This week's music workshop took a different direction and focused on the instrument that all of us carry around 24/7, our voices. I have always enjoyed singing so I looked forward to this experience; hopefully it wouldn't be embarrassing to my fellow MTeachers...
To start, we spent a few moments discussing the importance of warming up, including utilizing/maintaining proper posture and warming up the vocal chords, parts of the mouth and diaphragm. We went through two vocal exercises, each emphasizing different parts of the mouth (lips & tongue) which will be important practice for future students.
After warming up, we were also introduced to the proper music concepts as defined by the NSW Creative Arts Syllabus (2000) - duration, pitch, dynamics, tone color and structure. Every piece of music can be nuanced by each of these concepts, which provides for very different possible interpretations of songs through singing.
For singing practice, we learned and sang "Beachcombing" by Andrew Robertson of Jozzbeat Publishing. A fairly simple song as the notes indicate, the piece was a good introduction to singing as the notes were not too difficult to keep track of and attain with our vocals, and the accompaniment was basic. In addition, it was beneficial that the piece drew upon the information about notes and timing that we learned from last week. Specifically, there were not only crochets, but dotted crochets, quavers and dotted minums to navigate in the piece.
+-+Beach+Combing.png)
Singing the song in various different ways reflecting the five music concepts we discussed would produce different interpretations. As an example, with the duration concept, just altering the tempo or rhythm of the song to either a quick-pace or slow drawn-out pace would immediately set a different mood to the piece, all other qualities being the same. Questions can be asked of the students once they have performed the piece which relate to the concepts - how did they feel when they were singing? (upbeat vs. melancholy), how is the piece laid out? (structure) and what sounds did you hear? (tone color).
It was encouraged, rightly so, that music sheets containing the notes, and not just the lyrics, should be used in teaching students if possible. I plan to do this in my music teaching because it would certainly provide for a more complete overall sense of the music that students would be learning. In addition, it would just make teaching the melody just that much easier.
References
NSW Department of Education and Training. 2000. Creative Arts K-6 Syllabus. Sydney: DET.
To start, we spent a few moments discussing the importance of warming up, including utilizing/maintaining proper posture and warming up the vocal chords, parts of the mouth and diaphragm. We went through two vocal exercises, each emphasizing different parts of the mouth (lips & tongue) which will be important practice for future students.
+-+Exercises+1.png) |
| Lip exercises (repeated alliteration) |
+-+Exercises+2.png) |
| Tongue exercises (tongue twisters) |
For singing practice, we learned and sang "Beachcombing" by Andrew Robertson of Jozzbeat Publishing. A fairly simple song as the notes indicate, the piece was a good introduction to singing as the notes were not too difficult to keep track of and attain with our vocals, and the accompaniment was basic. In addition, it was beneficial that the piece drew upon the information about notes and timing that we learned from last week. Specifically, there were not only crochets, but dotted crochets, quavers and dotted minums to navigate in the piece.
+-+Beach+Combing.png)
Singing the song in various different ways reflecting the five music concepts we discussed would produce different interpretations. As an example, with the duration concept, just altering the tempo or rhythm of the song to either a quick-pace or slow drawn-out pace would immediately set a different mood to the piece, all other qualities being the same. Questions can be asked of the students once they have performed the piece which relate to the concepts - how did they feel when they were singing? (upbeat vs. melancholy), how is the piece laid out? (structure) and what sounds did you hear? (tone color).
It was encouraged, rightly so, that music sheets containing the notes, and not just the lyrics, should be used in teaching students if possible. I plan to do this in my music teaching because it would certainly provide for a more complete overall sense of the music that students would be learning. In addition, it would just make teaching the melody just that much easier.
References
NSW Department of Education and Training. 2000. Creative Arts K-6 Syllabus. Sydney: DET.
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