The Challenge—Students who have been taught music through the thinking mind may initially balk or volunteer opinions on the “value” of engagement in pure rhythm and tonal. Activities that make sense to the musical mind—a sense of meter and a sense of tonality, do not necessarily make sense to the thinking mind—until the musical mind finds its own voice.
The transition to the dominance of the musical mind can be accomplished in any setting with any age. The suppressed musical mind, however, may be reticent to make itself known after being dominated by the thinking mind—particularly the thinking mind of peers. You’ll know you’ve captured the musical mind when students are attentive to rhythm and tonal activities. You’ll know when the thinking mind is still in charge when peers discourage attention or participation.
Your students will demonstrate an attentive look in the eyes when they begin to tune-in to the aural content. That look indicates that the musical imagination has been captured and is preparing for greater adventure. You can hold it in the palm of your hand while you spin your musical “narrative” and not let it go until you stop the activity.
Your challenge is to bring the collective musical minds into the foreground in your setting and get the collective thinking minds out of the way. If your particular group makes it difficult, try appealing to the thinking mind. Explain that you are taking a course that requires you to do some different kinds of activities and enlist your students’ help. They may then let you try anything!
The “Sound Environment”—The fledgling musical mind can be easily distracted until it flexes it own strength. A backdrop of silence minimizes distractions. Eliminating all talking—yours and your students, further diminishes distractions. Respect for the individual in the classroom can deter students from distracting each other.
Non-Verbal Communication—Minimize verbalizations. The more you eliminate language with your students and use non-verbal communication, the more your students will grow from the music activities. Communicate with your group as you would with a group of non-English speakers who cannot understand well-meaning instructions, explanations, or suggestions. Rhythm, tonal, and movement speak directly to the musical mind, whatever the language of the thinking mind.
Immersion—Plan several uninterrupted minutes for each activity. Go through the song or chant 6 or 8 times without stopping. The longer the activity, the more your students will tune in. The greater the exposure to the variety of meters and tonalities, the more attentive your students will become. They may surprise you in later weeks with how long they stay focused with a meter or tonality.
Listening—Students need to hear a meter or tonality before they interact with it, just as they need to hear a new language before they can interact with it. A first experience with any meter or tonality could be simply listening for the first couple of minutes—to your voice, or to a drum or recorder. Once the children begin to tune-in, invite them (non-verbally) to join you with body and voice.
Accompaniments—Instrumental accompaniments are not only unnecessary, they can impede the development of rhythm and tonal skills. Rhythm provides the foundation for all music learning. Tonal becomes a layer upon rhythm. Words to songs become a layer on top of tonal, and instrumental accompaniments become a layer on top of text. Any single layer can topple the whole, if those underneath are not secure. Movement is the finest accompaniment, and serves every layer.
Movement—Movement is essential to music learning. There is no right or wrong way to move. This is not dance, choreography, choralography, prescribed or stylized movement. Your movement simply needs to communicate permission to move freely, and each student will move in his own way. You will expand your repertoire of movement by watching your students move. If you are uncomfortable with movement, start with conducting gestures and move beyond patterns and beats to flow between the beats. You might engage in flowing movement with the upper body while in a sitting position as a way to start, or to activate a group that may not yet be able to handle the freedom of movement.
Let the music move you, and your students will do the same. Keep some part of the body flowing through space throughout the musical experience. Use the whole body—extend the arms in space, activate the hips, bend the knees. Your movement non-verbally invites your students to engage with musical energy—with every musical nuance a push and pull of that energy.
You may be surprised at how musical your seemingly least musical students can be in movement. Every child can be musical. Movement is the most immediate entry into musicality. There is no reason to use words, images, or storylines to stimulate movement, as they speak to the thinking mind. A butterfly image may keep a group of children engaged in fluid movement, but with the thinking mind at the forefront. Music, itself, can move students of any age, if we capture the musical imagination and free it to express itself in movement—the energy of music.
Props/No Props—Beanbags, hoops, scarves, and any number of other props can be used as vehicles for children to engage with rhythm and tonal activities. These can be effective for variety and for providing an opportunity to immerse children in a meter or tonality. The greatest drawback to props is that they can too easily become the focus of the activity. As with a game of musical chairs, music becomes the background for the game rather than the game becoming the background for the music. An attractive prop can be very appealing to children, but the music has to be in the foreground. As your students develop, there is less need for props, as engaging in the music itself becomes “playing music,” just as it is for professional musicians.
Warm-Ups—Using the assigned music activities as warm-ups can be effective in both the choral rehearsal and the classroom. Students readily accept the need for different kinds of warm-ups for athletics and can for music as well. Warm-ups with movement awaken the whole body as well as the musical mind for exciting music making.
Rote Teaching/Learning—Your goal in the music activities is to saturate and engage your students in meter, tonality, and movement. It is not to teach notation, how to breathe, or how to follow instructions. If you feel the need to explain anything, do so before you start the meter or tonality. Use rote teaching and learning through immersion as an opportunity to fine-hone your skills in non-verbal communication and as an opportunity to become more musical with your own students. Begin singing and moving an activity. The most immediate way for your students to participate is in movement, which also provides for greater saturation of the aural content before they engage vocally. A most effective practice, whether stated or unstated, is “Listen, and when you are ready, move with me. Keep moving, and when you are ready, sing with me.”
Rhythm Activities— Rhythm is learned best without tonal and without words, but with animated vocal expression. Rhythm activities are designed to be with limited rhythm patterns, moderate tempos, and considerable repetition. If you want to include more difficult rhythms for variety with older or more experienced students, use the assigned chant as the A section of a rondo, and improvise the same length B,C, and D sections in the same meter and tempo, always returning to the A section between short improvisations. Students may perk with the contrasting sections, but the developing musical mind needs to be brought home in sound to the basics of the meter, which the A section secures.
Tonal Activities—The tonal activities are designed to be in a limited range, with characteristic tones of each tonality, clear definition of the resting tone, repetition, and simple rhythms. Successive verses with fluid movement take students into the tonality more than would greater melodic variety, and the simplicity of the rhythms helps students attend to tonality rather than rhythm. The tonality will cast its spell with just the simple song. If, however, you want greater variety with older or more experienced students, and you have the skills to improvise in the tonality, use the original song as the A section of a rondo, improvising the same length B, C, and D sections with the simplest rhythms in the same key and tempo, even in a higher range, always returning to the A section between short improvisations. The developing musical mind needs to be brought home in sound and range to the foundation of the tonality, which the A section secures.
Songs—Songs include characteristic tones of each tonality and clear definition of the resting tone, strengthening a developing sense of tonality. Songs are short and can easily by learned by rote inthe same manner as rhythm and tonal activities. Avoid props with songs. Introduce the song in singing and flowing movement and keep it going without interruption through 6-8 verses. Invite movement (non-verbally), and then singing. Movement offers immediate access to the song, whatever the difficulty of the melody or challenge with the words, and gives children the opportunity to engage directly with the art. It also gives students who might have trouble with the melody or words the chance to successfully engage in the song.
Lessons are designed so that the tonality activity and song are in the same tonality. This sets up the tonality in the musical mind, preparing it to receive the song with words. Avoid talking between the tonality activity and the song, so as not to interrupt the musical mind’s engagement with the tonality.
You needn’t bother talking about the literal meaning of the words to the song, “lining out” the song, nor asking students to act out the words, as all these techniques address the thinking mind rather than the musical mind. Students will “get the words,” if they have the opportunity to become immersed in repeated hearings of the song, first through movement, and then through singing. The words will ultimately fall in place. Your students will receive the words as poets, and discover in movement how the sound of those words intertwines with meter and tonality, without props, without verbalizations, planting the seeds of the choral art.
Some songs will be more difficult for you to read than they are for your students to learn by rote. Don’t let the notation get in your way. Make each song come alive in movement and voice, whatever its style, tempo, or vocal challenges. Free your own musicality in movement and voice and become the song. Your students will do the same.
Planning—Plan to do Set 1 activities before Set 2 activities each week, whether doing the two sets consecutively or on different days of the week. Set 1 will prepare your students each week for the greater challenges of Set 2, and the ordering of rhythm activity, tonal activity, and song will facilitate music learning more than consecutive rhythm activities or consecutive tonal activities. Each week’s activities provide the readiness for the next. Pace yourself so that you can complete the weekly assignments in a timely manner. Skipping weeks or weekly activities will defeat the learning process. The musical mind needs consistent nourishment and music learning cannot be “crammed.”
You may find that some of your students are more attentive to rhythm, while others are more attentive to tonal. Some may try to compensate for their weakness by using their stronger suit, or their thinking minds may demean the value of either rhythm or tonal activities, masking their musical needs. Musicality demands strength in both rhythm and tonal, which come together in song, and which require equal time for development.
Classroom Management—Music learning and music learning activities require immersion in music content, without language and without distraction. Just as well-meaning teacher verbalizations interrupt the musical mind, so do not-so-well-meaning classroom antics. The bottom line with classroom management is that students not interrupt music activities by talking, questioning, laughing, drawing attention to themselves, distracting others, or by causing you to break an activity to reprimand or instruct. The musical mind needs aural space and initially cannot focus amidst distractions. Tonalities and meters can cast a “spell” over the musical mind, holding an entire group captive. The collective focus grows with successive experience with tonalities and meters, holding for longer and longer activities. The musical mind needs a “sound environment” in order to bloom, without distraction.
You know best how to manage your particular group of students. If you choose to remove a disruptive student, keep the student “in ear shot” of the ongoing music activities. Without the distraction of group dynamics, the isolated student will grow musically from the aural input, and will likely be drawn in by the magic of tonality and meter. Once you get the thinking mind out of the way, you may be surprised to find some of your most difficult students reined in by the power of the musical mind.
Age of Students—The music activities can be effective with any age, and have been used successfully not only with children of all ages, classroom and choral, but also with college students, both musically experienced and inexperienced, in both classroom and choral contexts. That which is musical appeals to musicality, whatever the age of the students.
The musical mind is a powerful force in every individual. The more you can uncover it, activate it, and release it, the more you and your students, whatever their age, will become a community of artists making exciting music together.
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