Crescendo Music Education

Take a Song

Chicken in a Fence Post

The key to a good teaching is a solid core of a sequential list of elements and good pedagogical practices. For me that is definitely a teaching sequence based on hear, feel, see and write where concepts are prepared, named and then practiced. Here, I will focus on the practicing of elements through the use of just one song.

There is more than one way to skin a cat (or should I say pluck a chicken). This is a list that is by no means exhaustive - just a few ideas to get your ideas pinging!

1.      Sing
2.      Sing in Solfa
3.      Sing in Rhythm Names
4.      Sing with text, solfa and rhythm names (Switcheroo)
5.       Create New Words – keeping as close as possible to the rhythmic pattern.

Here are some ideas....

• Music teacher stressing can’t sleep at all x3 Time to have a holiday!
• Marsha, Jan and Cindy, Bobby , Peter   x3 Greg and Alice, Mum and Dad

6.     Missing bars

7.      Missing notes

8.      Find the mistakes

9.      Play on boomwhackers

10.      Play on tuned percussion

11.      Create rhythmic ostinati

12.      Create melodic ostinati

13.      Create arrangement

14.      Aural Analysis - questions like... 

What is the metre? How many beats in the song? how many phrases? How many different notes? What notes do you hear? What is the final note? what is the starting note?...

15.  Written Analysis - instructions and questions like...

Circle the time signature. How many bars? Find the double bar line? Circle two notes that are next to each other and a major second apart. Are there any bars that are the same?...

16.  Writing – the rhythm
17.  Writing – the solfa under the rhythm 
18.  Writing – the song on the staff  
19.  Writing – transposing from one position on the staff to another

20.  Writing – the stems onto the note heads on the staff