GFS: Music

Suzanne Propp, Music teacher at GFS, has been using an iPod and a microphone to record kids' singing and playing various pieces of music on the instruments in the music room. The students then listen to the performance to do an assessment of their skills. Here is how she describes the activity:

"Laughing All The Way" is an activity I use with 5th graders to teach them to read a musical score. After several lessons where students read through the music, we rotate through the instruments so that everybody gets a chance to try all of the different parts. Then we work on finalizing the performance. Recording the performance on the iPod and playing it back immediately helps the students assess their performance; they listen to see if they are (a) keeping a steady beat and (b) playing the correct notes. Later we work together to add expressive elements (dynamics)."

This activity meets many curricular objectives from the ITL and music curricula, including:

• Create, perform and respond using: half notes, quarter notes, eighth notes, dotted quarter notes, dotted half notes, whole notes, dotted eighth notes, sixteenth notes, syncopated rhythms, triplets, eighth rest, quarter rest, half rest, whole rest, fermati and ties.
• Perform and respond with understanding to metered signatures of 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, 6/8 through singing, movement or accompaniments.
• Identify and understand the function of music symbols, such as repeat sign, single bar line, double bar line, first and second endings, and D.C. al fine, multi-measure rests and coda.
• Review treble clef and recorder notes C- D'.
• Demonstrate an understanding of rhythm patterns by performing orchestrated accompaniments on Orff instruments and in other ways.
• Perform pieces that use a variety of layered ostinati (speech, body percussion, instruments).
• Identify and perform pieces in AB, ABA, AABA, Rondo and other forms.
• Self-assess performance and final product using rubric established by self, class and/or teacher.
• Use a variety of production technologies for sharing information, e.g., word processing, photographing, audio recording, drawing materials, maps, models, multimedia presentations, scanning, videotaping, multimedia presentations and video editing
  

Listen to One Piece of Student Music