A song to sing and learn from Hot Cross Buns A song to sing and learn from The students will have heard the song HOT CROSS BUNS before this lesson. This would also NOT be the first song they have encountered. They may have experienced it through listening to the teacher sing it whilst they ate their lunch OR it could have been a recorded version that was playing whilst the students made Hot Cross Buns. Ask a student to come up to the computer or IWB and tap the board or spacebar in time to the beat – the hearts will appear as this is done as a visual representation of the pulse/beat. The teacher might also wish to print this slide out and laminate it. The students can put their finger on the ‘speaker’ icon to wait and then begin together to point to the hearts as they sing. This slide is set up to PREPARE the learning of the RHYTHM of the song. The hearts are a visual representation of the pulse or beat and PRESENT the pulse to the students.

Hot Cross Buns Hot cross buns. One a pen-ny, two a pen-ny In this slide the words are animated to come up a phrase at a time. The students can also see the syllables The teacher should sing a line/phrase at a time to the students and have them sing it back. It is also helpful to visualize the movement of the pitch to the students. The teacher could use solfa hand signs or simply move their hands downwards with each step downwards in pitch Because students have a concrete understanding of HIGHER being closer to the sky and LOWER being closer to the ground, this movement of the hands in the ‘vertical plane’ will assist them in understanding the pitch direction. It also PREPARES the learning for solfa.

The Music These beats have no words and no ‘sound’ we are having a rest – “SA” Now we have a slide where the rhythmic elements and perhaps the melodic elements can be focused on. The first rhythmic element to be PRESENTED in this lesson is the ‘sa’ or the one beat of rest. There are no sounds happening when we have a rest. This can be emphasized, and should have been experienced physically first, by having students represent a beat each. Another way of experiencing the beat might be to have a ‘beat sheet’ prepared similar to the first slide in this ppt. This represents the beat visually for the students and they can point to it as they sing. This activity reinforces left to right movement of the eyes for reading and also one-to-one correspondence for math. The setting out of the visual representations into groups of four, underpins and supports the learning of tables and other patterns and operations in math. (So that students start together they should put their finger on the ‘speaker’ symbol at the top left hand corner.) Once students have experienced the beat in many ways and they are able to keep a steady beat themselves it is now time to begin learning the symbols that represent the rhythm. Children will learn the rhythmic symbols more quickly than the pitch. All of these early experiences PREPARE the learning. Students stand in a circle and as the song is being sung the teacher chooses a student to tap or point to the other students one at a time in time to the beat. (students are representing the beat). When a student is tapped and there is no sound happening, invite that student to sit down -‘rest’. You could keep doing this activity until all students are sitting. Now comes the PRESENTING bit. Say to the students – “What do we see over Snoopy’s head when he is taking a rest? – ‘Z’s? Well we have the same thing in music when we want to represent a rest. The one you see here is a fancy one but when we are writing it we can use a more simple version – ‘Z’. When we see this bit of musical language we say ‘sa’ very quietly. This time as we sing the song, could you say ‘sa’ when you see the musical rest? You might ask students whether they can think of any other songs that have beats of rest. How many sounds are there on this beat?

What we need to know about the music. Firstly the music is written in the treble staff - the lines and spaces for the higher sounds. Secondly the music’s pulse is organized into groups of four 4. The Time signature at the beginning of the music tells us this. There are three Rhythmic elements and three Melodic elements. Let’s work on the rhythm first. We need to learn the symbols for ‘ta’ ‘ti-ti’ and ‘sa’ in the music. Students should be able to point to or identify the beat in the music and also keep a steady beat first. Then we can work on the rhythm. Always teach only one element at a time and then practice reading, writing and using it.

Teaching the rhythm ? ? In this slide the beat/[use is being represented visually by the heart and a picture of the ‘ta’ symbol which would be known to the students, has been placed on the beats that have this. A question mark is on the beats where we have no sound – where we are resting. The teacher may ask the question: “What is happening on these beat? What can you hear? Close your eyes and feel the beat and listen.” Some students may know the theory term or name for ‘ta’ ‘CROTCHET’ but crotchet has two sounds in it – CROTCH-ET and therefore it is not as helpful in assisting the students understanding of the feeling and sound of the rhythm. = ‘ta’ this symbol has a name – it is called a ‘crotchet’ but when we see it we say ‘ta’ What can you hear on the last beat of the line? We can feel the beat but there is no sound. We are taking a rest from singing.

? ? The teacher can point out the ‘ta’s again following the same procedure. Secure the pulse, sing the song, clap the rhythm or put their hands under their chins to feel the rhythm as they speak, ask the questions about ‘How many sounds can you hear?’. This time the answer would be ‘One’ and we would present the symbol for one sound per beat as a ‘I’ or a ‘real crotchet’ and teach that when we see this musical note we say ‘ta’. Now that the students have two symbols they should write some rhythms. Give them some blank beat circles or heart shapes and have them fill these in with the symbols for ‘ta’ and ‘sa’ - ‘I’ and ‘Z’. Have them read and write these and then complete the same procedure with another known song. Make sure that the students always know the song well first – so that they are not learning the song as well as the musical language. = ‘ta’ = ‘sa’

How many sounds can you hear on each beat? The next step would then be to teach/PRESENT the rhythmic element of two even sounds per beat. Secure the pulse, sing the song, clap the rhythm or put their hands under their chins to feel the rhythm as they speak, ask the questions about ‘How many sounds can you hear?’. This time it the answer would be ‘Two’. The next step would be to PRACTICE the learning or EXPLORE it further, find it in other known songs, read and write with the symbols. When we have two even sounds per beat we use ‘ti-ti’ ? ? ? ? If we repeat the first line again we have the whole song!

The Music Some activities to do with the written music: Circle the beats. Point to the beats Start the students off and then invite them to sing in their heads- see of they have reached the end of the song together. Other practice activities might be to have a beat/rhythm circle. One half of the room is where they walk the beat and the other half they clap and/ or say the rhythm. Put two pieces of masking tape, or a skipping rope on the floor and as the students cross this line they begin clapping and speaking the rhythm or simply walking the beat. Why not sing it in rhythm time names Sing and clap it backwards.

So we now know ‘ta’, ‘sa’ and ‘ti-ti’ Once the students know the symbols then we need to PRACTICE and EXPLORE what we can write and create with this new knowledge. There are plenty of flashcards and bingo games and ways of writing and reading the musical language. Make it a different sort of task in your reading groups. For example invite students to circle the words that have one sound and two sounds. When you are reading some poetry see if you can find the rhythm of the notes and where there are rests. When you play instruments next time, give each instrument a different rhythm to play OR why not play one rhythm as an ‘OSTINATO’ (a repeated rhythmic phrase) throughout the whole song. A favourite one is ti-ti, ta, ti-ti, ta = ‘ti-ti’ Can you read this?

So we now know ‘ta’, ‘sa’ and ‘ti-ti’ Rhythm equal to a beat Rhythm longer than a beat = ‘ta’ = ‘two-oo’ =‘sa’ = ‘ti-ti’ = ‘three-ee-ee’ A good song to use for teaching ti-ka-ti-ka is “KOOKABURRA SITS IN THE OLD GUM TREE”. You might like to lead students through identifying how many sounds there are in words such as ‘koo-ka-bur-ra’ = 4 ‘mag-pie’ = 2 ‘crow’ = 1 ‘road-run-ner’ = 3 - one short and two shorter (ti, ti-ka) cor-mor-rant = 3 - two shorter and one short (ti-ka, ti) When you begin to PRESENT the notes for ‘two-oo’ the pulse must be very secure and the students should be able to feel it in their head. Twin kle Twin kle lit tle star would be two bars long and the rhythm would sound like this. “ta ta ta ta , ta ta two-oo.” The sound produced when we say ‘two’ is longer than ‘ah’ and moving our hands sideways whilst we hold the sound over the beat helps to reinforce the understanding that the sound is continuing over the beat. Holding the sound and moving our hands as we sing is important too in developing an ability to hear/feel the pulse in our body and sing without accentuating the pulse in our voice The movement of the hands for the other notes that last longer than one beat are the following: Three-ee-ee = clap-right-up Fou-ou-ou-our = clap-left-right-up = ‘ti-ka-ti-ka’ = ‘ti, ti-ka’ = ‘fou-ou-ou-our’ = ‘ti-ka, ti’ = ta+i ‘ta-i’ usually followed by ‘ti’

Now get to and practice! = ta, ti-ka-ti-ka, ti-ti, ta = ti-ti, ti-ti-ka, ti-ka ti, ta = ta-i, ti, ti-ti, ti-ti = two-oo, ti-ti, ta

What about the melody? Music notation is a very unique language or ‘code’ and as such we need to teach it slowly and a ‘word’ at a time. You may remember from another Lecture, that we should give students experiences in the vertical plane initially, and invite them to respond and ‘match’ the direction of the pitch with Movement. We also need to keep the language consistent –using the words “High” and “Low” rather than ‘up’ and down’. Once students can identify the direction and move in response to what they are hearing, they may be ready to move to the staff notation. At first it is good to use songs that only have two notes in them Soh and Mi, but at higher grades you might begin where we are here – with steps moving Higher and pitches staying the same. When ever possible, you should aim to have the staff notation of the songs you are singing.

The Music We can see that the melody is stepping down. It is helpful for students to see the melody in the written notation. Take the time to point out the melodic direction and experience this through movement. Represent it with your hands and your whole body. Invite the students to listen and represent the direction of the melody with lines. Once again you might ask the students to represent the pitches. Have them hold a plastic or paper plate to represent the note head. The higher sound, on the first line, might be represented by standing, the second sound by sitting and the third by kneeling. The students could go outside and find some steps and represent the sounds on the steps. (If you haven’t done so make sure you access and read through the PowerPoint on teaching the elements “ELEMENTS OF MUSIC” ) Here the melody is staying the same Now it has stepped Higher And now it is stepping down again.

The sol-fa tool Solfege is a great way to teach pitch as the syllables enable the students to focus on the sound the notes are making. The vowel sounds assist in the pitch discrimination. You may well be familiar with the ‘scale’ of solfa from the movie ‘The sound of Music’ and that is because that is exactly what they used. Here is the solfa in the ‘key’ of C – it begins on ‘C’ and ends on ‘C’. This slide is for teacher background. doh ti lah soh mi fa doh re

Using dots Initially students may use ‘dots’ to show the the direction or placement of the melody. A set of plastic or paper plates is always helpful but the teacher should try to represent the pitch in the vertical plane for some time to reinforce that the higher up the staff the higher the sound.

The Music House –the staff where the notes ‘live’ I always like to stay in the KEY OF C until all of the notes in a scale are learned and then I PREPARE and sing and present that the notes of the same solfa names can ‘live’ in higher or lower places – this underpins and PREPARES the learning for transposition. Other teachers like to prepare the learning of the song with two different starting pitches and then present that the solfa intervals can ‘live’ in different places. This requires quite complex thinking skills and often in our classrooms we don’t have the time. It is also very important, just as it was with the rhythmic elements, that you have plenty of experiences in visualizing the shape of the melodic elements, feeling and moving to the pitch and also that once you begin to teach the pitch, you accurately represent the sounds of the pitches. If a guitar is in tune the highest string on the guitar will give you the same sound as the first line – ‘E’ ( in this case ‘E’ = ‘mi’) The teacher will need to practice using the solfa hand-signs before using them to teach and present pitch. Pitch experiences usually begin with ‘soh and mi’ songs initially as this interval is the easiest to sing “In-tune”. Songs such as “Apple Tree” and “See Saw Up and Down” might be the first and then ‘Lah’ the note to follow ‘soh’ can be found in “Rain Rain Go Away”. mi mi re re doh doh When ‘mi’ is on a line, ‘re’ will be in the space under it. ‘Doh’ is a ‘copycat’ and always lives one line lower. In fact ‘Soh’, ‘Mi’ and ‘Doh’ either all live ON lines or IN spaces.