing with inquiries about the journal and their great support in helping us with our articles), Gary Brandes (who tirelessly put up with texts about technology concerns during the conference), and finally, Rob Nichols, who donated additional years to make sure our organization ran smoothly and who was innovative with new ideas to streamline technology even more. They were all especially gracious considering I have been spending this past school year on educational leave working on my PhD. Thank you, everyone!
I decided, with the topic of composition, to use this final article as a brainstorm, “bounce ideas off” article and share with you some of the composition techniques I use in my K-6 classes at South Point. Composition in the general music
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classroom, for many, is scary. Would it ease your minds if I told you to not worry about those composition classes, form and analysis, and counterpoint rules you worried about in college? When you compose, there are still some of those rules that need to be followed in order to provide music that is easily understood and clear to your performers and to the audience. But for your students, especially at the elementary level, the idea is to guide, but let them go. You can start easily at the kindergarten level with soundscapes that accompany literature. Some of my favorite books for these activities are Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People’s Ears (Aardema, V., 1992), Zomo the Rabbit (McDermott, G., 1996), The Little Old Lady Who Wasn’t Afraid of Anything (Williams, L.D., and Lloyd, M., 2002), and The Stonecutter: A Japanese Folk Tale (McDermott, G., 1978).
When using literature with kindergartners, first familiarize them with various instruments and their timbres, especially auxiliary/ classroom instruments (non- pitched). This can be done with rhythm band activities or other simple rhythm activities. Read the story to the students and ask them where they hear unusual sounds or notice unusual activity. Through a brainstorm process, they can vote on which instruments sound like the ocean (Zomo), shoes clomping (The Little Old Lady), a chisel (The Stonecutter), or an owl (Why Mosquitoes). However, don’t allow them too many choices. A good way
to segue into this activity is to set up a Smartnotebook or Power Point file that shows various characters or actions from the story, and possibly 4 choices of instruments for each one. The students can then vote on the instrument that they feel would best suit that story situation. I make sure all students have something to play for two reasons: 1) no one feels left out and 2) I can assess on the objective of “following the cues of the conductor”, or in this case, listening skills and following cues in the story. Do you also notice possible Common Core connections here? I use the Smartnotebook name scrambler to select names in a random order for students to select instruments. You can also use craft sticks, or there are several random name-choosing apps for tablets.
My favorite first and second grade activity for composition is “Mystery Tune”. I use this technique with a favorite nursery rhyme, such as “Bow Bow Wow” or “Deedle Deedle Dumpling”. (Nursery rhymes are introduced in kindergarten, but what a great way to bring them back and step the activity up to a higher level!). Once the classes learn solfege patterns for their ages (with the syllables so-la-mi for first grade and la-sol-mi-re-do for second), they can create a class mystery tune or independent mystery tunes. For first grade, I guide the students to create a tune as a
MISSOURI SCHOOL MUSIC| Volume 68, Number 3
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