Making Music

A homemade rubber band instrument.

Homework: From now until Thursday, students will be collecting items for constructing homemade instruments. Each student needs to bring in at least three items (a bag of many little things, like beans or nails, counts as one item). Each student has received a list of possible things they might want to bring in; they are more than welcome to bring things that aren't on the list.

Tutoring: I am changing my tutoring hours due to Wednesday morning meetings. I am now available Mondays between 7:45 and 8:15 am in Room 103. Students may also set appointments with me during lunch any day of the week, for some other mornings before school, and after 3:30 on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Today's Warmup: Rhythm is the beat in music. If you could draw a rhythm, what would it look like? Try it.

Class work:

1. Body orchestra - in a circle, each student creates a unique rhythm using their body and the whole class "plays" together.

2. Listening & moving to music: We listened to Mozart's "Requiem," Lachrymosa dies illa, three times. Students used the written maps the first time, moved to the music the second time, then returned to their written maps. We had short class discussions about what we noticed.

3. Intro to graphic scores: students broke into groups. Each group had 1 minute to come up with a sound that they could make louder or softer, faster or slower, and higher or lower in pitch. Each group was also assigned one of four colors that corresponded to the colors in an animated graphic score which was projected on the whiteboard. As the score moved, the groups made their sounds according to what their color was doing on the score.

4. We talked a bit about the week's assignment and formed our "junk bands."