Mood:
surprisedTopic: Music Moves for Piano
Wow. Oh wow. I'm SO impressed.
Yup. It's those 10 year old boys today. Last week, they worked on Bk 1 unit 10 (reviewing the unit, as they didn't quite get it the first time around). Today, I decided to try my hand at teaching rote solos.
Before getting to the rote solos, we did some audiation activites. We reveiwed a lot of the "Songs to Sing". I had the boys move while I sang, and freeze when I stopped singing. Then, I had them sing "Do So Do" (either going up to SO, or going down to SO, I varied it, as I was kind of just winging this!!). Then, the boys reviewed their I-V-I cadences and Big Ben. After that, I had them improvising on the G major tonic triad using triple meter RP.
Before getting to the rote solos, I had used the two pieces that I chose for some movement activities. The boys did this last week as well, so they had heard the pieces a few times.
For my first foray into rote solos, I chose some pieces that I knew really well. Having previously worked as a clinician for Hal Leonard, I have quite an extensive collection of books from the Hal Leonard Student Piano Library. The two pieces we worked on were "Balloon Ride" and "Undersea Voyage". Both pieces have the exact same rhythm pattern, and employ a whole tone scale (Balloon Ride uses a three black key group and CDE, while Undersea Voyage use FGAB and a two black key group).
I swear, no word of a lie, that I only had to play these pieces once for the boys, and they figured it out!! They played them connected, then separated, loud then soft, going up/repeating in a higher register, then going down/repeating in a lower register. They watched and listened to me play once, then played the pieces perfectly!
Now, if I asked one of my traditional students to do this, there's no WAY they'd get it. The rhythm would be so inconsistent, their technique riddled with tension, and they would not really listen to me the first time.
These boys are learning HOW to listen to music, and how to listen with understanding. It's AMAZING :D
