Throughout the lessons, students participated in creating, performing, and assessing music. They were able to create and perform short “circle songs” after experiencing and analyzing the writing process. They were also able to pursue composing in real time, better known as improvising, as they took more and more ownership over the writing of their own material. By taking further risks in performing their own melodies, students engaged in discussions that built upon their prior knowledge and assessed their improvisatory and compositional experiences.
In order for students to understand the principles of fundamental songwriting, they needed the scaffolding of experiencing the activity without the need to first write their own music. By playing parts that I composed for them, shared and learned by rote, they were able to latch onto the skills they needed to make their own musical decisions. While I led them during the first lesson, they could take the initiative to write the music for themselves in later lessons using my initial playing and aural leadership as a model.
The setup of the classroom was key to the success of the lessons. By playing in a circle rather than a traditional ensemble setup, students were able to hear each other in ways that they weren’t used to. The setup created an open environment that promoted collaboration between musicians, making communication easier across the ensemble. It also gave me equal proximity to all the students in the room; without this setup, it might not have been possible to do this activity with such a large number of students. SENTENCE ABOUT BEING ABLE TO GIVE FEEDBACK TO AND CONNECT WITH STUDENTS YOU DON'T TYPICALLY GET TO DURING THE LARGE ENSEMBLE REHEARSAL
I fully intended on doing this lesson again in the future with new groups of students. I plan for this series of lessons to serve as an introduction to a longer unit focusing on songwriting in small groups. In order for this unit to be successful, these lessons will need to be as engaging as possible and allow each ensemble that participates in them to use the full extent of their musical knowledge. Through student feedback forms, I learned that nearly all students enjoyed the exercise. I was surprised but delighted to find that older students were ready for more of a challenge. In the future, I will allow more room in more experienced ensembles for individual writing of parts. This will be a part of the first lesson for these students. I will also change the beat in the percussion section more often; this will break up monotony and provide students an opportunity to improvise and write in more than one style. Finally, future lessons will benefit from more extended composition opportunities. Where I stuck with one measure melodies in this exercise, I will give more experienced ensembles the chance to compose whole phrases, as per their requests in my feedback forms. With a more experienced ensemble like the one featured in my instructional video, the content of all three lessons could be combined into one introductory lesson.
Examples of student feedback can be viewed below.
In order for students to understand the principles of fundamental songwriting, they needed the scaffolding of experiencing the activity without the need to first write their own music. By playing parts that I composed for them, shared and learned by rote, they were able to latch onto the skills they needed to make their own musical decisions. While I led them during the first lesson, they could take the initiative to write the music for themselves in later lessons using my initial playing and aural leadership as a model.
The setup of the classroom was key to the success of the lessons. By playing in a circle rather than a traditional ensemble setup, students were able to hear each other in ways that they weren’t used to. The setup created an open environment that promoted collaboration between musicians, making communication easier across the ensemble. It also gave me equal proximity to all the students in the room; without this setup, it might not have been possible to do this activity with such a large number of students. SENTENCE ABOUT BEING ABLE TO GIVE FEEDBACK TO AND CONNECT WITH STUDENTS YOU DON'T TYPICALLY GET TO DURING THE LARGE ENSEMBLE REHEARSAL
I fully intended on doing this lesson again in the future with new groups of students. I plan for this series of lessons to serve as an introduction to a longer unit focusing on songwriting in small groups. In order for this unit to be successful, these lessons will need to be as engaging as possible and allow each ensemble that participates in them to use the full extent of their musical knowledge. Through student feedback forms, I learned that nearly all students enjoyed the exercise. I was surprised but delighted to find that older students were ready for more of a challenge. In the future, I will allow more room in more experienced ensembles for individual writing of parts. This will be a part of the first lesson for these students. I will also change the beat in the percussion section more often; this will break up monotony and provide students an opportunity to improvise and write in more than one style. Finally, future lessons will benefit from more extended composition opportunities. Where I stuck with one measure melodies in this exercise, I will give more experienced ensembles the chance to compose whole phrases, as per their requests in my feedback forms. With a more experienced ensemble like the one featured in my instructional video, the content of all three lessons could be combined into one introductory lesson.
Examples of student feedback can be viewed below.