The title of this post indicates what happened at the end of my fifth grade class today. But not in a way you might think! I'll explain how amazing our class was today and what students accomplished and the post title will make much more sense.
I had Mrs. Childer's class today. A very musical class with high energy. They love to do anything and everything and they are passionate about it. We are working on our piece "Xylophone Rhapsody" for our performance coming up in a few weeks. The students have learned three parts with challenges in each one. Best part: the students have risen to the challenge and are conquering all of them with impressive musicianship. So thankful to get to teach them!
The beat is a steady beat throughout the song, but is a moving bass line that moves by intervals of 4ths and 2nds with large jumps at the end. In other words, it moves a lot and students must concentrate not only on counting the beat, but remembering where the next note moves to. It is not a typical steady beat on the same two notes and that presents a new challenge!
The harmony portion must also be a steady beat. But instead of each note holding for three beats, each note is one beat that plays while moving down the scale in thirds. And students must keep their mallets in distances of a 3rd apart. This is also a challenge.
The melody line is fast and moves quickly up and then down again. There are very large leaps at the end and students must have their mallets in the right places or it creates a very off-putting sound.
The piece of music is also in 3/4 time with three beats in every measure. Another challenge because it is much easier to have students feel and count when there are 4 beats in every measure. A lot different for them to count dotted half notes (bass line) and eighth note pairs, quarter notes, rests (in melody) and steady quarter notes and dotted half notes (in harmony line).
Every student in class has learned all three parts. Today's class was similar to the 4th grade class I just blogged about. They are in the same spot where they are putting the parts together and making choices as to how many times each part is played, when parts leave or enter and so on.
I guided the students to where they are now and we had a discussion about the intro (Bass Xylophones play it), how many times the harmony plays (a student chose that) and how many times the melody should be played (another student chose that). Then came the intense portion of the class: creating an ending. Which instruments should drop out first and which part should play the last sixteen measures?
We tried it three different ways. Students had SO many ideas it was incredible. And their terms were so musical: "Mrs. Grant, I don't think the bass xylophones should end the song. We need to end the song with the glockenspiels because the higher sound and the melody will end the song so much nicer than the beat." "I think the bass xylophones should end the song because it is always best to end with the bass and the lower sounds." "Could we fade their part out?" "Could we all play together and then we end because we didn't get to play as long as the other parts?" "Mrs. Grant, we could all end by playing this pattern (student plays the pattern) because it would sound amazing."
So we tried playing the piece and the ending in particular several ways. And students still had ideas. It was a complete bummer that students had to leave as they were so involved and excited about what they had created. And there were so many hands in the air with students wanting to share their ideas. We ended by voting for which ending was their favorite and it was almost a tie with 13 voting for the bass xylophones to end the song and 11 votes for the glockenspiels to end the song.
The students were truly thinking like musicians. I told them that they were thinking of the things in the song that I think through when we are doing any piece in class - tempo, dynamics, parts, etc... It was truly a great class.
Now for the argument:
As we lined up to leave, a student came to me and said "Mrs. Grant, there are three boys arguing in line." I had heard them talking animatedly so I walked over to listen to their conversation. Only to find that they were arguing about their version of the best way to end our song and very adamant about it. It was so incredible hearing the students each share how they wanted the song to end, what the instruments should sound like, which part would sound best and using musical terms that we have used in class. They described their ideas in detail and had fantastic thoughts.
It was the best "argument" I have ever heard from fifth grade students about music! I can't wait to see what ideas they bring to our next class together.
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