Split Three Ways
A Teacher’s Mind At The End Of The Week
After many end of term/semester interruptions we managed to get our student compositions back on track and record them on video. Kynan Robinson and myself embarked on a student composition unit at the beginning of term 2 with all grade 5 and 6 students. We began the unit by focusing on whole class ensemble performance and composition using the contrasting nature of consonance and dissonance as stimulus. As read and heard in previous posts Dissonance and Consonance, Moving Towards Dissonance, and Diabolical, the students composed some fabulous and interesting melodic ideas.
The second phase of the whole class modeling process was to emphasis the role that each part of the large ensemble played. At North Fitzroy Primary School we are extremely fortunate to be able to run an Ensemble Program during timetabled allotted time. It’s considered to be part of the Extend Your Talents program and students who show a aptitude for music are invited to join. There are 4 ensembles 3, 4, 5, and 6. A lot of the music they learn and perform is written in 4 part ostinatos. Best described as Bass, two harmony parts and main melody and at times we also have untuned percussion. Kynan and I believe that along with starting student composition from an early age, couple this with the ensemble program, our students are completely comfortable with the roles of bass, harmony and melody.
After the whole class modeling process had finished the students were split into small groups no larger the 5. Each group was required to compose a short ostinato based piece that had an A section and a B section (Originally it was planned that a C section would be included but lack of time prevented this from happening). They needed to be mindful of the role of the Bass: Support the harmony and melody rhythmically and ground the piece by maintaining the pulse. Harmony: support and emphasis the main melody but not dominate. Melody: To be the main tune that captured the characteristics of the composition. They could use the concepts of Consonance and Dissonance to contrast the A and B sections but weren’t restricted to this. Untunded percussion could also be included.
I am extremely happy with what has been created considering that each piece was composed over a two one hour session. Clearly had there been more time each piece would have benefited from some finessing. For example; Ending, dynamics and extended rehearsal time for some groups.
Each performance was recorded on three flip cameras and the footage was edited in Final Cut Express. This presented a whole variety of issues which I will dedicate entirely to a separate post.
5J’s 2nd Movement Towards Dissonance
5J’s 1st Movement of Haunted House Music Consonant
This is the Third installment of 5J’s “Haunted House Music”. The previous two posts discussed Consonance and Dissonance as a compositional tool for students to use to scaffold their musical ideas. As a class we decided that three movements were required. 1st movement needed to sound consonant, 2nd movement was titled ‘Moving Towards Disonance’ (building the tension) and the 3rd we named Diabolical. After rehearsing through the first two movements the students were given only 5minutes to transform their ostinati into the diabolical centering around the clash of dissonant intervals. Again we discussed how this could be achieved using such diatonic Orf instruments and some of the students opted to substitute their F and B notes for sharps and flats. We also discussed how the rhythm could be changed to suit the tension of the diabolical movement.
Once the 5 minutes was up all new ideas were performed and written on the Interactive Whiteboard (IWB). Further discussion took place and small changes were made so that the 5 new ostinati would lock together. Then Rehearsed, Recorded and Reviewed.
Their next task is to pull it altogether. How shall they arrange it so that their is smooth transition between each movement? Is it necessary for smooth transition? How is it going to finish?
5J Part A of Haunted House Music Consonant
This is the second installment of the grade 5 and 6 composition unit mentioned in previous post Dissonance and Consonance.
“I’m a big believer in getting children to compose from a very early age, in that way the mystique is taken away from the role of composer and it becomes a natural and enjoyable activity for kids to participate in.” Kynan Robinson (musician, composer and music educator)
This lesson focused on how we could shift the consonant movement of our haunted house music toward the dissonant movement. The students decided that we needed to gradual shift and that a second movement was necessary to build the tension.
Playing on Orff instruments has its limitations because most of them are not chromatic. We discussed the various dissonant possibilities of the C major Orff instruments, Shifting their ostinato up a tone, using B and C, E and F because they are a semitone apart, introducing the auxiliary keys Bflat and F#. After playing through the first movement (consonant) the students were given a few minutes to manipulate their simple melodic ostinati. As you can hear some wonderful ideas were created. I enjoyed the fact that they generally maintained the characteristics of each ostinato an changing just one or two notes.
Its great to be starting our composition unit with grades 5 and 6 this term. Kynan Robinson and I love teaching this unit because its a great opportunity to see and hear student creativity. It’s also exciting to see the reaction of the students when they compose a successful piece of music especially when it’s a collaboration with other students in small and or large groups.
We have decided to begin the unit with looking at consonance and dissonance. Which lends itself to using a picture of a “Haunted House” as stimulus. Discussion ensued regarding what makes a successful scary story and one that has a haunted house in it. Build up, series of events, climax and resolution We also discussed what are some of the sounds or imagery that needed to be included in our composition. See Picture 
When designing this unit, Kynan and I wanted the students to develop an understanding of consonance and dissonance to facilitate their abilities to create tension and release. The best way of doing this was to play them two pieces of music that use consonance and dissonance to the extreme. The first being Erik Satie’s - Gymnopédie No.1
a great example of consonance composition with mild dissonances. Its best described as background music or furniture music. For the second piece we wanted and example that was very dissonant and the great example of this is Krysztof Penderecki’s ‘Threnode to the Victums of Hiroshima’. I love watching the students reaction to the opening bars of this piece. The use of tone clusters and glissandi are very effective in getting the point across. After a quick demonstration on how tone clusters are constructed and juxtaposing this against a simple C major chord the students were reading to start our first whole class composition.
Traditionally we have always started with student sound scape but this time we decided to launch straight into melodic and rhythmic ostinati. Using Orff melodic instruments only and as a whole class our first task was to compose a very consonant piece using melodic ostinato. This is to contrast and slowly build to the ’scary’ part of the composition. Asking one student from each section to quickly improvise a short melodic ostinato they then had to teach it to the rest of their section. Gradually we put each ostinato together refining the odd note and rhythm so that each melody was able to lock together.
Part A of our whole class composition “Haunted House Music”
This is a music video by 4A A film clip produced by grade 4 students. All lyrics written by 4A students. Backing track recorded and composed by the Grade 4 Ensemble. Filmed (Flip camera) and edited by Andrew (Class/Music Teacher).
This project took about 6 weeks, one hour a week. The first step was to lean a poem call Cats by Eleanor Fajeon.
Cats sleep anywhere,
any table, any chair.
Top of piano, window-ledge,
in the middle, on the edge.
Open drawer, empty shoe,
anybody’s lap will do.
Fitted in a cardboard box,
in the cupboard with your frocks.
Anywhere! They don’t care!
Cats sleep anywhere.
This is a great poem because it has a steady beat and fantastic rhyming words. Each line fits in to four beats as well which lends itself to performing with any funky beat created in Garageband. It’s important to keep in time with the beat. After analysing the structure of the poem emphasising the rhyming words on the fourth beat of each line we split up into small groups to rehearse and perform the poem.
Second Step: Brain storm various animals and the things that they can do. We then had to write a short two verse poem about our animal with an action. Each line had to fit into four beats and the last word of each line had to rhyme. Once we finish we rehearsed and then performed with the beat of a drum.
Third Step: Polish our short animal verse and memorise. Standing in a large circle each group had to perform their animal verse one after the other with out missing a beat creating a whole class animal rap. This took a while to get the hang of especially when the funky beat that was created in Garageband was playing in the back ground.
Fourth Step: Record the whole class animal rap into Garageband. Each group was recorded individually with the funky backing track.
Fifth Step: Each group had to choreograph a few simple moves to their verse. They had to rehearse each verse so they could rap and move at the same time. Found a great location just a few blocks away from school and recorded each group on a Flip camera.
Sixth Step: Edit each groups performance in iMovie using the Garageband recording (Step four) as the sound track.
Also posted on 4A’s Bloggerama and Global Student
Flipping out (Recording using a Flip camera) with the Grade 5 Ensemble.
At last I think I have found a moment to write a post!
I was starting to wonder whether it was possible to maintain a blog and have a newborn son. But hey its Saturday night, he’s sleeping, mum is too and the moment is now!
The intention of beginning this blog was to write about all the things I do ICT (Information Computers and Technology) in my various roles at North Fitzroy Primary School in the hope that I would be able to share my ideas with those that choose to read my blog as well as discovering other blogs in the community that is Edublogs. I have to say that when I first started I had know idea how huge this community is and how wonderfully helpful and inspiring you all are!
It’s been a great start for ICT@NFPS 09. Our first two Non Student PD days were totally dedicated to ICT.
Day one was blogging with Heather Blakey. Heather is an amazing writer and blogger who is the founder of Soul Food Cafe: “The Soul Food Cafè is a portal for artists and writers alike.” Heather’s delivery was spot on. Using one of her numerous portals the SS Vulcania, Heather had created a portal for NFPS staff, NFPS Staff Quarters and we then had to add cabins which were to be our own individual blogs. My colleagues rose to the occasion with aplomb and humour creating wonderful titles for their blogs eg Captains Quarters, Titanic II and the Love Boat just to name a few.
Apart form a few technical issues (there are always first day glitches) the staff loved it and most have now started their own teacher blogs as well as class blogs. Eventually we hope that all students will create individual blogs as online eportfolios replacing our current system of clunky Power Point Presentations. This hopefully will allow the students to develop a deeper understanding of ICT through the authenticity of blogging as well as being able to share their work with the world. Peter Olm a colleague was so inspired by Heathers PD he wrote this fantastic post on the Authenticity of Student blogging.
Day Two was Titled ‘All about my Mac and Making iMovies’. We are a dual platform school that is extremely lucky to have both Windows machines and Mac’s in our classrooms. We also have an amazing MacLab and a trolley of Macbooks that floats from class to class.
Most of our staff have recently become Mac users through the governments ‘Notebook for Teachers’ Program and all these are able to be dual booted into Windows mode. This could not all happen if it wasn’t for the ‘know how’ of our amazing techs from Studytech. Again we are in quite a fortunate as a state school we can contract an organisation with such expertise to make it all work. These guys are the experts so why not get them in to run the PD.
The getting to know your mac session was great and Tim Stolk pitched it perfectly. Starting at the very basics and gradually getting into the more nifty stuff that macs are famous for. This lead wonderfully into making iMovies and now that everyone was confident in getting around their mac, making their movies using Tim’s stock video of him and his mates driving race cars was fun and easy. I personally think that iMovie HD is an amazing piece of software. I don’t like the 2008 update. Its no where near as powerful. I have read that imovie 09 has brought back some of the capabilities but the similarities between HD and Apples other applications makes it ideal for teaching. Most of our students are now quite Au fait with Garageband and these skill are easily transferred to iMovie HD.
I’ve been hearing about the flip cameras from the moment I stepped into the Web 2.0 world. Now that we are skilled in the ways of iMovie these great little cameras are going to be in huge demand. Our budget only allows us to purchase 6 Flip Ultras. We will keep these together as a kit. Flips are great for young students because of their simplicity. Plug in the USB and up comes the icon like a small hard drive. Just drag the recorded clips into iMovie and bang you have got yourself some footage. No tapes, no moving parts that get damaged, no awkward handling for little hands and no missing firewire cables!! There is however a slight codec issue when transferring your footage but this is resolved when installing the software that is located on the flip cam hard drive. See Tom Barret’s excellent post on resolving this. Also See Thirty Five Ways To Use Your Pocket Video In The Classroom an awesome Google presentation full of tips and lesson ideas.
Student email has been a problem for us. It was run through Outlook and was very clunky and students could only access it from school. This needed to change, so after doing some investigation we decided to migrate all our student email to Gmail through Google Applications for your Domain. This enabled us to keep the our current domain and student email address but when the children login they will see the Gmail interface. We decided to temporarily turn off access to Google apps because we want to keep it simple until the children get use to the new system. Now our students have access to a real world email system that can be accessed anywhere. I am really looking forward to enabling the rest of the Google apps.
With blogging and email about to go live we needed to do some serious coaching about internet safety and cyber bullying. School policy is that students and parents need to sign an internet use form that discusses cyber bullying. This is in conjunction with our normal bullying polices and student code of conduct. Every start to the school year begins with discussing class rules and student code of conduct and this also includes internet safety and appropriate use. I have been collecting a number of sites and resources and put together a Prezi for staff to use as a guide for Internet safety week. http://prezi.com/6174/
See my previous posts on a Cyber bullying and Comic Life
I love GarageBand, the students love GarageBand, we love GarageBand! Garageband (GB) is an incredible teaching and learning tool. We have been using GB at North Fitzroy Primary School now for the past 3 years and I have seen the student compositional skills grow from creating simple soundscapes to full podcasts shows containing multiple compositions. Kynan and I have used GB to record all our student compositions and performances enabling us to collect a large body of student work (see student composition page). Now GB pervades throughout all curriculum areas and levels and is regularly used to record poetry to creating times tables maths songs.
Below are some examples of grade 2 compositions where they had to create a ‘funky’ song. A constant issue that arises with student composition in Garageband is that they want to use as many instruments as they can and without much thought as to where to put them. The result although fun for them, is a wall of sound that is not so pleasing to the ear.
After listening to and analysing some James Brown tracks. We discussed what makes up a typical funk ensemble. The students were restricted to 4 to 5 instruments. 1 Drum/beat (The bread of the sandwich), Bass (Butter), Melodic instrument (the flavour), 1 percussion instrument (salt and pepper). We then discussed how to make a sandwich and how its a step by step process, introducing each part of the sandwich one at a time. The same is for a lot of music where the composer sometimes introduces each instrument one at a time thus avoiding the ‘Wall of Sound’ approach. 
Once the students had created their simple funk composition they were then shown how to record their voice and then cut and paste snippet’s and then apply affects. The overall effect was impressive with one student secretly recording my voice and then overlaying it in her song. Some students even discovered how to manipulate the tempo and used this device to great effect.
Kalani and Isacc\’s Dr Who Ben and Liam Funky Oskar and Gabe Rock Out
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