Percussive Play: Building Rhythmic Skills Through Partwork, Poetry, and Movement

Percussive Play: Building Rhythmic Skills Through Partwork, Poetry, and Movement IMEA General Music Workshop August 26, 2017 Roger Sams Director of Publications and Music Education Consultant at Music Is Elementary 5228 Mayfield Rd. Cleveland, OH 44124 www.musiciselementary.com rogersams@mac.com

Mince Pie Fly From Purposeful Pathways 1, by BethAnn Hepburn and Roger Sams Used with Permission PATHWAY to RHYTHM: Kinesthetically setting up 4, h, $ Begin with students in scattered space. Play the steady beat on the HD and ask the students to keep the beat in their feet, stationary first then locomotor. When the pulse has been established, speak the poem. Ask the students what Nellie Bly is doing in the poem. Students walk like Nellie on the beat. When the drum stops (on beat 8 of each phrase), the students stop traveling. Invite them to catch a fly during the space (which they haven t yet labeled as a rest). Add traveling the eighth note. Extract patterns from the poem, for the class to echo, example: h h 4 $ h h 4 $ teacher on drum students move rhythm in feet PATHWAY to LITERACY: Discover the rest Model the rhyme, while tracking the steady beat with the fly icons. Which fly did we catch? That fly becomes a quarter rest. PATHWAY to PARTWORK: 4, h, $ Students read rhythm. Add text. Teacher creates ostinato using icons, fly $, fly $, mince pie, fly $. Half the class on poem. Half on ostinato. Transfer to UTP. - Poem on woodblock. - Ostinato on hand drum. $

PATHWAY to COMPOSITION: Composing with icons Individual work with rhythmic building blocks -- icon cards (mince pie, fly). Create ostinati by selecting and arranging four cards. Students travel around the room performing the ostinati that were created by their classmates and discovering those who created the same patterns. (May be done after writing notation on cards.) Cluster with those who wrote the same ostinato and practice as an ensemble. Listen to all of the ostinati performed with the rest of the class on the poem. Perform on UTP, if time permits. Play the Woodblock From the upcoming publication, Percussive Play, by Roger Sams and Michael Vasquez Used with Permission PATHWAY TO Rhythm: 4-beat echo patterns Lead clapping 4-beat echo patterns using 4 and h. (If your students are capable of reading $ you may use it, although it is not a rhythmic value in this

song and it is not required for this lesson.) Say the rhythm syllables that you use in your classroom and ask the students to be your speaking and clapping echo. Lead clapping 4-beat echo patterns, but do not say the rhythm syllables. Ask the students to echo clap and say the correct rhythm syllables. PATHWAY TO Literacy: Reading 4 and h Students read the rhythm of the song. Ask the students what they notice about the four patterns. (They are all the same.) Add text and recite as poem. PATHWAY TO Singing: Rote teaching of song Since the students working on reading these simple rhythms likely won t yet be reading all of these pitches, teach the melody by rote. Perform in ABA form. You lead 4-beat echo patterns as the B Section.

If your students are ready to lead the echo patterns, turn it into a Grand Rondo with students leading the patterns. Each student leader selects their replacement while the class sings the song. PATHWAY TO Composition: Composing 4-beat motives Working from a grid with four rows of four blanks on the whiteboard, the class composes a 4-motive wood block composition. Each block represents one beat. Each beat is filled in with 4 or h. If your students are reading $, you may include it among the possibilities. Perform this new composition as the B Section in ABA form. Prepare composition grids on paper for the students and divide them into groups of four or fewer students. Small groups compose their own 4-motive composition for the UTP (untuned percussion) instrument of their choice. Students share their compositions with the class. Perform in a Grand Rondo. Have the groups of students rotate around the room and read/perform the compositions that other small groups created. PATHWAY TO Movement: Reinforcing 4 and h Have the students walk around the room and say "walk" while you play a 4 pulse on a hand drum. Have the students jog around the room and say "jogging" while you play h on a hand drum. Add an accented h4 on the drum to signal students to switch between walking and jogging. Vary the amount of time between the transition signal to keep the students actively listening. Ask the students stand still while you play a 4-beat rhythm. The students echo it by moving to the correct rhythm.

Ask students to identify the order of movements that were used in the 4-beat rhythm. (I.e. 4 4 h 4 is walk walk jogging walk). Divide up into small groups. Each group composes a 4-beat rhythm of their own using walking and jogging. Small groups demonstrate their 4-beat movement patterns. The other students identify or notate the rhythms performed by each group. Go To Bed, Tom! From the upcoming publication, Percussive Play, by Roger Sams and Michael Vasquez Used with Permission PATHWAY TO Rhythm: 4-beat echo patterns in compound meter Lead 4-beat echo patterns in compound meter, using only e, 4., and $. Speak the rhythm syllables as you clap the patterns. Ask the students to say the rhythm syllables as they echo. Repeat. This time do not say the rhythm syllables as you clap the patterns. Ask the students to decode the patterns and say the rhythm syllables as they echo clap. PATHWAY TO Literacy: Compound meter using e 4. $. Students read the rhythm of the rhyme, saying rhythm syllables. Students add text to the rhythm of the rhyme.

Invite the students to explore dramatic play as if they are the parent or adult caregiver. Explore different ways to use the voice to convince Tom to go to bed, such as sweet, whispering, frustrated, or angry. PATHWAY TO Partwork: Rhyme with BP transferred to UTP Perform the BP ostinato. Ask the students to watch the pattern at least three times and join you when they ve got it figured out. Divide the class in half. Half performs the BP ostinato. Half performs the rhythm. Trade jobs. ADVANCED CHALLENGE: Ask the students to perform both parts. Always establish the ostinato before beginning the rhyme. Transfer the BP (body percussion) to tubano or conga. Keep the snap. Play a low bass sound in the center of the drum on beat 1, then snap on beat 2, then play beats 3 and 4 of the ostinato as higher pitched tones on the edge of the drum, saying, bass, snap, tone, tone, tone, tone. Put drum/snap ostinato together with the rhyme. Rotate the students through the drumming part, so that all have a turn. Add triangle or finger cymbals on the two rests at the end of every a motive. Transfer the rhythm of the rhyme to rhythm sticks or wood blocks. PATHWAY TO Composition: Creating contrasting sections by making excuses Students perform a motivic analysis of the rhyme, discovering that the form is a a b a. Ask the students to notate the rhythm of the b motive. (4. 4. 4. 4. ) Give the b motive a new text with the same rhythm, I m not sleepy. Model speaking the following new rhyme, using the same a a b a form.

Divide the class in half and perform in ABA form. The parents tell the children to go to bed (A Section) and the children protest (B Section). Trade parts. Repeat ABA form, but this time each group performs the BP ostinato, while the other half the class says their rhyme. ADVANCED CHALLENGE: Make the third section of the form an argument with both the parents and the children performing their part at the same time. This is great fun! Brainstorm excuses that children use to avoid going to bed: o Bathroom o Drink of water o Read a story o I m afraid o Too hot/too cold o Blanket is scratchy o Monster under bed o Any others? Divide the students into small groups. Each group creates their own excuse rhyme in a a b a motivic form. The b motive stays the same for all groups; I m not sleepy. Remind the students that the a motive must be four beats long. Once the groups have created their text, ask them to create a dramatic interpretation of their text. Encourage them to demonstrate the meaning of the text with their bodies and their voices. Students perform a Grand Rondo, with the parents being the recurring A Section and small groups of children performing their excuses as contrasting sections. PATHWAY TO Orchestration: Creating Body Percussion or Pieces Convert the A Section (poem) to a BP piece. Have half of the class maintain the pat/snap ostinato while the other half claps the rhythm of the rhyme. Small groups convert their speech/dramatic contrasting sections to BP pieces, transferring the rhythm of their speech to various levels of BP. Students perform a BP Grand Rondo.

Piccadilly Travel From Purposeful Pathways 1, by BethAnn Hepburn and Roger Sams Used with Permission PATHWAY TO Rhythm: Experiencing note values against the steady beat Students walk the tempo of the steady beat, which you establish with your left hand on temple blocks or piano. On a higher pitch, play changes using 4, h, and H. (In Dalcroze, these are called quick reaction changes.) The students respond to these rhythmic changes by clapping the rhythmic values you play, while maintaining the steady beat in their feet. Their task is to quickly respond to your rhythmic changes, striving to stay in sync with your right hand on the piano or temple blocks. Teacher Talk: Time, space and energy while clapping Quick Reaction exercises require total mental and kinesthetic awareness. Through these quick reaction experiences the students begin to understand how physical adjustments in energy, flow of body weight, and size of movement (space), need to occur in order to physicalize the music. This awareness of the relationship of time, space, and energy needs to be brought to the attention of the students. For example: the quarter note clap will rebound higher off the palm of the contact hand, physically showing a longer length of time through space than an eighth note, which requires less space but more energy. Sixteenth notes will utilize even less time and space, but significantly more energy.

Begin with the quarter note pulse and change to eighth notes, then sixteenth notes. Students respond by changing as quickly as possible to the new note values. Vary the rhythmic values in unpredictable places. Example: Students respond to he high-pitched hythm by clapping he rhythm. lay the steady beat n your left hand to ccompany changing hythmic values. tudents keep this eat in their feet. Teacher Talk: Advanced challenge For an advanced challenge put the steady beat in the hands and the rhythm in the feet. If the class can master that challenge, consider alternating the rhythm between the hands and the feet using a word cue, such as switch. PATHWAY TO Creative Movement: Exploring pathways Return to the simple quarter note pulse as the students explore pathways, while you speak the text of the rhyme. Examine drawings of pathways made from circles, lines, and squares. Have students draw the pathways by pointing, showing where that pathway may take them across the floor.

Students travel a given pathway following the quarter note pulse, then reverse the pathway and come back to their starting place. Explore the same pathway again. Can they change how they traveled the pathway? Perhaps sideways, backward, low, or high? Create a new pathway on the board with the class. Repeat the process, exploring the new pathway and different ways to travel on that pathway. Ask the students to create their own individual pathways. While they are traveling their pathways, you speak the rhyme. Encourage them to explore diverse pathways with prompts such as, Can you make a pathway that is curved? or Create a pathway that is made up of straight lines and sharp turns. Continue to let the students explore different pathways while they learn the rhyme through echo imitation. When the students are able to recite the rhyme without your help, ask them to travel with the steady beat in their feet and clap the rhythm of the rhyme while they chant it. TEACHER TALK: Background information The Piccadilly line is part of the London rail system. The Piccadilly Circus is a bustling, busy circle with cars and people going here to there. The term it s like a Piccadilly

Circus refers to a lot of commotion and noise. Leicester Square is another stop along the route. PATHWAY TO Literacy: H Words are visible on the whiteboard. Speak the rhyme while the students listen. Ask the students what they notice about the rhyme. (Lots of Piccadilly. Moves quickly. etc.) Students clap h 4, reading from the board. Speak the rhyme while the students listen for h 4. It occurs three times. Notate h 4 above the words each time it occurs. Travel on two times, and here to there. Students speak the rhyme and clap h 4 each time it occurs. Students work at decoding Piccadilly. TEACHER TALK: Asking leading questions to support discovery of sixteenth notes Support the students in discovering that there are four sounds on a single beat. Ask questions like, How many sounds are in the word Piccadilly? and How many beats does it take to say those four syllables? Help the students articulate their growing understanding with, Oh! So, you re saying that there are four sounds that take place on this one beat. Introduce the concept of sixteenth notes and the appropriate notation. There are a variety of syllables used for H in today s music classrooms. We like ti-ka, ti-ka. Pick a system that works for you and be consistent. Notate H above every piccadilly. Have the students walk the steady beat while saying the rhyme and clapping the rhythm. Ask them to listen for other places where there are four sounds on one beat and notate H above those words. Fill in the notation for any places left to decode: circle and square. Students read the notation for the entire rhyme with rhythm syllables.

PATHWAY TO Partwork: Poem with BP/UTP ostinato Perform the BP ostinato. Students watch and join in when ready (simultaneous imitation). Divide the class in half. Half performs the BP ostinato. Half performs the rhyme. Trade parts. Transfer the BP to various vocal sounds or UTP. Vocal sounds can be imitative of automobiles or other forms of transportation (honk, beep, doors closing, etc.). Transfer each body percussion level to a different vocal sound for a fun vocal ostinato. Transfer the BP to UTP. Stamp=drum. Clap=woodblock. Snap=triangle. Perform the rhyme with the UTP ostinato. PATHWAY TO Composition: a a b c form using H Analyze the form of the rhyme, labeling each 4-beat motive: a a b c For purposes of our composition project we re going to work with a a b c. (Students may choose to make an a at the very end of the project if they wish.) H 4 Piccadilly Stop h 4 Travel Stop 4 h Stop Travel H h Piccadilly Travel 4 $ Stop h Travel H Piccadilly

h Travel h Travel H H Piccadilly Piccadilly Using the collection of rhythmic building blocks, compose a 4-beat motive by combining two cards. Repeat that motive, creating a a... Create the b motive by combining rhythmic building blocks and add this new motive to the form: a a b Create a third motive c. This is a great time to review cadence. Their c motive should have a strong cadence. Speak the entire composition together: a a b c Play it on the floor, using rhythm sticks or mallets as the drumsticks and the floor as a drum. Students work individually or in small groups to create their own Piccadilly pieces in a a b c form, using rhythmic building blocks. Share the compositions with the class, either as speech or floor drum pieces. Consider combining these compositions with Piccadilly Travel. One group plays their floor drum piece while the rest of the class speaks the rhyme.