Exploring Barred Instruments with the Young Child | MMB Music
Overview
For the past several years, my work with the Schulwerk has been influenced and inspired by the Reggio Approach. This influence comes from vital and engaging work with colleagues, parents, and students at The College School in St. Louis, Missouri. Inspirations from the Reggio Approach contribute to the wedding of revolutionary socio-constructivist theories that visitors witness when observing the teaching and learning during delegation days at The College School.
The Reggio Approach originates from a small town in Northern Italy, Reggio Emilia. Founded in the aftermath of World War II, this approach to working with the young child is now a global phenomenon studied and replicated by many. Louise Cadwell, one of the first American educators to work in the schools of Reggio Emilia and currently the Curriculum Coordinator at The College School, defines the fundamentals of the Reggio Approach as follows:
- The child is protagonist of learning.
- The child is collaborator.
- The child is communicator.
- The environment is the third teacher.
- The teacher is partner, nurturer, and guide.
- The teacher is researcher.
- The documentation of learning is a communicator and informer.
- The parent is partner.
- Organization is foundational.
Students of the Schulwerk will easily correlate the similarities and support of these two philosophies. Carl Orff’s profound statement, “Let the children be their own composers” promotes a strong image of the child as creator and constructor of her/his own learning. Providing the child with quality materials in the realm of poetry and instruments supports the environment as another inspiration for the child’s construction of knowledge and aesthetics. Within authentic expressions of the Schulwerk philosophy, the teacher is not a dogmatic hoarder of knowledge, rather a co-creator of experience and knowledge with students.
These tenets of the Schulwerk apply to students of every age. With the young child, the aesthetics should not be compromised because of age. In fact, an opposite approach should be undertaken. Defining aesthetic experiences with any student should encompass a manner of thinking that promotes pleasure of mind and spirit, the pursuit of harmonious relationships, awakening of the senses, and the encouragement of a fully emotional experience. By embracing an aesthetic approach to music education coupled with the strong image of a competent and capable child, we as educators and researchers are encouraging our students to create music and movement experiences that are brimming with critical thought, nonconformity, and vitality.
Verse free of meter will provide a substantial foundation to enhance the movement and sound material in creating sound settings. The use of light and shadow provides opportunities for students to create imaginative, playful, and poetic settings of movement and sound that reflect the urban setting of Michelle Magorian’s poem, “Night Lights” (A Pocketful of Stars: Poems About the Night, Nikki Siegen-Smith, Barefoot Books). Our initiation of this lesson will focus on movements to represent the pathway and subtlety of light. Timbres of the voices and the melodic direction of the barred instruments will further enhance the aesthetic sensibilities of this composition.
Movement, speech, compositions, and light provide the students with material needed for concrete music learning and creation. Synthesizing these materials will provide an aesthetic experience that is joyful and meaningful to teacher and students, while the fundamentals of music are utilized. These fundamentals are presented in new and varied forms through the media of movement, choral speech work, timbre and texture combinations, and instruments. As with any experiences with the Schulwerk, the possibilities are fueled by the imaginations of the teacher and the students.
Objectives
Rhythm: Students will explore the prosody of expressive and rhythmic speech with poetry.
Melody: Students will identify, compose, and perform using the four vocal timbres: whisper, speak, sing, and call. Students will explore melodic contour moving up and down.
Harmony: Students will accompany short poems with drones that enhance the mood and meaning.
Texture: Students will demonstrate techniques of playing barred percussion instruments and identify these instruments by family name, specific name, and icon.
Form: Students will identify the form.
Movement: Students will utilize expressive movement to illustrate short nursery rhymes and poems.
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