Sound Travels: Music Webs

The children have some definite ideas about the music they'll compose!

What feelings and ideas do you want to express?

What instruments and sounds will you use?

Tyreese:
Sad music: The babies are crying because the fire engine put them in jail. The babies are in big trouble because they banged all the trumpets down!
Cello, guitar, crying, sirens

Oliver:
Happy music: I'm ice skating with all my friends. I keep trying to skate backwards but I keep falling down. It's a little tricky for me.
Bass drum, tuba

Rielle:
Sad music: A giant came and stomped on the bumblebees. Giants love stomping on bumblebees. Stomp! Stomp! The bumblebees were hurt but they got up.
Trumpet, saxophone, stomping sounds

Alan:
Loud music: There's trouble! Trouble with bad guys, they push everything down and we have to go to China
Cymbals, guitar

Sophie:
Mad music: The mermaids are swimming to the city. They swam so far away and it made the dolphin mad!
Bongo drums, harps

Rylan:
Brave music: Drivers are in cars driving to Africa to play. But there's soldiers there, bad soldiers. The drivers get out and the soldiers fight them. Then "poof" they were gone!
Oboe, xylophone, fighting sounds, poof sound

Esme:
Happy song: There's flowers growing in my garden. I pick some flowers for my grandma and give them to her to keep. Grandma's happy!
Harp, glockenspiel

Sound Travels: Feel the Beat!

In preparation for the summative activity at the end of this unit 

the children have been working on several concepts: 

music has a form, music can express and evoke feelings, music has a beat

 Many of the children have already decided what feeling they want to express in their music.
"But how will we do it?" asked Esme
I introduced the children to Garage Band and we listened to a few instruments.
We will use this program to compose their music.

Today's activities provided an opportunity to understand that music has a beat. 

Next week I will connect this to what they've learned by exploring 

that beat tempo can also express feelings and ideas. 

There's a beat in our body . . . can you guess? Our hearts! 

We listened to a sound clip of a hear beat and 
notice how the tempo stays the same.

We explored this further using a drum. 

One at a time the children took turns trying to match my beat as I varied the tempo. 

I observed that the children tended to bang the drum harder as they increased their tempo which could end up with a damaged drum! They practiced a fast tempo with softer taps on the drum.