Music Topics

To create my course content for the two months, I first of all sat down many months ago and thought about what was important to me musically. I call these my music ‘philosophies’:

MUSIC PHILOSOPHIES:

• Music is fun (this one is easily #1)
• Music is a form of communication.
• Music is a form of expression and creativity.
• Music teaches us to listen better.
• Music can affect our emotions.
• Music can tell stories.
• Being supportive and nurturing children’s growth.

This last point is very important to me. In teaching music, whether kids “get” something or not, and whether they are good at something or not should have nothing to do with their entitlement to enjoy the experience. Kids can be playing terribly out of time and sometimes the opposite of what you want – but you can see in their eyes they are having the time of their lives. Who has the right to take that away from them, and tell them they are wrong?

I feel very strongly about this last point. Since my mid 30’s I have been playing music a lot, and often with friends at parties and at various gatherings. I am shocked at the number of people I know,  also in their 30’s who are finally getting over their childhood ‘musical’ trauma. The pattern is basically identical in every case – they were learning an instrument when young (say 5-15). Someone (and often a music teacher) criticised them or told them they were “no good” and for the next 20+ years they never touched an instrument again. All this time, they believed they were crap at music and only now in their 30’s are they prepared to give it another ‘timid’ go. I find this very sad, and quite irresponsible of anyone who claims to be a teacher. And I am shocked at how many times I have seen this pattern.

As a result, it was fundamentally important to me to create a safe and supportive teaching environment, where kids could feel encouraged to take risks and try things they might even be scared to. Now at the end of almost 2 months, I do feel a sense of pride that I achieved that goal.  Other goals are hard to measure, but I am certain, that not one of the 150 kids ever had a moment where they felt like they were doing wrong, or that they were being criticised for their attempts, or being picked on. I was painfully aware that any scarring at this age musically can take 20+ years to undo. (Thanks to Beau Bruderlin @ InRhythm for helping me to become aware of this teaching concept).

MUSIC TOPICS:

I covered the following class topics in my 2 months here:

• Exposure to different instruments – how they sound, how to hold them, how not to hold them, how to respect them. We covered: the berimbau, the harmonica, the pandeirio (tambourine), the agogo (like a cowbell), the reco-reco (like a scraper), the recorder, the flute, the guitar, various kinds of shakers.
• Do we play an instrument or hit it?….We never hit an instrument – we always play it. We always treat instruments with respect, we hold them like a baby or a little cat.
• Basic rhythm techniques, playing in time.  Following different rhythms.
• Singing in groups and singing solo. Kids leading call and response songs.
• Playing as a group in an orchestra.
• Everything is an Instrument – even what others would say is rubbish (this empty water bottle and this old metal container) – see Magic Moment.
• Doing performances for the rest of the school and parents.
• Body Percussion. The body is a fantastic instrument, we can make dozens of noises with it if we want to.
• Music Technology (microphones, recording voices, drum sounds). These classes were great – there is a video coming of this. You can guess how wide their eyes were at being exposed to this kind of stuff.
• Understanding pitch (which of these two notes is higher?)
• Separation (musical term for getting your brain to do play different instruments at once and with different rhythms). It’s a vital skill musically. The most common example we see in Western music is someone playing guitar and singing – but even singing a song and clapping your hands is an example.
• Music appreciation classes. I played various songs from my IPod that covered a massive range of musical genres, including:
  Classical, Folk, Bossa Nova, Electronic Ambient, Trance, Rock, Pop, Cha Cha, Indian Classical, Persian, Israeli, Capoeira, Ska, Opera, Tibetan Monks, Gregorian Chanting, Tango.
  With each song we explored how we could move (dance) to it and we discussed how it made us feel. The typical responses were often polarised into “Sad or Happy” – but one girl did say that a certain song made her feel angry. Wow! – it was great to get that kind of response.

Each class always consisted of singing (often at the beginning) and very often berimbau. I often tried to introduce 1 new instruments every 2nd class. Topics such as music technology, playing and holding the guitar were more specialist topics.

Initially I had berimbau classes for 7, 8, 9 and 10 year olds. But in the most recent weeks I extended that all the way down to 6, 5 4 and 3. That’s nice! Every kid and every age has now been involved in holding, experience and playing the berimbau. There is also a video coming of this. Seeing the joy on the 3 year olds faces is pretty priceless.

I really wanted to run specialist classes in guitar (just for 2 kids at a time – since we only have 3 guitars total) for those kids who were showing special promise, but these didnt work out due to time constraints. That was a shame, because in every class there were basically at least 1 or 2 kids that amazed me musically – I would have loved to have taken them on a special journey and accelerated their learning beyond the group learning context.

I clearly remember the day I started teaching ‘Separation’ to the kids. I did this by getting them to sing a song that they already knew and clap at the same time. Sounds simple but the clapping rhythm is slightly different to what you would expect so straight away its kind of tricky. Even in my 8 and 9 year old classes they were struggling with it. I even did a little bit of it in my 3 year old class – and there was one girl who could do it instantly and stare out the window watching something else at the same time….Wow!