Sound Explorations (Pri)

Sound

Music Composition Lesson Ideas for Primary School Music Teachers

Explorations

PREFACE

Improvisation and composition are an important parts of every student’s music education as they engender both adaptability and resilience to ambiguity. We want to build confident music-makers and active collaborators. Tangible outcomes such as collaboration and communication can be facilitated through different ways of seeing and understanding. As such, creative collaboration makes the music classroom a fun and dynamic learning space.

Creative musicking in our classrooms provides an impetus to quality music making. This inaugural e-publication is seeded by the belief that more teachers can benefit from the good teaching resources. This e-resource encourages our teacher-led culture to bridge curriculum concepts with sound pedagogy. Comprising lesson ideas for teaching improvising and composing, the resource supports our Music teachers’ in their implementation of the Primary Music Syllabus. The lesson ideas can be contextualised for various classroom settings to suit the students’ needs. They also come with samples of the students’ works in the form of pictures and audio recordings, documenting their students’ responses.

STAR congratulates all STAR Champions (Primary) who have contributed to this e-publication. These teacher-leaders were inspired to develop these ideas through an iterative process, after attending a series of professional development workshops, organized by Singapore Teachers’ Academy for the aRts, in March and May 2018. They believe their success in using these lesson ideas have motivated them to share their stories with their colleagues as an encouragement to teach improvisation and composition. The lived experiences by those who have tried and tested becomes a powerful springboard to more ideation at their zonal and cluster workshops conducted in July 2018.

Quality music teaching enables our students to learn more about life and values that last a lifetime.

Thank you, STAR Champions for trialling and developing the lesson ideas to be shared. STAR would also like to thank their school leaders for the continued support of their STAR Champions.

The Editorial Team: Li Yen See, Master Teacher (Music) Eng Yan Chen Alvyn, Academy Officer (Music) Singapore Teachers’ Academy for the aRts

I. SEEDING

The ‘Seeding’ lesson ideas are designed with the Primary 1 and 2 students in mind. At this developmental stage, they are highly curious about their environment and social context e.g. the playground, weather, seasons, festive and birthday celebrations. Leveraging the children’s inquisitiveness and boldness, the teacher could support their creative explorations by drawing connections from their social experiences, and through the songs they sing.

N3 Eunice Chua Yu Gek Anchor Green Primary School

Loi Wei Ling Edgefield Primary School

Sounds like “Rain”

Prior Experience: Students to have sung song(s) related to weather e.g. Rain Rain Go Away, I Hear Thunder

WARM UP

Arousing Interest

Teacher to show sign language (action without sounds) of rain, wind, thunder with different levels of intensity of each. Class to imitate.

1. Ask students to make a guess what the theme is for the day i.e. Our Rainy Day (a possible theme based on the idea of a wet weather day)

Empowering Learners

2. Teacher to elicit from class (i) different wet/rainy weather elements/ characteristics e.g. rain, wind, thunder and (ii) the sounds they can produce using voice and body percussion based on the different levels of intensity of each weather element/characteristics they had suggested.

3. Ask students to suggest possible moods (scared, fun, shocked, cold, etc) that is reflected from the earlier suggested weather elements/characteristics. Students to make the sounds again; this time taking into consideration their moods.

Note; on a whiteboard, the teacher should record their word-splash/discussion of the weather elements/characteristics and moods on the whiteboard for reference in the music creating activity.

CREATING A SOUNDSCAPE FROM A STORYLINE ‘OUR RAINY DAY’

1. Each pupil to pick one instrument and sit together in a semicircle based on the classification of the instruments below:

Group 1: Melodic percussion instruments (only using notes C, E, G)

• Xylophones and metallophones (only keys C, E and G is on the instrument)

• Resonator bells

• Boomwhackers

Group 2: Non-pitched percussion instruments

• Shakers: Egg shakers, aluminium shakers, maracas etc

• Skins: Hand drum, sound shapes, djembe, box drum etc

• Others: Rain stick, thunder stick (if available)

Facilitating Collaborative Learning

2. Teacher leads a class discussion on the storyline:

• Create a 1st scenario/happening for their storyline, using the descriptions about the wet/rainy

weather elements/characteristics in their earlier discussion. They are to consider the possible moods related to this 1st scenario/happening.

• In pairs and using strategy ‘Think-PairShare’, students to explore the sounds on their instrument that depicts the scene/happening. They are to be given a time limit of 1 minute.

• Some pairs will demonstrate their suggested sounds to the class. After each pair has demonstrated, teacher can ask the class: What do you think this sounds like? How can we make it better?

• Having listened to several pairs, students to discuss if they would like to keep their original creation or adapt having listened to their peers.

Encouraging Learner Engagement

3. Teacher may consider facilitating in this manner; (i) each type/ timbre of instruments to take turns to play their improvisation, (ii) Group 1 play first, followed by Group 2. After which, the students as a class to play the first scenario/happening.

4. Teacher to discuss the possible musical elements (tempo, dynamics, rhythms, layering of instrumental sounds to include (where relevant) to the mood(s) in this opening scenario/happening. Students to try playing again, with the teacher facilitating their entries/turns (as described in the earlier point).

Providing Clear Explanation

5. Teacher to draw a short graphic notation/ flow chart on the board as a visual cue of what was discussed.

Empowering Learners

6. With reference to the word-splash on the Whiteboard, the teacher leads students to suggest the 2nd scenario (including the possible moods). Repeat process in Step 2b.

7. The number of scenarios and its related moods would depend on how the storyline unfolds and the composition should eventually lead to a closure (a possible closure, the sunny happy sun comes out and the children comes out to play).

Note: musical elements to consider during the students’ improvisation process;

• Non-metered music / metered music

• Voice / Body percussion / Playing of instruments

• Dynamics

• Tempo

• Texture

• Rap / singing e.g. some lyrics of the song “Rain, rain go away” or other similar songs in the key of C major

Concluding the Lesson

1. Teacher to do a recording of the piece and play back for students to appreciate their composition.

2. Students to do a reflection to consolidate their learning process using a ‘3-2-1’ strategy;

• 3 things they enjoyed

• 2 things they learnt

• 1 thing they want to explore further in their creating process

The lesson provides an opportunity for Lower Primary students to experience several musical elements in Learning Objective 5 (of Stage 1) through an improvisatory piece. Basing this creative process on a familiar context i.e. rainy/wet weather, allows the students to make connections to allow them to improvise using the musical elements to illustrate this context.

Students were overly excited by the task; their suggestions were beyond what the teacher expected e.g. heavy rain followed by flood. The students were able to ‘tap’ on their creativity to produce sounds on what they suggested. Classroom management was a little challenging to engage all 30 students at any point in time. As such, smaller group discussions and exploration can be built in to maximise participation and involvement.

E1 Tan Shi Ying Meridian Primary School

Cindy Lim Poi Ching School

Musical Compositions Inspired by Birthday Celebrations

I. SEEDING Lesson Ideas for Stage 1

PART 1 GENERATING IDEAS FROM A VISUAL STIMULUS

Arousing Interest

1. Students are shown a picture of a birthday celebration (refer to Diagram 1). Using a thinking routine ‘See-ThinkWonder’, the teacher asks the following questions:

• What do you see?

• What do you think is happening?

• What are you wondering about? Or ‘I wonder if….’

2. Teacher writes the students’ responses on the whiteboard as a word-splash.

PART 2 CREATING A CLASS CHANT (A FOUR-BEAT CHANT)

Empowering Learners

1. Teacher invites students to choose from the word-splash, 4 of their favourite words.

2. Teacher have students suggest the sequence of the words to be chanted. Teacher gives a pulse and the students chant their suggested sequence to this pulse.

3. He/she writes the words on the board, placing it under each beat (a magnet to represent a crotchet beat). Students to chant several possibilities, with a given pulse (see Examples 1 and 2).

4. Teacher writes the words on the board, placing it under each beat (a magnet to represent a crotchet beat)

Example 1

Beats 0 0 0 0

Words Cake Candle Par-ty Fun

Example 2

Beats 0 0 0 0

Words Birthday Cake Fun Par-ty

PART 3 GROUP COLLABORATION: CREATING CHANTS AND PEER TEACHING

Facilitating Collaborative Learning

1. Teacher organises students into groups. Each group is to create their group chant which is based on their group’s 4 chosen words from the word-splash (Part 1). Students are encouraged to chant their ‘words’ with a pulse.

2. After which, the teacher can provide students with a “4 beat” worksheet template (Refer to Diagram 2) to notate their ideas; ‘Sound before Sight’ process.

3. Teacher to get the groups to pair up. Each group is assigned with another group and they are to teach each other their chants. The result would be that their combined chants will have a total of 8 beats.

PART 4 EXPLORING THE USE OF REST(S)

Pacing and Maintaining Momentum

1. Using the class chant created earlier (in Part 2), the teacher suggests they could have a ‘silent’ beat in their chants i.e. to replace one of the words with a rest (see Example 3).

Example 3

Beats 0 0 0 0

Words Birthday (silence) Fun Par-ty

2. Teacher invites a student to replace this chosen word from the chant with a silent action, for example by waving their right hand. Note: the action does not demonstrate any sound.

3. Teacher informs the class that the ‘silent’ action represents a rest in music. He/ she facilitates the groups to replace one word from their 8 beat chant with a rest which is represented with a ‘silent’ action.

PART 5 PERFORMANCE OF THE 8-BEAT CHANT

1. Teacher gets each pair of the partner groups to perform their chant.

EXTENSION

Empowering Learners

1. Teacher to provide each group with an unpitched percussion instrument. A student from each group can be chosen to use this instrument to play the pulse as the other students recite their chant and clap the rhythm with a two-finger

tap. Teacher to facilitate a class discussion or demonstration of the differences between pulse and rhythm.

2. The teacher can also introduce the rondo form by having the class choose one of the group’s chant to be repeated i.e. as Section A. He/she then invites the class to choose 2 other group’s chants. These chants can be termed as ‘B’ and ‘C’ Sections.

3. The teacher writes the sequence of the performance – e.g. A B A C A – on the board, and ask the class to perform in a rondo form.

These lesson ideas are intended to provide a stepping stone towards creating music in both instrumental and vocal settings. The students’ ideas are acknowledged through their choice of words in the improvisation process. The theme of the visual stimulus (A Birthday Celebration) is familiar to the students; this lends authenticity to their responses. Musical notation is not introduced at this stage; the intent is to encourage the students to improvise through speech. Students were excited to contribute answers during the visual stimulus activity. They were also able to perform their own compositions. They displayed pride in their composition when they taught their peers during the partner-group activity.

I. SEEDING Lesson Ideas for Stage 1

Key concepts to note

The students need to be able to keep a steady pulse as well have prior knowledge of what a pulse is.

Diagram 1 Visual stimulus Diagram 2

An example of a group’s work

• Use of repeat (as seen in the word ‘presents’)

• Replacing the word present with rest; indicated by the ‘zzzzz’

W3

W6

Adela Josephine Juying Primary School

Irene Chin West Grove Primary School

Alice Ooi Beacon Primary School

Improvisation with ‘Dinah’

PART 1 – TUNING IN USING A CHANT

Encouraging Learner Engagement

1. Teacher has the students stand in a circle. Students tap the pulse softly (using 2 fingers to tap on palm of hand) as he/she recites the song ‘No One In The House But Dinah’. Teacher invites students to join in the recitation as he / she repeats.

No One In The House

No one in the house but Dinah, Dinah

No one in the house but me I know

No one in the house but Dinah, Dinah

Playing on the old banjo

2. Teacher suggests replacing ‘Dinah’ with a student’s name; tapping the pulse, the class recites again with the suggested student’s name. This can be repeated several time with different students’ names to replace ‘Dinah’ in the recitation of the song.

3. Teacher facilitates a discussion on what the song means to them. Examples of

some questions that the teacher might ask:

• Who do you think Dinah is?

• What do you think a banjo is?

• Where do you think this house is?

• Why do you think this song is written?

PART 2 – MOVING AND CREATING ACTIONS

Pacing and Maintaining Momentum

1. Teacher invites students to walk-on-thespot to a given pulse as he / she sings the 1st 3 phrases and recites the last phrase.

2. As the Teacher repeats her recitation and singing, he/she invites students to move to the pulse of the music.

3. Teacher repeats her recitation and singing; replacing ‘Old Banjo’ with names of different musical instruments that is sung in the same rhythmic pattern as the song e.g. tri-an-gle, gloc-kenspiel.

4. He / she invites students to continue to move to the pulse of the music for the 1st 3 phrases and mimic the actions of playing the suggested musical instruments for the 4th phrase.

PART 3 – USING BODY PERCUSSION TO LEARN THE RHYTHM

1. Teacher invites students to recite the 4th phrase (‘playing on the old banjo’). As they recite, the teacher recites these rhythmic syllables and perform these body percussions (BP) moves;

Phrase 4 Play-ing on the old ban - jo

Rhythmic Syllables Ti ka – Ti ka Ti - Ti Ta Mm

Body Percussion (BP) Patsching clap clap clap snap

(Alternate patting on the lap)

Using Questions to Deepen Learning

2. Teacher facilitates a discussion on the rhythmic features of the 4th phrase. Some examples of the questions the teacher can ask:

• What did you hear in this phrase?

• Where do you think the long sounds? Where was the rest?

• Where do you think the short sounds were? Why do you think these rhythms are short?

• Why do you think these the short sounds are at the beginning of the phrase?

Note: Teacher to introduce the ‘Tika-tika’ rhythm to the students

PART 4 – MAKING VISUAL REPRESENTATIONS OF SOUNDS USING GRAPHIC NOTATION

Providing Clear Explanation

1. Students to sing the 4th phrase. As they sing, he/she draws / writes the following graphic notation on the whiteboard;

Phrase 4 Playing on the old ban – jo *

Graphic Notation . . . . - - 0

Rhythmic Syllables Ti ka – Ti ka Ti - Ti Ta Mm

BP moves Patsch clap clap clap snap

Play-ing on the old ban – jo

2. Using the graphic notation on the whiteboard as visual reference, teacher has the students sing the rhythmic syllables with the BP moves. Teacher facilitates the students to explore different BP moves to represent the rhythmic patterns.

3. Teacher has the students sing the 4th phrase with the original set of BP moves. He /she shares the name of and the term ‘semi-quavers’ with the class.

PART 5 – PERFORMING THE SONG WITH INSTRUMENTS

Encouraging Learner Engagement

1. Teacher invites the class to sing the 4th phrase while performing the original set of BP moves. He /she emphasises to the students that the BP move ‘patsch’ must be done using both hands alternately, to prepare them for mallet playing technique.

2. Using the mallets, the teacher demonstrates the playing of the 3 notes/pitches e.g. ‘Do’, ‘Re’ and ‘Mi’ (D, E, F#) on the xylophone. He /she highlights the following points to the students;

• Mallets to land on the centre part of the xylophone

• Playing with quick and light strokes, ‘bouncing’ the mallets off the xylophone.

3. Teacher arranges the students in the following formation;

Teacher

Student Xylophone

4. Class to sing the 1st 3 phrases (‘No one in the house …’) as they tap the pulse.

Empowering Learners

5. Using the rhythmic structure (from the graphic notation in Part 4) of Phrase 4, this phrase is improvised by the 10 students sitting closest to the xylophone (using the 3 pitches/notes e.g. D, E, F#). The other students perform the 4th phrase using the BP moves taught in Part 4.

6. As the performance is repeated, the 10 students playing the xylophone pass their mallets to their peers sitting directly behind them. They then move to the back of the line as their peers move forward to the instruments for the next round of performance. This process repeats until every student has had an opportunity to improvise on the instruments.

EXTENSION

1. The students can improvise using a wider range of notes e.g. C Major Pentatonic scale.

2. Teacher may facilitate a class performance featuring solo improvisation by individual students in addition to group improvisation sections.

Key concepts / Issues to note

The students require some prior knowledge of rhythmic syllables (such as Ta, Ti-Ti and Mm). The teacher has to transpose the key of the song from D major to C major when the improvisation is played on the resonator bars/chime bars (which is not likely to have F#). The graphic notation provides an important visual reference to students, especially the visual learners. Teacher may wish to consider starting the song at a slower tempo due to the rhythmic density of the tune as some students may find it difficult to play the semiquavers at a fast tempo.

This lesson idea provides students with opportunities to explore improvising using voice and classroom instruments (2015 GMP LO2). Such improvisation is seen in their choice of BP moves as well as improvising Phrase 4. Students get to also perform the song in both instrumental and vocal settings. They will get to combine movement with singing (LO1) and apply their learning of the semiquavers (LO5).

Students were generally well engaged and responsive. Replacing ‘Dinah’ with names suggested by the students generated an element of fun and students’ choice. The class formation suggested for playing the xylophone encouraged students to demonstrate turn-taking through the sharing of the mallets with their peers.

Some students struggled with handling the mallets as it was their first time using them. Teacher could encourage these students to try having the mallets placed closer to the xylophone. He / She may also suggest to students to have more practice tapping on their laps using alternate hands before attempting to play the xylophone or using their fingers to tap on the bars.

D-Doh

W7 Soh Ker Shin, Catherine Rulang Primary School

Chua Soo Bin April Fuhua Primary School

From Speech to Music

PART 1 – RECITING AND CREATING BODY PERCUSSION SOUNDS BASED ON SPEECH PATTERNS

Establishing Interaction and Rapport

1. Teacher recites phrase 1 of the song ‘Sambalele’ (‘Sing and dance and play Sambalele’). Students join in with the teacher in the recitation of phrase 1 as he /she repeats.

2. Teacher to recite phrase 1 with a given pulse. Class imitates. As the class recites, the teacher uses body percussion (BP) sounds to demonstrate the rhythmic patterns of phrase 1.

3. Teacher invites students to explore their improvised BP sounds as they recite the phrase.

PART 2 – EXPLORING DIFFERENT RHYTHMIC PATTERNS WHEN RECITING PHRASE 1

Empowering Learners

1. Teacher demonstrates 2 to 3 different rhythmic patterns when reciting phrase 1

(using different rhythmic patterns). Class imitates. He/ she adds the BP with the recitation. Class imitates.

2. Teacher facilitates students’ exploration of performing phrase 1 with different rhythmic patterns. He / she invites individual students to share their improvisation (reciting and BP) with the class.

3. Teacher facilitates a discussion for the class to choose a favourite improvisation. This version of phrase 1 will be ‘adopted’ as the class’ version. Teacher invites the class to perform their chosen version together.

3. Teacher organizes the class into 3 groups:

• Group 1 will echo-sing teacher’s improvisation using solfèges;

• Group 2 will echo-play teacher’s improvisation using resonator bars; and

• Group 3 will echo-play teacher’s improvisation using their individual choice of BP sounds.

4. Each group will swop roles after each performance so that every student has the opportunity to experience all 3 different textures.

PART 4 – CREATING A MELODY COLLABORATIVELY

Facilitating Collaborative Learning

1. Teacher organizes students into small groups. He / She facilitates a discussion to help each group create an improvised melody for phrase 2 of ‘Sambalele’ (This is your hap-pi-est day, o-le!). Teacher encourages the students to choose their pitches by singing and/or playing on the resonator bars.

2. Each group is provided with butcher paper, coloured markers and printed word labels. Students to write the lyrics (This is your hap-pi-est day, o-le!). Thereafter, they can notate their choice of pitches by writing ‘mi’, ‘so’ or ‘la’ under each syllable.

PART 5 – PUTTING PHRASES 1 AND 2 TOGETHER

1. Teacher have groups practice combining phrases 1 (a class version) and 2 (each group’s version).

2. Students may choose to; • Sing solfèges and play the resonator bars or • Sing solfèges and do BP sounds.

3. Teacher facilitates a class performance with Phrase 1 played Tutti and Phrase 2 played by individual groups. A possible structure for the class performance could be; Phrase 1 (Tutti) -> Phrase 2 (Group A) -> Phrase 1 (Tutti) -> Phrase 2 (Group B) etc-> ending with Phrase 1 (Tutti)

This lesson idea provides students with opportunities to perform and create music in both instrumental and vocal settings (2015 GMP LO 1 and 2), improvising with their voices and resonator bars based on the ‘mi’, ‘so’ and ‘la’ tone set. The collaborative setting provides students with the opportunity to develop their socio-emotional competencies and explore improvising freely.

The students were excited and enjoyed the activities. It is advised that the students not be taught the original ‘Sambalele’ version as it was observed that students who knew the song ‘Sambalele’ had some difficulty creating new melodies for the phrases.

PART 3 – CREATING A MELODY (TEACHER’S

DEMONSTRATION)

Encouraging Learner Engagement

1. Teacher demonstrates a melodic improvisation using the class’ chosen phrase 1 version on the resonator bars. The tone set of the resonator bars is ‘mi’, ‘so’ and ‘la’.

2. Teacher invites students to echo-sing his / her improvisation using solfèges.

Key concepts / Issues to note

Students require prior knowledge of ‘mi’, ‘so’ and ‘la’ and some experience playing on resonator bars.

II. GROWING

The ‘Growing’ lesson ideas build on the Primary 3 and 4 students’ prior musical knowledge and experiences to improvise and compose melodic and rhythmic ideas. Through this music creative process, the teacher can provide students the opportunities to articulate and express their musical thinking and affective responses.

As the students have greater awareness of self and others, teamwork can be harnessed to enable collaborative teaching and learning.

N5 Yeo Xinru Marsiling Primary School

Karen Koon Admiralty Primary School

Our Musical Journey In The MRT

Based on the Song ‘East West Line’ from Stories We Sing publication

APPROACH A

TUNING IN

Establishing Interaction and Rapport

1. Teacher can ask the following questions to prime students for the lesson:

• How do you come to school?

• What are some modes of transport available in Singapore?

• Who comes to school by MRT?

• What are some of the colours of the MRT lines?

Or, the teacher can ask what the colours for the different train lines are (E.g.: blue for Downtown line) and what are some interesting features about each route.

RECITATION OF VERSE (EXPLORATION OF MUSICAL ELEMENTS - TEMPO, DYNAMICS & ARTICULATION)

Empowering Learners

1. Teacher to have the student recite verse 1 of the ‘East West Line’. He/she scaffolds with these questions:

• In what manner can we recite these lines?

• Are there any pauses or stress on some parts of the verse that you would like to explore?

• What are some musical elements (tempo, dynamics & articulation) that you can use to make the lines sound more interesting and fun?

2. In pairs, have students give suggestions and share ways to recite the lines (exploration of musical elements –tempo, dynamics and articulation).

3. Teacher to demonstrate a pulse and have the students (in pairs) to recite again. Teacher to have some students recite their versions. Class to repeat the peers’ recitation of the verse.

Facilitating Collaborative Learning

4. In groups of 5 to 6 students, students to share their ideas with each other and to collaborate to create a group version. They are to recite the 1st verse expressively in terms of tempo, dynamics and articulation. The group has the autonomy to choose which music elements they would like to apply for the respective lines in the verse.

5. Each group to take turns to present their group’s performance. The peers can identify aurally and describe changes in tempo, dynamics and articulation of each group’s performance.

PUTTING MELODIES TO THEIR VERSE

Suggested pitched instruments: resonator bells/xylophone/metallophone

Encouraging Learner Engagement

1. Teacher to have the students give suggestions regarding the melody lines of verse 1 of the song, line by line. This will be based on C pentatonic scale. The students will then sing the improvised melodies, followed by putting the melodies with the lyrics of the verse.

2. In groups of 5 or 6, each group will be given a different verse of the ‘East West Line’ song. They will have to create their own melodies for their respective verses. Teacher is to encourage the students to include tempo, dynamics and articulation (where relevant) in their performance.

EXTENSION

1. After all groups have performed their verses, the teacher and class can create a bridge section to link the different verses sung by the different groups.

2. The bridge can be in the form of body percussion, rhythmic pattern using an unpitched instrument or insertion of a chord progression to lead to the next verse.

APPROACH B

Arousing Interest

1. Students are shown the map of MRT stations in Singapore and they are asked to name one station they know and tell the class an interesting feature regarding the station, or on a location near the station.

Empowering Learners

2. Students are then asked to recite verse 1 of ‘East West Line’ in their usual manner. Teacher asks, ‘Is there another way to recite these lines in a more interesting manner?’ Teacher facilitates this by asking these questions: Is there anywhere that you would like to stress or pause to make it different? How about the tempo?

3. Teacher gets 2 to 3 students to try reciting in a different manner i.e. with musical intent, the 1st verse of the song. The class to try and recite these students’ versions together.

4. Teacher gives a pulse of 4/4 and encourages the students to explore different ways of reciting the lines using different rhythmic stress, with pause and different tempo. Class to agree on 1 version.

Facilitating Collaborative Learning

5. Teacher shows another 4 verses of ‘East West Line’ song. In groups of 4 to 5, students to choose the verse they would like to explore improvising the way they recite their chosen verse.

6. After which, the students use the xylophone to compose melodic lines for their verse using C major scale.

Using Questions to Deepen Learning

7. Teacher guides the students during the group work with these possible questions; ‘Do you think the pitch of the note fits the word(s)?’, ‘What pitches would you choose to give a sense of ending in the verse?’ ‘What makes you sing or play the melody that way?’

Setting Meaningful Assignments

8. After composing the melodic lines for the verses, the groups are to create a bridge section. This section is to be used to link the different verses sung by the different groups. This section is to be 4 measures of 4/4. It can be a chordal

II. GROWING

Lesson Ideas for Stage 2

progression, a rhythmic ostinato of body percussion sounds/non-pitched percussion.

9. Group by group, the students sing and play their verse and bridge sections, one after another.

This lesson idea is to provide opportunities for the students to improvise using their voices and classroom pitched instruments (resonator bells), pentatonic melodic responses of at least 2 bars, demonstrating understanding of the elements of music (tempo, expression and articulation). It encourages the students to express their thoughts and feelings towards music that they create and respond to, which includes making references to these musical elements. The familiar context of the MRT provides opportunities for discussion and appreciation of the lyrics in ‘East West Line’, which is written by Lyricist Joshua Ip.

according to the musical elements they had collaboratively decided. This was so as to enable their peers to listen to and appreciate their creative work.

School context 2

The students were very excited when they knew that they had to compose the melody and sing lyrics using the context of the MRT stations. They found the lyrics about Tanjong Pagar very interesting as it mentioned a historical fact about a prison in the area. Initially the students had some problems agreeing on the rhythms of the verse; the teacher had the class try the different suggestions and eventually chose the best sounding option. The students had wanted to sing each line of the verse with the same melody but was encouraged by the teacher to vary their melody with some small changes in rhythm and pitches. There was an interesting section where one group composed a rap and another group composed a chordal progression as a coda section to conclude the class composition, which fit the whole song well.

School context 1

The students enjoyed the autonomy to make their own choice of musical elements (tempo, dynamics and articulation) when they were reciting the verse. They realised that they had to be aware of how they chanted the verse

Key concepts / Issues to note

SCHOOL CONTEXT 1 The activity can be carried out with the following melodic instruments: resonator bells, xylophones or metallophones. The students know how to use mallets to play these melodic instruments. It was noted that some groups discovered that it was not easy to play legato on the mallet instruments. The students would need to be familiar with what a C pentatonic scale is before the improvising. Teacher would need to facilitate creating as a class before having the students collaborate in smaller groups of 5 or 6 for the group task.

SCHOOL CONTEXT 2 Through this lesson idea, the students can put into application their learning about the difference between the verse and the bridge sections of a song. The students can choose to compose melodies based on C major scale or C pentatonic scale. Dynamics and articulation can be added to add more interest to the students’ improvisation.

CLUSTER STAR CHAMPION SCHOOL

N7 Tan Keng Hong Canberra Primary School

Ameerah Sharainee Zain Riverside Primary School

Thematic Explorations in Song Writing

PART 1 CREATING THE LYRICS

Arousing Interest

1. Teacher to give students 5 different themes to choose from, e.g. friendship, exams, favourite places, food and games. He/she asks students which theme they would like to work on.

2. After students have agreed on a common theme, students are to craft sentences about the theme. Teacher is to write the sentences on the board.

3. After ‘brainstorming’ responses, the students are to select the first 2 lines for the class’ composition.

Empowering Learners

4. Teacher to read out the first two lines of the class composition and the students imitate the teacher’s recitation. Teacher to add dynamics, articulation and stresses/ accents in his/her recitation. Repeat where necessary. In pairs, students can experiment by coming up with their own version when reciting these lines. Students to share their version and class to agree on 1 version.

5. Teacher to organise the students into groups and to have them add 2 more lines to what was created earlier as a class.

Using Questions to Deepen Understanding 7. From what the students have heard from their peers’ presentation, the students are to select the third and fourth lines from their favourite group’s presentation. Teacher asks, ‘What made you choose that?’

PART 2 IMPROVISING THE MELODY THROUGH GROUP COLLABORATION

Facilitating Collaborative Learning 1. Teacher to ask students to recite the class composition (the 1st 2 lines created in Part 1) in different ways i.e. exploring with different articulation, tempo, rhythmic phrasing, dynamics, and pick their favourite way of reciting.

2. As they recite as a class, the teacher to ask the students to ‘draw in the air’ the pitch contour of their recitation. After which, the teacher will draw this contour on the board above the lyrics.

3. Teacher to play the tonic chord of any preferred pentatonic/major / minor scale and have the students hum the tonic note. This will be the starting pitch/note of the lyrics.

6. With a given steady pulse, the teacher has the students recite the 1st 2 lines (created earlier). In a rondo form manner, the next two lines will be read by a group, followed by the class recitation, then Group 2’s created lyrics i.e. Class > Group 1 > Class > Group 2, etc., ending with the class recitation. Continue this process until all the groups have presented their created lyrics.

4. Based on the tonic note and following the melodic contour written on the board, teacher gets the students to hum their melodic contour of the lyrics. Teacher to ask several student volunteers to hum his/her own melody for the first 2 lines. Class to echo the melody after each student’s suggestion Class to decide on 1 version.

5. Teacher to sing the lyrics, following the students’ choice of melody line. Students imitate the teacher.

Encouraging Learner Engagement

6. Teacher to sing/play accompanying chordal notes (to serve as the bass line) as the class sings the first 2 lines of the song. Teacher to have some students to play/sing these notes with him/her as the class sings the lyrics.

7. With the same grouping of students (as Part 1), the teacher has them create the melody for the 3rd and 4th lines of their work created earlier.

8. With a given steady pulse, the teacher gets the students to sing the 1st 2 lines that were created earlier. In a rondo form manner, the next two lines are to be sung by a group, followed by the class singing, with Group 2 then singing their 3rd and 4th lines i.e. Class > Group 1 > Class > Group 2, etc., ending with the class recitation. Continue this process until all the groups have sung their lyrics.

Concluding the Lesson

9. Teacher facilitates the students’ learning about the song writing process with

II. GROWING Lesson Ideas for Stage 2

Issues to note

Students will need to have prior knowledge of the concepts of ostinato, rondo form, as well as be able to recognise melodic contours. As the lesson idea is an introduction to the song writing process, it required careful scaffolding and facilitation by the teacher. This is key to enable a smooth flow of the lesson which should be contextualised as according to class profile.

Example of students’ work (theme: Being there for my friend)

a reflection thinking strategy, ‘I used to think song writing is……. Now I think…’.

EXTENSION

• Students can use non-pitched percussion instruments to add an ostinato rhythmic pattern.

• Students can improvise and create their own rendition to all 4 lines of the song. They can share their improvisation concept regarding the arrangement of the song.

This lesson idea introduces students to the song writing process through a thematic and non-formal approach. It provides opportunities for the students to perform and create music in both instrumental and vocal settings, individually and in groups (Learning Objectives 1 & 2 of Stage 2). Students could explore creating a song with verse-chorus structure as they become more familiar with the song writing process.

It was noted that the students were overly enthusiastic when given too many choices for the theme. Teachers might want to streamline the number of choices. Initially, the students had some difficulty reciting the lyrics in new ways; the teacher had to demonstrate with a few examples. For some classes, the students chose to create all 4 lines.

Audio Example

AUDIO 1 https://soundcloud.com/user-293745347/ n7_audio-01_being-there-for-my-friendclass-recitation

AUDIO 2 https://soundcloud.com/user-293745347/ n7_audio-02_being-there-for-my-friendgroup-recitation

N8 Tan Mui Kheng Agnes Endeavour Primary School

Yap Siok Hwei Greenwood Primary School

Sound Cycle of a Butterfly

Pre-lesson preparation: Place both pitched and un-pitched instruments (for every pupil) in a big circle in the room or in rows of 5. For pitched instruments, teacher may want to keep to the pentatonic scale.

Arousing Interest

1. Teacher gets the students to talk about the life cycle of the butterfly. Teacher may also let students see some pictures of the life cycle of the butterfly.

2. Students to find a spot in the circle. Teacher to have the students use different movements to role-play the following scenarios;

• a caterpillar crawling on the branch

• a caterpillar feeding on leaves

• a butterfly flitting from leaf to leaf

• a caterpillar in a cocoon

Empowering Learners

3. Teacher to show the poem

“The Butterfly” by Hilary Henshaw to the students;

II. GROWING Lesson Ideas for Stage 2

Line 1

Way up in the skies, a butterfly flies

Line 2

When way down below a caterpillar crawls slow

Line 3

He munches and munches on jungle leaf lunches

Line 4

“I’m so full and fat!” he says with a pat

Line 5

“I’ll spin a cocoon by the light of the moon,

Line 6

Curl into my bed and sleep,” he said.

Line 7

Not a sound did we hear, till the special moment was near.

Line 8

The weeks soon passed by and out flew a butterfly!

4. Teacher demonstrates how to recite lines 1-4 the poem with loud/soft contrast, pause, tempo changes. Students to try reciting these 4 lines in their own free improvisatory manner. Teacher to have some students present their own version or have 1 student to take each line.

5. Students to select a few words from lines 1-4 that resonate with them. Teacher to write them on the whiteboard.

6. Invite one student to choose one of these words from the board. The student will interpret the word by choosing an instrument and then improvising 1 bar of 4 beats (a rhythmic phrase or melodic phrase) on this instrument. Students playing similar instrument as this student are to imitate what he/she just improvised.

Encouraging Learner Engagement

7. Teacher leads students to create rhythmic phrases or melodic phrases for lines 1 to 4 e.g. line 1 – rhythmic, line 2 – melodic.

8. Teacher gets the students to improvise their creation by varying the different musical elements such as the dynamic, timbre, tempo or mood for lines 5 to 8.

Facilitating Collaborative Learning

9. Students to get into their respective groups to improvise for lines 5 – 8. After which, each group is to present their creative product.

10. Teacher to facilitate the performance of the class in the rondo form.

( Class - Line 1-4 )

( Group 1 Line 5-8 )

( Class – Line 1-4)

( Group 2 Line 5-8 )



The lesson idea is to provide opportunities for the students to perform music as an ensemble in both instrumental and vocal settings, individually and in groups. They are performing music that they have collaboratively created. When they are involved in the decision-making during the process of improvisation, the students are more actively engaged. Students respond to the music through listening to their peers’ improvisation and learn in a social context. Musical elements can be learnt and applied through these musical experiences in music improvisation.

Students were hesitant when they were first invited to create the melodies and rhythms. After some encouragement from the teacher, they became more confident, adventurous and explored other possibilities. They were excited with their composition(s) when the teacher played back the audio recording of their music.

Issues to note

Teachers may want to display rhythm pattern cards if students need more help in the creation of the rhythm.

S3 Abdul Hakim

Mohd Udori Kheng Cheng School

Amy Kwek Gek Li Raffles Girls’ Primary School

Musicking And Improvising With The Ukulele

II. GROWING Lesson Ideas for Stage 2

TUNING IN

Activating Prior Knowledge

1. Students to be in groups of 5 or less. Each student to be given a ukulele.

2. Based on students’ prior knowledge, teacher revisits chord progressions based on C, Am, F and C. For example:

• C – Am – F – G (4 strums each)

• Am – F – C – G (8 strums each)

PART 1: EXPLORING THE STUDENTS’ VOICE

Encouraging Learner Engagement

1. Teacher shows the lyrics from verse 2, bridge and verse 3 of My City, My Sayang (from Stories We Sing publication):

My City, My Sayang

I want to feel the jingle in her steps. I want to touch the twinkle in her clap. I want to taste her moon as icy pop, to wear her sundrop as a ring.

I want to be attuned to her river, hear centuries in her wayang, glide with grace to embrace my city, my sayang. My city, my sayang.

To those who raised me on Do Re Mi; to those whose songs I hear and sing; to those whose tunes are not yet heard; I want to court them, pitch them, harmonise these melodies.

2. From the above lyrics, the teacher encourages the students to identify words that intrigue or connect with them. He/she writes these words on the board, categorising them into words of action, objects/places and emotions. For example:

Action Objects/Places Emotions

glide raised touch taste river my city icy pop Do Re Mi sayang jingle grace attuned

PART 2: EXPLORING STRUMMING-GLIDE PATTERN ON THE UKULELE

Using Questions to Deepen Learning

1. Teacher asks the following question:

• “Look at the action words. Using the ukulele, how would you strum the word ‘glide’?”

• “Discuss this with your group members and show us how this word ‘glide sounds like on the ukulele. You can use a 4-count strumming pattern on any chord of your choice.”

2. Teacher gets each group to demonstrate their version of strumming (henceforth known as the Gliding Strum). Note; this technique of playing will be used in the later part of the lesson idea.

PART 3: CREATING NEW LYRICS

Empowering Learners

1. With the words created earlier (from Part 1), teacher asks the students to choose three words. These words are to be placed in a possible sequence. For example;

raised icy pop jingle. raised icy pop jingle

II. GROWING Lesson Ideas for Stage 2

2. As a class, teacher will get the students to complete the blanks in the sentence. This can be done through prompting to elicit their ideas. Teacher to mention that it would be good to keep the sentence within 7 to 10 syllables.

• Example:

3. Teacher to repeat the process with another group of words.

• Example:

PART 4: EXPLORING STRUMMING-GLIDE PATTERN ON THE UKULELE

Empowering Learners

1. Teacher to get the students to recite each sentence accompanied by a pulse.

2. Teacher asks how they would recite each sentence again, taking into account how each line is placed in a bar of 4 beats.

• Example:

4. With these 2 sentences/lines, he/she arranges them into a verse. A possible structure:

We raised our icy pop with a jingle. [10 syllables] grace swam river. With grace, we swam in the river. [8 syllables] Line Chords Lyrics

2 We raised our icy pop with a jingle.

4 With grace, we swam in the river.

Encouraging Learner Engagement

5. To create the lyrics of line 1, the students are to create sentences that would rhyme with jingle Some words that may surface: jungle, juggle, wriggle, tingle, single, etc. For example; using one of the words (tingle), teacher prompts students to construct a sentence ending with tingle with these questions;

• Do you think our sentence needs to link to the next one? What makes you say that?”

– Yes, because there must be a flow (or connection) to the story.

• “Who should be involved?”

• “What could possibly give you a tingling sensation?”

• Example: Strong winds that gave us a tingle. [7 syllables]

6. Using the same process, teacher has the students create line 3 which would rhyme with the word river For example; We decided to be a diver. [9 syllables] An example of all 4 lines of this new verse through the teacher’s facilitation of the students’ creative thinking;

Line Chords Lyrics

1 Strong winds gave us a tingle.

2 We raised our icy pop with a jingle. 3 We decided to be a diver.

4 With grace, we swam in the river.

us

4 G With grace, we swam in the river. winds gave & 4 4

3. Students are encouraged to explore using different rhythmic patterns e.g. semiquavers, dotted notes, quavers, rest, crochets (rhythmic patterns that are explored as according to Stage 2 of the syllabus).

4. Class to decide how the whole verse is to be chanted/recited and the rhythmic patterns of all 4 lines of the verse.

PART 5: CREATING THE MELODY OF LINES 1 AND 2

Empowering Learners

1. With the following chordal progression (see chart below) for each line of the verse, students to create melodies based on these chords;

Line Chords Lyrics

1 C Strong winds gave us a tingle.

2 Am We raised our icy pop with a jingle.

3 F We decided to be a diver.

2. Teacher explains that for line 1, students should be using of the notes C, E and G (based on the C major triad). Using the keyboard/piano, the teacher guides and plays the notes that they would like to sing for each syllable of line 1. An example could be as follows:

E E C E G G E

Strong winds gave us a tin gle

3. Once the pitches are decided, the students are to sing the pitches, using the rhythmic pattern that was created earlier (in Part 4) for line 1. Teacher gets the class to hum the melody with the correct pitch and rhythm for line 1.

4. Teacher asks, “I wonder how it would sound with the words”. He/she will then have the students sing the lyrics, with the created pitches and rhythmic patterns.

II. GROWING Lesson Ideas for Stage 2

5. Teacher accompanies the students’ singing of line 1. This is to demonstrate to students the way to play and sing line 1.

6. Teacher repeats the same process for line 2 using the notes A, C and E of the A minor chord.

PART 6: COLLABORATIVELY CREATING THE MELODY OF LINES 3 & 4

Facilitating Collaborative Learning & Setting Meaningful Assignments

1. Teacher to have each group to improvise the melody for lines 3 & 4, using the rhythmic patterns created earlier (in Part 4).

Line Chords Lyrics

1 C Strong winds gave us a tingle.

2 Am We raised our icy pop with a jingle.

3 F We decided to be a diver.

4 G With grace, we swam in the river.

2. Students will use the following notes for the following chords:

• F chord: F, A and C

• G chord: G, B and D

3. Each group is given a melodic instrument (e.g. portable keyboard, resonator bars, Orff instruments, etc) to enable them to explore the melody notes for the lines. When using the ukulele to accompany the melody lines, students can strum using the glide technique on the ukulele.

Group Presentation

1. Each group is to present their work to their friends through a performance.

2. A sample of a group’s idea may look like this: Line 1 C chord E E C E G G E

EXTENSION

1. The students can change the chordal progression of the lines in the above verse to create new melodic lines and accompany it with the ukulele.

2. Using the composing process as above, the groups can create another verse for the song, with the intent of encouraging them to explore the composing process on their own. This also values the creative potential of the students.

When students are able to experience the process of creating a song, it can be a stepping-stone for them in the pursuit of song-writing during their own space and time. Students may create their own songs with their peers, adding a variety of instruments and perform their songs as a band/ ensemble in an informal setting. Issues to note

In terms of singing skills, the teacher has to be aware that students’ vocal ability do not go beyond their range (tessitura) when they are composing their melody lines. Students are free to explore various tempo (Andante, Allegro, Lento, etc.) as well as dynamics (piano, mezzo piano, forte, mezzo forte, etc.) for their composition. The teacher at times would need to make almost immediate informed musical decisions when ideas are suggested by the student(s), so as to guide the student(s) in their creative exploration.

Improvising With Pitched Percussion Instruments

INTRODUCTION

Arousing Interest

1. Teacher demonstrates through movements how fishermen cast their nets and farmers harvest vegetables. Teacher demonstrates and have students imitate the movements.

Examples of these movements; walking on the spot, bending and picking up vegetables, rowing the boat, casting the net, pulling net back.

2. After this, the teacher plays the minusone track of the song ‘One by One’ (from Stories We Sing publication) and have the pupils do the movements with the music.

A suggested movement plan;

• Walking on the spot x 16 counts

• Bending and picking up vegetables x 16 counts

• Walking on the spot x 8 counts

• Rowing the boat x 16 counts

• Casting the net x 16 counts

• Pulling net back x 8 counts

• Rowing the boat x 8 counts

3. Repeat several times where necessary.

DEVELOPMENT

Using Questions to Deepen Learning

1. Teacher shows the visual stimulus of ‘One by One’ from Stories We Sing publication (pg. 46-47) and asks students how it relates to the movements they did just now.

2. Teacher elicits responses from students using the thinking routine See, Think and Wonder.

3. He/she asks the students with these questions;

• What do you see in the picture?

• What do you think about these

movements? How do these movements relate to the picture you see?

• What does it make you wonder or ‘I wonder if…’

Empowering Learners

4. Teacher to show the lyrics to verse 1 of the song ‘One-by-one’ and invite students to sing the verse. He/she asks the students to identify which phrase or words are repeated. Students will identify the line ‘One by One’.

5. Teacher to have the students change the melodic motif of the words ‘One by One’ in the verse. They are to use the C pentatonic scale to improvise this melodic motif. Teacher to facilitate this improvisatory process with the class.

6. Each group will receive a different verse (verses 1, 4 or 7) to improvise. A xylophone will be given to each group for them to explore the melodic motif. Note; verses 1, 4 and 7 have similar melody lines.

7. The students will sing the verse of the song but play (on the xylophone) their newly improvised melody motif. Only one student will play on the Orff instrument while the rest will sing the verse (including the improvised motif).

CONCLUSION

1. Teacher leads the class to perform the entire song combining different verses from differ-ent groups. He/she will sing verses 2, 3, 5 and 6. The lesson ideas provide opportunities to co-create the melodic motifs in the context of a song. This collaboration reduces the students’ anxiety and enables them to enjoy the success of impro-vising. The bite-size improvisation also helps to develop their confidence in the creative process.

Students were able to create the melodic motif using the C pentatonic scale and sing the newly composed motif in the context of the song.

Issues to note

Students should have prior experience in singing songs in C pentatonic scale.

S7 Lee Siew Foong Mayflower Primary School

Sharon Ng Wai Yee Guangyang Primary School

Improvising And Composing With Syncopated Rhythms

II. GROWING Lesson Ideas for Stage 2

RESOURCES

1. Laminated coloured flashcards of “syn-co-pa” , syn-co-pa ti-ti , “ti-ti”, “ta-a”, “ta”

2. Chinese lyrics of the verse ‘Invisible Snow’ 隐形的雪 (Bars 11-14) by Liang Wern Fook (from Stories We Sing publication) and translation in English

3. Array of tuned and untuned percussion instruments.

WARM UP

Establishing Interaction and Rapport

1. Seat students in a circle. Teacher begins with a warm up:

• passing claps anti- clockwise – fast and slow (tempo)

• passing ‘sh’ clockwise

• names with actions – each pupil to say their names with an action – class to echo

IMPROVISING WITH RHYTHMIC PATTERNS

Encouraging Learner Engagement

1. Teacher to clap four different rhythmic patterns using “syn-co-pa”, “ti-ti”, “ta-a”, “ta” and “z rest”; starting with simple patterns, before moving to complex patterns. Teacher calls and the stud ents imitate. He/she can also begin with 4-beat phrases leading on to 8-beat phrases.

2. Using body percussion, teacher to demonstrate different variations “syn-co-pa”, “ti-ti”, “ta-a”, “ta” and “z rest”.

3. Teacher to distribute a 1-beat rhythm flash card of either “syn-co-pa”, “ti-ti”, “ta-a”, “ta” or “z rest” to each student.

4. Teacher provides the pulse while walking behind the circle. Students are to be seated in a circle with the card in front of them. Students will clap the rhythmic pattern when the teacher stops behind a student that has the flash card in front.

IMPROVISING WITH PATTERN

1. Teacher to sing and clap bars 11 and 12 of the verse (‘Invisible Snow’ 隐形的雪) and students are to imitate. Students to identify the rhythmic patterns of bars 11 and 12.

2. Repeat process for bars 13 and 14 of the song ‘Invisible Snow’ 隐形的雪. Sing and clap bars 11 to 13 of the verse.

Facilitating Collaborative Learning & Setting Meaningful Assignments

3. With each student still holding their rhythmic care, the teacher will get the students to form

5 groups of 8. Each group should have at least 1 “syn-co-pa ti-ti” , “ti-ti”, “ta-a”, “ta” or “z rest” time syllable rhythm flash card.

4. Students in the group to create their own 8-beat rhythmic pattern and demonstrate their patterns with body percussion.

5. Have each group (total of five groups) to perform their rhythmic patterns (Groups/Section B, C, D, E, F), alternating with Section A (singing bars 11-14 of “Invisible Snow”). Students to start with singing Section A, and to structure the different sections into a rondo form.

6. With the created rhythmic pattern of 2 bars of 8-beats, students are to improvise the melodic motifs using the C pentatonic tune on any pitched instruments (keyboard, recorder, resonator bells, and xylophone). Teacher to have each group present their 2 bars of 8-beats melodic motifs.

EXTENSION - CREATING A RAP

1. Teacher to have the same group create a rap (in English) using lyrics/ meanings from the verse of “Invisible Snow”.

2. With the following motifs, teacher can have the students create their own musical plan/form;

• Motif A: Class singing bars 11 to 14

• Motif B: Soloist rapping a new verse

• Motif C: One group’s rhythmic pattern using body percussion

• Motif D: One group’s music ideas (which uses a pentatonic scale)

A suggested format; ABACAD

Students were able to understand the syn-co-pa rhythms, and this was shown in the application of this concept in the creative task. Students also enjoyed the discussion on the importance of good neighbourliness in the context of high-rise living in Singapore. They were able to relate to the feeling of 'coldness' when neighbours seem like strangers. The students were able to appreciate the importance of 'melting the snow'. A good set of questions would be helpful to draw their attention to the importance of being polite and how they can create a warmer living environment.

The song ‘Invisible Snow’ by Liang Wern Fook was chosen with the intent to bring the students into a familiar, authentic social context and to understand the importance of demonstrating good neighbourliness. The intent of the creative task is to give students a musical voice and to let them experience the joy of learning to create their own rhythmic and melodic composition, putting their musical ideas into a rondo form. The sharing of their collaborative work resulted in higher student engagement level, sense of accomplishment and the confidence to try.

Key Concepts to note

The lesson ideas are designed to provide opportunities for the students to explore improvisation using “syn-co-pa ti-ti” , “ti-ti”, “ta-a”, “ta” rhythmic patterns. Other musical concepts included in the creative process are ostinato (riff), displacement of beats and the rondo structure. CLUSTER STAR

E4 Jonathan Tan Telok Kurau Primary School

E7 Ray Aziz Opera Estate Primary School

Marianne Woo St Stephen’s School

Compose Your Way Home

PART 1 RHYTHM PATTERNS OF THE SONG ‘SING YOUR WAY HOME

Encouraging Learner Engagement

1. Teacher sings ‘Sing Your Way Home’ and invites students to sing along. This is followed by the students reciting the lyrics based on the rhythmic patterns of the song.

2. With the aid of a PowerPoint slide (see below), the students are to tap the rhythm of the melody with a given pulse. Teacher can have a student recite the lyrics while the class taps the rhythm of the song.

Slide 1 Lyrics and Rhythm of the Song

Sing your way home at the close of the day.

Sing your way home drive the sha-dows a way Smile ev ’ – ry mile for wher- ev -er you roam it will bright-en your road it will light-en your load if you sing your way home

PART 2 COMPOSING A DIFFERENT MELODY FOR THE SONG ‘WE DO IT’

Empowering Learners

1. With a visual aid (C major pentatonic scale solfege ladder drawn on the whiteboard), teacher has the class sing the pentatonic scale. He /She invites a student to play the C major pentatonic scale on a Xylophone.

2. Referring to slide 2 (see below), teacher invites the class to explore composing a melody for the first phrase of the song using the C major pentatonic scale.

3. Teacher facilitates a class discussion to decide on the notes to be used, playing and modifying the phrase according to the students’ musical suggestions / ideas. Teacher can play their improvised melody (following the rhythm pattern of the song) on the xylophone and the class will sing what each student suggests

Slide 2 Rhythm of the first Phrase and C Major Pentatonic Scale Solfege Ladder

Let’s create C D E G A C

Sing your way home at the close of the day.

PART 3 COMPOSING MELODIES THROUGH GROUP COLLABORATION (‘WE DO IT TOGETHER’)

Facilitating Collaborative Learning

1. Teacher organizes the class into groups of 4. Each group will be given a guide track that features either the 2nd, 3rd or 4th phrases of the song. Refer to Slides 4, 5 and 6 (see below).

2. The teacher provides each group with 2 xylophones. Each group will be asked to compose a melody for their given phrase. Teacher encourages students to sing and play their musical suggestions / ideas as they work collaboratively to compose their melodies. Note; teacher should remind the students to explore different notes of the scale and to make musical decisions based on what they sing and hear.

3. Teacher arranges the class for a combined performance. All groups will be invited to sing the 1st phrase (Sing your way home at the close of the day) and the 5th phrase (if you sing your way home). The 2nd, 3rd and 4th phrases will be sung by the individual groups.

4. The teacher facilitates a repeat of the performance. This time groups will have a choice of either singing, playing, reciting or choosing a combination of styles for their respective phrases.

PART 4 DISCUSSION USING PRESS CONFERENCE ROUTINE

Using Questions to Deepen Learning

1. The teacher organizes groups to either take on the role as a ‘Composer’ or ‘Journalist’.

2. ‘Journalist’ groups are given time to craft questions to ask ‘Composer’ groups about their composition processes. Examples of possible questions;

• How did you decide on the melody?

• What were some of the challenges you faced when composing the melodies? The teacher facilitates the discussion when the groups swop their roles.

Setting Meaningful Assignments

1. Class to sing the new version they had created i.e. combining all the new phrases.

2. Teacher to get half the class to perform the original version of the song. The other half follows with the version composed by the students. This could be followed by what they had done differently.

3. The teacher may have students choose notes from the C major pentatonic scale beyond the range of 1 octave. This could increase their engagement as there are more tones to explore and it would be more challenging as well.

The lesson ideas build the students’ confidence in composing melodic phrases using voice and instruments (2015 GMP LO2) with the support of given perimeters like the C major pentatonic scale as well as rhythmic structures. Students also get to express their thoughts and feelings as they discuss the musical ideas suggested by peers during the collaborative work. It can broaden their perspective in understanding and appreciating Sing Your Way Home which is a Stage 2 Indicative Repertoire.

As some of the students found it difficult to start the creating process, the teacher encouraged students to begin by playing musical ideas on the xylophones so as to know how their ideas sound. The students then made modifications from there on. A few groups were not able to sing the large interval leaps. As such, the teacher encouraged these groups to explore smaller intervals in their melodies.

Issues to note

Students should have prior experiences in the following aspects;

• singing the song ‘Sing Your Way Home’

• playing on the xylophones

• singing songs based on C major pentatonic scale

E5 Long Peizhen Haig Girls’ School Ong San San Denyse Geylang Methodist Primary School

Uncover Your Creativity Through Sounds And Chants

Arousing Interest

1. Teacher organizes class into groups of 4. Each group is given pictures of a train station and the station- master at work. Students are to suggest 5 responses to (a) what they see in the pictures, and (b) what kind of emotions/ moods they feel in response to the pictures.

Empowering Learners

2. (a) Teacher gets the class to read silently, the lyrics from Down by the Station. The lyrics; Down by the station, early in the morning,

See the little puffer billies all in a row. See the engine driver pull the little handle.

Choo! Choo! Toot! Toot! Off they go!

(b) In their groups, the students are to recite the lyrics, each person taking turns to recite a line. They are to recite as if they are having a conversation. Repeat the process 2 to 3 times, to allow each student to recite a different line. Teacher to encourage them to vary their recitation with dynamics, tempo and rhythmic patterns.

3. Based on their individual improvisations within the groups, students are to improvise a group chant with these lyrics. Teacher invites groups to recite their chant, one group at a time.

Using Questions to Deepen Learning

4. After each group’s chant, the teacher is to facilitate a discussion with these questions;

• What do you hear?

• Why do you think they recited it this way?

Empowering Learners

5. Groups may modify the way their chants sound based on ideas gleaned from other groups’ chants. Groups to perform a 2nd time after their edits.

6. Teacher to facilitate a discussion with regard to their understanding of the following concepts;

• Chanting in Canon

• Rhythmic Ostinato

• Melodic Ostinato

7. Groups choose a concept that they would like to apply to their group’s chant. Teacher facilitates group discussions for students to explore musical ideas for their chants. Each group performs their chants.

Concluding the Lesson

8. Teacher facilitates a class discussion for students to reflect on their learning. This could be based on routines like the ‘321’ or ‘Exit Ticket’ strategy1

• The ‘321’ strategy requires students to respond to these questions –i. What were 3 things you have learnt today?

ii. What were 2 things you found inteesting and would like to learn more about?

iii. What was 1 thing you still have a question(s) about?

• The ‘Exit Ticket’ strategy requires students to provide a written response on an ‘Exit Ticket’ before they leave the music room. A possible question for students to respond to could be, ‘What was the musical concept you have applied in your composition?’ and ‘What made you choose that?’

This lesson idea provides students with the opportunities to apply musical elements and concepts learnt in GMP Stage 2 LO 5. Some examples include (under ‘Tempo, Rhythm and Beats’) or describing the layers of sound in a canon performance of the chant (under ‘Texture’). Students also get to compose chants in vocal settings and in groups (GMP 2015 LO 2), based on the lyrics of this song.

1 More information about these strategies could be found on http://www.theteachertoolkit.com/index.php/tool/all-tools

Refer to links for students works’:

Audio Example

AUDIO 1 https://soundcloud.com/user-293745347/ e5-audio-01-students

AUDIO 2 https://soundcloud.com/user-293745347/ e5-audio-02-students

AUDIO 3 https://soundcloud.com/user-293745347/ e5-audio-03-students

Issues to note

Students should have prior experience of performing chants, canons, rounds and songs featuring call and response. The students should also not have sung the song ‘Down by the Station’. The lesson idea is a creative activity before they learn to sing the song.

CLUSTER STAR CHAMPION SCHOOL

E6 Allen Losey Tampines Primary School

Toh Shi Min Pasir Ris Primary School

Exploring Sounds And Creating Soundscapes

SECTION 1: ‘THE MUSIC MAKER AND THE SOUND MACHINES’

Arousing Interest

1. Teacher invites 4 student volunteers to take on the role of ‘Sound Machines’. Each student is invited to think of a sound that they make when they are happy. The 4 students face the class and the teacher stands behind them. When the teacher (as the ‘Music Maker’) taps on any of the selected ‘Sound Machine’s shoulder, they will make their happy sound. Teacher taps on the shoulder of the students to ‘test out’ the sounds.

2. Teacher informs the class that the ‘Music Maker’ can then adjust the volume of the ‘Sound Machine’ through verbal instructions and also through turning imaginary ‘volume knobs’ on top of the each student’s head.

3. Teacher orchestrates a musical piece, called the ‘Our Happy Sounds’ song, using the sounds produced by the ‘Sound Machine’. Different students can be chosen to take on the role of being a ‘Sound Machine’.

Encouraging Learner Engagement

4. Teacher organizes class to form groups of 5. Each group consists of 4 ‘Sound Machines’ and a ‘Music Maker’. Teacher to give 5 themes – “Happy”, “Sad”, “Angry”, “Animals” and “Vehicles” for each group to select. For each theme, teacher invites a few groups to perform, with a ‘Music Maker’

controlling their ‘Sound Machines’. Students swop roles after each theme so that every student gets a chance to be the ‘Music Maker’.

EXTENSION

5. Teacher invites students to suggest their own themes. Groups perform according to themes suggested by their peers.

Using Questions to Deepen Learning Teacher facilitates discussion using ‘Hear, Think, Wonder’ thinking routine, encouraging the students to reflect and articulate on what they’ve heard.

• Hear, Think, Wonder questions:

◊ What did you hear?

◊ What do you think is happening?

◊ What are you wondering about?

(I wonder if…)

SECTION 2: ‘THE RAINDROP’

PART 1 DESCRIBING RAIN SOUNDS

Empowering Learners

1. Teacher facilitates improvised movements, facial expressions and voice with these questions;

• Firstly imagine you are a raindrop.

◊ If you are still part of a cloud, what shape would you be?

Can you show me how you can express this shape with your body movement and facial expression?

◊ If you are free-falling raindrop, what shape would you be?

Can you show me how you

II. GROWING

Lesson Ideas for Stage 2

can express this shape with your body movement and facial expression?

◊ If you are landing in a puddle on earth, what shape would you be? Can you show me how you can express this shape with your body movement and facial expression?

◊ What sound would you make if you want to sound like as a raindrop? A light drizzle, a thunderstorm? What kind of sounds can you create with your voice and/or body percussion to show what is happening?

Part 2 Observing, Experiencing and Creating ‘Rainstorm Soundscapes’

Facilitating Collaborative Learning

1. Teacher facilitates improvised movements, facial expressions and voice with these questions;

• Firstly imagine you are a raindrop.

◊ If you are still part of a cloud, what shape would you be?

Can you show me how you can express this shape with your body movement and facial expression?

◊ If you are free-falling raindrop, what shape would you be?

Can you show me how you can express this shape with your body movement and facial expression?

◊ If you are landing in a puddle on earth, what shape would you be? Can you show me how you can express this shape with your body movement and facial expression?

◊ What sound would you make if you want to sound like as a raindrop? A light drizzle, a thunderstorm? What kind of sounds can you create with your voice and/or body percussion to show what is happening?

2. Teacher organizes the students and get them to form a big circle. Teacher then tells them that they are going to create a ‘rainstorm’ soundscape together. Teacher invites students to copy his/her actions as she walks past them. There will be 5 actions, namely;

• Soft whistling

• Rubbing palms together

• Snapping fingers

• Tapping on the lap

• Clapping loudly

3. Teacher varies the volume of the soundscape by moving Group B closer to or away from Group A. For example, the teacher may have the ‘Rainstorm Soundscape’ build up gradually in intensity (by cueing for Group B to come closer to Group A) and then slowly fade away (by cueing for Group B to move further away from Group A).

Using Questions to Deepen Learning

4. Teacher uses ‘Hear- Think- Wonder’ visible thinking strategy to elicit responses from Group A, with these suggested questions;

• What did you hear?

• What do you think is happening?

• What are you wondering about? (I wonder if…)

Empowering Learners

5. Teacher invites groups to swop roles and repeat the process so as to enable every group to have an opportunity to observe, experience and create the soundscape. The teacher can consider modifying the rainstorm soundscape each time groups swop roles (with the intent to maintain students’ engagement and interest) in this activity.

SECTION 3 ‘THE SECRET SOUNDSCAPE’

Facilitating Collaborative Learning

1. Teacher organizes class into groups of 6 to 8. He/she to provide each group with a ‘secret theme’, written on a slip of paper. These themes could be “MRT”, “Wind”, “Seaside”, “Kitchen”, “Pasar Malam” or “Hawker Centre”. Each group is to perform a soundscape based on their ‘secret theme’ and also to notate their soundscape using graphic notation.

2. The groups will then get to choose their compositional approach from one of the following options to create their soundscapes;

• Option 1: ‘The Music Maker and the Sound Machines’ (refer to Section 1)

• Option 2: ‘Observing, Experiencing and Creating’ (refer to Section 2, Part 2)

3. Teacher facilitates groups to collaboratively create their soundscapes. Each group will then take turns to perform their soundscape.

Checking for Understanding and Providing Feedback

4. After each group’s performance, the teacher invites the other groups to guess the performers’ secret theme and also asks, ‘What makes you say that?’ Students will then explain their answers based on what they heard in the performance and also articulate their responses by using musical concepts/ terms learnt, e.g. ‘crescendo’ or ‘legato’.

5. The groups to make references to their group’s graphic notation, to which the teacher can also facilitate a discussion focusing on the rationale behind each group’s choice of musical features in the soundscape. This lesson idea allows students to create and perform soundscapes to a given stimulus, and produce graphic notations of their soundscapes (2015 GMP LO 2). Through teacher-facilitated discussions, students explain the rationale behind their musical decisions (LO 2) as well as respond to peers’ compositions (LO3). Students also have the opportunity to apply their understanding of musical conceptsand elements from LO5. These would include tempo e.g. largo, andante and ritardando and expression e.g. crescendo, staccato and legato.

Issues to note

II. GROWING

Section 1

Students enjoyed the “The Music Maker and the Sound Machines” activity as they used their imagination and creativity to make a variety of sounds that fit the given theme. Students also had the opportunity to create sonic patterns with the different sounds that their peers made.

Section 2

The students described their experiences of the soundscape richly. They “saw dark clouds in the skies” and “felt the raindrops falling” and “felt the wind blowing” on them. They also enjoyed creating the soundscape.

Section 3

The graphic notation, as well as prior experiences from Section 2 helped the students to refine and present their soundscapes with more precision. Groups with a student-leader guiding the others presented a more coherent presentation.

In conclusion, the students were generally enthusiastic for all three sections. The teacher may wish to keep the group size to a limit of 5 or 6 to allow for more opportunities for individuals to contribute his / her ideas and have his/ her musical voice be heard.

Students should have some prior knowledge of describing the aesthetic qualities of a soundscape. During this lesson, the teacher had facilitated a pre-lesson discussion and the students agreed that soundscapes with high aesthetic qualities are realistic, clear (audible) and creative. As such, the teacher has to model these qualities as he/she demonstrates the wide variety of sonic possibilities in soundscape creation.

Audio Example

AUDIO 1 https://soundcloud.com/user-293745347/ e6-audio-01-seaside-chloe

AUDIO 2 https://soundcloud.com/user-293745347/ e6-audio-02-option-2-rain

AUDIO 2 https://soundcloud.com/user-293745347/ e6-audio-03-option-2-seaside

W1 Soo Shio Fung Nan Hua Primary School

Joyce Teo Henry Park Primary School

“Hopping” And Layering With Texture

PART 1: INTRODUCING ‘HOP OLD SQUIRREL’ (MELODY AND OSTINATI)

Encouraging Learner Engagement

1. Teacher teaches the class to sing “Hop Old Squirrel” by rote.

2. Teacher invites students to recite the rhythmic syllables ‘Ta Ta Ta Mm’ ( | ♩ ♩ ♩ �� | ). He /she is to have the students patsch (on lap with alternate hands) on the crotchet beats and fold their arms on the rest.

3. Students to repeat the above, replacing the rhythmic syllables with the words “Can’t catch me”. This is known as ‘Ostinato 1’ pattern.

Ostinato 1

Words: Can’t catch me (Rest) |

Rhythmic Syllables: Ta Ta Ta Mm |

Notation: ♩ ♩ ♩ z |

4. Teacher teaches ‘Ostinato 2’ to the class using Steps 2 and 3 (as outlined above).

Ostinato 2

Words: Run-ning Hop-ping Stop (Rest) | Rhythmic Syllables: Ti - ti Ti - ti Ta Mm |

Notation: ♫ ♫ ♩ z |

Facilitating Collaborative Learning

5. Teacher organizes the class into 3 groups. Group 1 will chant Ostinato 1, Group 2 will chant Ostinato 2 and Group 3 will sing the song ‘Hop Old Squirrel’. Teacher conducts the class, providing the pulse and cue-ing groups to start / stop on staggered entries. A possible example:

• Teacher cues Group 1 to start.

• Teacher cues Group 2 to start 2 bars later.

• Teacher cues Group 3 to start singing another 2 bars later.

• After Group 3 has sung the song twice, teacher cues them to stop.

• Teacher cues Group 2 to stop 2 bars later.

• Teacher cues Group 1 to stop another 2 bars later.

6. Teacher may also use hand gestures to cue groups to vary the dynamics of their parts.

7. Teacher to get groups to swop their parts and repeat steps 5 and 6 until every group has had an opportunity to attempt all 3 parts.

Using Questions to Deepen Learning

8. Teacher facilitates a class discussion focusing on the texture of the performance:

• Texture (E.g. “How many layers of sounds were there?”)

• Tempo (E.g. “How did the 3 groups manage to perform together?”, “Did they perform according to a common pulse?” and “Who provided the pulse?”)

• Dynamics (E.g “Were you all always loud, always soft or were there volume changes in between?”)

PART 2: DISCOVERING THE MELODY ON THE RECORDER

1. Teacher invites the class to hum the melody a few times. Note; the students need to have prior knowledge of the notes ‘B, A, G’ fingering on the recorder.

2. Teacher shares that the first note of the melody is ‘B’ and facilitates a class discussion to allow students to guess what the other notes are.

Encouraging Learner Engagement

3. Teacher to get the students (in 2 groups) to play the melody on their recorders in a ‘call and response’ manner e.g. phrase 1 Group 1 call, phrase Group 2 response, phrase 3 Group 1 call, phrase 4 Group 2 response.

4. After the students experience playing the recorder, they notate the melody using a worksheet 1.

PART 3: CREATING MELODIES FOR THE OSTINATI COLLABORATIVELY

Encouraging Learner Engagement

1. Teacher arranges students into groups of 5 or 6. He / she provides each group with a Bass Xylophone, 1 or 2 Soprano or/and Alto Xylophone. All students will use their own recorders.

2. Teacher facilitates the groups to create melodies based on the rhythmic patterns of Ostinati 1 and 2 and using the G major pentatonic scale. He /she invites groups to play and sing notes of their improvised musical ideas. After which, the students can notate their improvised ideas (example in Figure 1).

PART 4: EXPLORING TEXTURE THROUGH GROUP COLLABORATION

1. Teacher suggests these ideas to each of the groups:

• 2 or 3 students from the group may play the ‘Hop Old Squirrel’ melody on their recorders.

• 1 student from the group may play the Ostinato 1 melody on the Bass Xylophone.

• 1 or 2 students from the group may play the Ostinato 2 melody on the Soprano / Alto Xylophone.

• 1 student conductor to give cues for starting or stopping a part i.e. staggered entries and varying dynamics.

Checking for Understanding and Providing Feedback

2. Teacher to allow a group performance of their arrangement of this piece. After each group’s performance, teacher is to facilitate a class discussion linking these musical concepts to the performance:

• Texture (E.g. “How did the group ‘layer’ their parts? Did they all start together or did they start separately?”)

• Tempo (E.g. “Did the group manage to perform together to a common pulse?”)

• Dynamics (E.g. “Were you able to hear any dynamic changes in the performance?”)

LESSON EXTENSION : CREATING A MELODY FOR ‘HOP OLD SQUIRREL’

Empowering Learners

1. Teacher guides groups to create new melodies to replace the original melody of ‘Hop Old Squirrel’. The improvisation is drawn from the G major pentatonic scale. Students are encouraged to explore several versions.

Note: each group can create phrases 1 and 2 or phrases 3 and 4. This can be followed by one group call by singing phrases 1 and 2, with another group responding with phrases 3 and 4.

This lesson idea provides the opportunity for students to create music in instrumental settings collaboratively. The students compose short melodic phrases (based on the G major pentatonic scale) with scaffolding support provided in the form of fixed parameters, like given rhythmic structures. They also get to articulate their understanding / learning of musical elements listed in LO5 of the 2015 GMP Syllabus. These include texture, expression and tempo.

The students were generally actively engaged as the task provided a level of challenge appropriate to their age and musical development. Students were proud of their musical creations and performed for their peers enthusiastically. There is a need to keep a steady pulse to enable the students to observe the full duration of the rests and consistent tempo. Teacher may have these students revisit rhythmic phrases involving rests, improvising on the recorder and/or xylophone. Some examples of these rhythmic phrases could be:

Issues to note

Students require prior knowledge of playing these notes on the recorder – ‘G’, ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’’ and ‘D’’. They also need prior understanding of what an ostinato is, as well as prior experiences in playing the xylophone.

Audio Example

AUDIO 1 https://soundcloud.com/user-293745347/ w1-audio-01-improvisation-01

AUDIO 2 https://soundcloud.com/user-293745347/ w1-audio-02-improvisation-02

AUDIO 2 https://soundcloud.com/user-293745347/ w1-audio-03-improvisation-03

W2

Amy Lee May Chyou De La Salle School

Creating Musical Stories

PART 1 CREATING THE STORYLINE

Establishing Interaction and Rapport

1. Teacher shares a visual stimulus (a picture of a family outing at the beach) with the students. Using the thinking routine ‘See-Think-Wonder’, the teacher asks the following questions:

• What do you see?

• What do you think is happening?

• What are you wondering about? Or ‘I wonder if….’ Teacher writes the students’ responses on the whiteboard as a word-splash.

2. Teacher categorises the word-splash into a list of nouns and a list of ‘emotion’ words. An example of a noun would be ‘Sun’ and an example of an ‘emotion’ word could be ‘Happy’.

Empowering Learners

3. Teacher invites students to choose 4 emotions/moods from the ones listed, where 2 of which should contrast the others.

4. Teacher shares with the students that they will be writing a story with 4 sections – Introduction, Body, Climax and Conclusion. Each of the sections will be associated with 1 of the 4 emotions chosen by the class. Teacher to get the

class to suggest 1-2 phrases/ sentences for each of the story sections and the possible emotion(s) that could be reflected from the storyline. For example, the phrases / sentences for ‘Introduction’ could be “It’s a bright sunny morning. We are going out for an outing with our family”. The emotion/ mood associated with this section could be ‘Happy’.

PART 2 PUTTING SOUND TO THE EMOTION/MOOD

Encouraging Learner Engagement

1. Teacher invites students to decide if they would like to be in a pitched, nonpitched metal or non-pitched wooden percussion group. After which, the students will select a musical instrument associated to the group they are in. Students to explore the different sounds on their instruments.

Note: the pitched instruments are xylophones with removable wooden bars. The ‘F’ and ‘B’ wooden bars are to be removed so that the students will play on the C major pentatonic scale.

2. From the list of moods associated with the storyline, teacher asks the students the following questions;

• “Using facial expressions or body language, can you show me how ‘Happy’ looks like?”

• “Using your voices, can you show me how ‘Happy’ sounds like?”

Note: ‘Happy’ could be one of the possible emotions/moods associated with one of the storyline sections. If not, teacher to replace with another emotion/mood.

3. Teacher has each of the moods transferred to what it would sound like on their instrument by asking, “Using your instruments, can you show me how ‘Happy’ sounds like?” He / she invites the class to play their ‘Happy’ sounds, group by group (the groups are organised according to type of instrumentspitched, non-pitched metal or nonpitched wooden).

Facilitating Collaborative Learning

4. Teacher arranges the class into pairs. He / she invites Students A in each pair to play while Students B listen to their partners attentively and provide feedback after their partners are done playing. After some discussion time, teacher invites Students A to play again, taking into consideration their partner’s feedback. This process is repeated with the partners swopping roles.

5. Teacher repeats Steps 3 and 4, so that students of each pair can create music for the other sections of the story (body, climax and conclusion).

PART 3 COLLABORATIVE COMPOSITION

Setting Meaningful Assignments

1. Teacher has each pair find 2 more pairs who are from different instrumental groups (pitched, non-pitched metal or non-pitched wooden) to collaborate. In a group of 6, the students are to create a composition to illustrate the storyline (4 sections) which also includes a student narrator.

Note: the students in the group has to discuss and explain the rationale behind their musical decisions, expressing their thoughts and feelings with regard to their musical ideas.

Issues to note

2. Teacher invites each group to narrate and play their music.

PART 4 REFLECTION

Concluding the Lesson

1. Teacher invites students to reflect on their instrumental improvisation experience, using the thinking routine strategy, “I Used to Think… Now I think…”. Students complete these sentences, based on their creative experiences in the lesson:

1. I used to think

2. Now I think

They were excited about being empowered to create their class story and mood music. Some students attempted improvisation with voice and body percussions. Others tended to be shy; these students were able to eventually participate and contribute to the class performance with some encouragement from their peers and teacher-facilitator. This lesson provides students with the opportunity to compose melodic phrases using the C major pentatonic scale, based on a visual stimulus (LO2 from 2015 GMP).

Students are given opportunities to discuss and explain the rationale behind their musical decisions in the group segment of the lesson, expressing their thoughts and feelings towards their ideas. Collaborating as a pair and group, they have to exercise their socioemotional competencies like self-awareness, social awareness and responsible decision-making.

Students require prior knowledge of the C Major pentatonic scale and an understanding of how to use the pitched and non-pitched instruments.

W4 Dawn Kuah Dazhong Primary School

Yvonne Zheng Jurong Primary School

Faith Chung Bukit View Primary School

Singing & Improvising With ‘One By One’

II.

PART 1 INTRODUCTION (SETTING THE CONTEXT)

Arousing Interest

1. Teacher shows the class pictures of various fruits & vegetables (root vegetables) found in Singapore. Alternatively, he / she may bring actual fruits/root vegetables for students to see, touch and/or smell.

2. Teacher shares with the class one of the following facts;

• Tapioca was commonly eaten during the Japanese Occupation as a staple but is now used to make sweet desserts. https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/lifestyle/wwiisingapore-wartime-recipes-beyond-tapioca-sweet-potatoes-9209406

Ask the students; what other root vegetables/fruits are commonly found in markets nowadays? (linking to CCE through Singapore’s historical context)

• Papayas are green when unripe, and yellow/orange when ripe. Yam is native to Asia and Africa, and are related to lilies. https://www.thekitchn.com/whats-the-differencebetween-yams-and-sweet-potatoes-word-of-mouth-211176 (linking to factual knowledge)

PART 2

Facilitating Collaborative Learning

3. Teacher organizes students into groups of 4 or 5. He / she provides each group with the following set of lyrics and invites them to recite the following lyrics as a group or as a class (each student in their own time and style) with a given pulse;

Green Papaya

Purple Yam

Red Cassava

One by One by One

The Gift of the land, we pick them one by one.

4. Teacher invites groups to share their recitation with the class. Teacher facilitates a discussion for the class to decide on one version which will be ‘adopted’ as the class’ recitation. Teacher invites the class to recite the verse accompanied by a given pulse.

Empowering Learners

5. Teacher facilitates the class to create a melody (in C major key) for the 5th phrase (‘The Gift of the land, we pick them one by one’). The teacher may wish to guide the class by creating short melodic phrases for

• ‘The Gift of the Land’

• ‘We pick them’

• ‘One by one’

The short phrases could then be put together to form the full melody.

Note: to end this phrase i.e. the word ‘one’ on the tonic note of C major.

6. The class to sing the melody of the last phrase. Teacher to draw the melodic contour of this phrase, and to notate what was being improvised.

Facilitating Collaborative Learning

7. Teacher guides groups to create their own melodies in C major key for the first 4 phrases of the lyrics:

Green Papaya

Purple Yam

Red Cassava

One by One by One

The groups can either use the earlier rehearsed rhythmic pattern of these lyrics (from Part 2) or create their own rhythmic pattern.

8. Teacher invites groups to take turns to sing their melodies for the first 4 phrases. The whole class sings the 5th phrase together after each group ends the 4th phrase. Teacher shares with the class that the first 4 phrases are known as ‘Call’ and the 5th phrase is known as the ‘Response’.

CALL & RESPONSE

Once all groups are ready, each group will present their melodic rendition of the lyrics. The teacher informs the class that at the end of each group’s rendition of their melody (the Call), the entire class will respond to each group’s rendition with the class’ co-created response, “The Gift of the land, we pick them one by one”.

Call (Individual Group’s) Call (Individual Group’s)

Green Papaya

Purple Yam

Red Cassava

One by One by One

PART 3 EXTENSION

Empowering Learners

The Gifts of the land we pick them,

One by One

Teacher gets students to choose any 3 words from the phrases and to create a 4-beat chant using these 3 words. Students can include a rest in the 4-beat chant. This could be;

• an ostinato chant to accompany the group’s call (the melodies) or

• the introduction section (chanted 2 times) and the bridge section (chanted 2 times) between each group’s entry of their call.

II. GROWING Lesson Ideas for Stage 2

Example of patterns

Different patterns Beat 1 Beat 2 Beat 2 Beat 2

Pattern 1 Yam Cassava Purple z

Pattern 2 Yam Purple z Cassava

Pattern 3 Yam rest rest red

Pattern 4 z Yam Cassava red

This lesson idea provides students with an opportunity to create music in vocal settings collaboratively (2015 GMP Syllabus LO2). The teacher-guided class composition activity (creating a melody for the 5th phrase) provides a good scaffold for groups to explore creating melodies on their own.

Students were intrigued by the visual stimuli of fruits and vegetables. They were also able to relate and articulate their own experiences / knowledge of the items. This provided a sense of authenticity to the lesson. Some students recited the phrases monotonously. The teacher grouped these students with other students who were more confident and articulate in the recitation. Peer learning was encouraged. Some groups found it difficult to create their own melodies from scratch for the 4 phrases. Teacher may encourage these groups to start by adapting / modifying the melody of the 5th phrase created by the class.

Issues to note

Teacher has to be patient in facilitating groups to synthesize /improve musical ideas. He /she also needs to actively monitor the different groups’ progress so as to help them pace and maintain momentum in their work. CLUSTER STAR CHAMPION SCHOOL

W8 Neda Lee Corporation Primary School

Loh Shao Wei Yew Tee Primary School

Improvising with the “C” in sound

PART 1 - WARM UP

Establishing Interaction and Rapport

1. Teacher arranges for the class to stand in a circle. Using visual cues, he /she gets students to clap in unison.

2. Teacher ‘calls’ with a 4-beat body percussion pattern made up of crotchet, quaver and semi-quaver note values. Student imitates. Note; teacher to ‘call’ the patterns from simple to complex.

3. Teacher invites a student to create and share his / her own 4-beat body percussion pattern to a given pulse. Class to imitate his / her body percussion patterns. Teacher to repeat this with several students.

PART 2 - BODY PERCUSSION RHYTHM IMPROVISATION (INDIVIDUAL)

Empowering Learners

1. Teacher invites all students to create their own 4-beat body percussion pattern to a given pulse.

3. Teacher walks to a student and ‘calls’ with his / her 4-beat body percussion pattern. The student (‘Student A’) responds with his/her 4-beat body percussion pattern.

4. Teacher invites Student A to walk to another classmate (‘Student B’). Student A ‘calls’ with his / her body percussion pattern and Student B responds with his/ her body percussion pattern.

5. Step 4 can be repeated a few times (involving different students each time).

PART 3 – COLLABORATIVE RHYTHM CREATION

Empowering Learners

1. Teacher organizes students into groups of 4 or 5. Groups to create a 4-beat body percussion pattern using crotchet, quaver and semi-quaver note values. The pattern should feature at least 2 different types of note values.

2. Groups to take turns to present their body percussion rhythm pattern. They are encouraged to articulate rhythmic syllables as they perform their rhythm

2. He / she calls with a 4-beat body percussion pattern and invites the class to respond with their individual 4-beat body percussion pattern (all students respond at the same time on teacher’s cue)

pattern. Teacher can have these patterns performed in an ostinato manner, entering and ending at different times.

3. Groups to notate their 4-beat body percussion rhythm pattern using graphic notation or ‘stick’ rhythmic patterns. In addition, groups write the rhythmic syllables representing their rhythm pattern on a cue card.

PART

4 – MELODIC IMPROVISATION (ON A 2-BAR MELODY)

Facilitating Collaborative Learning

1. Teacher provides each group with 1 xylophone. He / she invites students to remove the ‘F’ and ‘B’ bars on the xylophones (using a pentatonic scale).

2. Groups to create a melody using their earlier created rhythmic pattern (in Part 4) and create another bar of melody. Teacher encourages students to choose the notes for the melody by singing or playing musical suggestions / ideas on the xylophones.

3. Each group will notate their melody on their graphic notation by writing the letter names of their melody’s music notes on the cue cards.

PART 5 – PUTTING THE MELODY MOTIFS INTO A ‘FLOW’

1. Teacher invites groups to play and sing with their musical motif(s). He /she facilitates a class discussion to decide the sequence of the groups’ musical motifs. Groups to perform (play and sing), according to the sequence agreed as a class.

PART

6 – COLLABORATIVE COMPOSITION

1. Teacher gives 2 to 3 non-pitched percussion instruments to each group.

Each group is to combine their musical motif with another group’s melody idea. They are to decide how to perform their motifs. They are to include;

• Use of pitched and non-pitched instruments

• Use of repeats

• Singing of the motif(s) at times

2. Groups to perform.

This lesson idea allows students to perform and create music in instrumental settings and in groups (2015 GMP LO1 and LO2). The teacher provides students with the necessary scaffolding and support by having them start with simple tasks like creating rhythmic patterns using body percussion. As the students gain confidence, he /she increases the level of challenge appropriately. For example, students added melody notes to their rhythmic patterns, followed by playing and singing it (from a 1 bar to 2-bar motif). The approach went from a simple to a more complex process.

Students were able to create a range of rhythm patterns based on the 3 different note values (crotchet, quaver and semi-quaver) suggested. Some students also created interesting body percussion actions. Some groups were able to create multiple melodies within the given time. The teacher can facilitate a group discussion to help students decide on one melody to be performed by the group; they can use the other melodic ideas later. Students also demonstrated social awareness as they were able to take turns to listen to a student play on the xylophone (only 1 xylophone was provided for each group) and sing with it.

Issues to note

Students should have prior knowledge of crotchets, quavers and semi-quavers. They should also be able to keep a steady pulse and possess basic xylophone playing techniques. CLUSTER

STAR Alvyn Eng Singapore Teachers’ Academy for the aRts

Improvising With The Recorder

PART 1 - TUNING-IN WITH RECORDERS

Activating Prior Knowledge

1. Teacher revises ‘A’ and ‘G’ note recorder fingerings with students.

2. Teacher plays short phrases on the recorder and invites students to echo. The phrases;

• are 1 bar of 4-beats long

• consist of rhythmic patterns made up of ♩, ♫and ♩. ♪

• start rhythmically simple and grow in complexity, for example;

• are using notes ‘A’ and ‘G’

• start with ‘A’ note. ‘G’ note will be introduced gradually, for example;

• | A A A A (♩ ♩ ♩ ♩)

• | A A AA G (♩ ♩ ♫ ♩)

• | GG A GG A | (♫ ♩ ♫ ♩)

• | A A G A (♩ ♩ ♩ ♩)

Providing Clear Explanation

3. Teacher uses magnets to depict the beats and draw lines for rhythmic patterns on the whiteboard. Teacher is to mention these are 4 crotchets. (Refer to Figure 1, magnets are depicted by blue circles, which denotes the beats in a bar)

Figure 1 – Teacher’s depiction of |♩ ♩ ♩ ♩| rhythm

• | A. A G G (♩. ♪ ♩ ♩)

4. Teacher asks the class for the difference between phrases iv. and v. (phrase v. has a ♩. ♪, whilst phrase iv. consists of ♩ only)

5. Teacher invites a student to answer by drawing lines on the white board to represent the ♩. ♪

♩ ♩| rhythmic pattern

(Refer to Figure 2, the blue dots denote the beats

6. Teacher teaches the name of the rhythmic values ‘Dotted Crotchet and Quaver’ to the class

• | G. G A A | (♩. ♪ ♩ ♩)

PART 2 - IMPROVISATION ‘BRAIN-STORMING’

Empowering Learners

1. Teacher guides students to improvise as a class, saying; “Now I will play a 4-beat phrase. I would like you to respond, as a class/together, with your own 4-beat phrase. You can use a combination of ‘A’ or ‘G’ notes. Your rhythm patterns can be made up of ♩, ♫and ♩. ♪”.

Note; teacher writes these instructions in point form on the white board.

2. Teacher facilitates 3 rounds of this improvisation ‘brain-storming’ activity.

PART 3 – IMPROVISATION WITH PAIR-SHARE, WITH CALL & RESPOND

Facilitating Collaborative Learning

1. Teacher invites a student to demonstrate Pair-Share Call & Respond with him/ her. Teacher says, “Now, John (student) and I are Pair-Share partners. We will call and respond to each other. I will ‘call’ by playing my 4-beat phrase, John will ‘respond’ by playing his 4-beat phrase. Then we will swop roles.” Teacher and student demonstrates the above.

2. Teacher organizes the class into pairs and invites students to attempt the activity. After some time, he / she invites a few pairs of students to share their ‘call and respond’ improvisations.

PART 4 - INTRODUCTION TO ‘BOSSA BEAT’ (SINGING; PHRASES 1 TO 3)

1. Teacher sings ‘Bossa Beat’ (all 4 phrases) to the class. (Refer to Figure 3)

2. Teacher sings the melody of phrase 1 using the syllable ‘Du’ and invites students to echo-sing.

Using Question to Deepen Understanding

3. Teacher repeats Step 2 for phrases 2 and 3, and then asks students, “What did you notice about phrases 1, 2 and 3?”

Note; students should notice that the phrases are repeated/ a repetition.

PART 5 – PLAYING PHRASE 4 ON THE RECORDER

1. Teacher says, “What if I sing music notes instead of the lyrics? Let’s see if you can echo-play on your recorders. Let’s try!”

Teacher sings the music/pitch notes of Bossa Beat phrase 1 and invites students to echo-play.

2. Repeat step 2 for phrases 2 and 3.

3. After students played phrase 3, teacher plays phrase 4 immediately on his / her recorder. He / she invites students to echo-play phrase 4.

PART 6 – SINGING AND PLAYING

Encouraging Learner Engagement

1. Teacher sings (lyrics) all 4 phrases of the song and repeats, inviting students to join in the singing.

2. Teacher shows the PowerPoint slide of Bossa Beat to the students, highlighting the structure of the song. He /she says, “Now this is how Bossa Beat goes.” (Refer to Figure. 3)

Figure 3 Bossa Beat (All 4 Phrases)

(The song ‘Bossa Beat’ is an extract from ‘Take Orff With The Recorder’ (2008) by Susie Davies-Splitter and Phil Splitter.)

3. Students are divided into 2 groups. Teacher sings Bossa Beat phrase by phrase, with Group A echo-singing (lyrics) and Group B echo-playing (melody on their recorders).

4. Teacher guides Group A (who are singing the lyrics) and Group B (who are playing the melody on recorders) to sing / play all 4 phrases of Bossa Beat together.

5. Teacher swops the roles of the groups and repeats step 2 and 3. PART 7 – GROUPWORK (IMPROVISING SECTIONS)

Facilitating Collaborative Learning

1. Teacher re-organizes students into 6 groups, with about 5 students in each group.

2. Teacher guides groups to improvise with this instruction: “Now, in your groups, come up with an improvisation of 2 bars, with 4 beats in each bar. You

Figure 2 – Student’s depiction of |

| rhythm

II. GROWING Lesson Ideas for Stage 2

can use only ‘A’ and ‘G’ notes and rhythmic patterns of ♩, ♫and ♩. ♪, please use the Dotted Crotchet and Quaver”.

Encouraging Learner Engagement

3. Teacher checks on groups’ progress and provides each group with a Set 1 ‘Musicking Card’.

Each card features a musical concept associated with either dynamics, articulation or texture. Examples of musical elements featured on the ‘Musicking Cards’:

• Dynamics: Forte, Piano or Crescendo.

• Articulation: Staccato or Legato.

• Texture: Solo.

Note; the students would have learnt the meaning of these terms. If not, the teacher can explain the meaning to the group receiving the respective cards. Each group is to incorporate the musical element on the card into the way they play their improvised musical ideas.

4. Groups are invited to perform their improvisation including the musical element on their card in their musical ideas.

PART 8 – PERFORMANCE TIME (IMPROVISED SECTIONS AND ‘BOSSA BEAT’SONG)

Encouraging Learner Engagement

1. Teacher organizes the class into 2 big groups. Each big group consists of 3 groups.

• Big Group A – Groups 1, 2 and 3

• Big Group B – Groups 4, 5 and 6

2. Each group takes turns to play their improvised 2-bar phrase. Teacher suggests the following performance sequence to the class (Refer to Figure 4):

• Big Group A plays. (Group 1 plays, followed by Group 2 and then Group 3).

• The whole class plays the original version of ‘Bossa Beat’ phrase 4 together.

• Big Group B plays. (Group 4 plays, followed by Group 5 and then Group 6).

• The whole class plays the original version of ‘Bossa Beat’ phrase 4 together.

4 – Suggested Performance Sequence

EXTENSION ACTIVITY – PERFORMANCE PARTLY DIRECTED BY STUDENTS

1. Students can decide the flow of the performance sequence. For instance, groups can choose the order of their performance within their Big Groups. (Refer to Figure 5)

Figure 5 – Performance Sequence Partly Directed by Students

This lesson idea provides students with the opportunity to improvise a 2-bar melodic phrase (2015 GMP LO 2). In addition to applying their understanding of musical elements and concepts (LO5) featured in the ‘Musicking Cards’ (Part 7 Step 3) in their creative work, students also have the opportunity to perform music in groups using their voices and recorders (LO1).

Audio Example

AUDIO 1 https://soundcloud.com/user-293745347/ star-audio-01-example-1

AUDIO 2 https://soundcloud.com/user-293745347/ star-audio-02-example-2

Issues to note

The teacher needs to take note of the groups’ progress, especially in Part 7. He /she needs to exercise musical judgement in choosing the appropriate ‘Musicking Card’ for each group. For instance, the ‘Staccato’ card would likely be suitable for a group who has chosen to play mainly short rhythmic values for their musical ideas. Students may not be able to play p (‘piano’) or f (‘forte’) on their recorders due to the technical limitations of the instruments. The teacher may suggest to groups to have fewer people play (to illustrate in sound the effect of having ‘piano’ sections) or more people play (to demonstrate ‘forte’ sections).

Figure

plays

4 Big Group A Group 1 plays followed by Group 2, followed by Group 3

Group B

4 plays followed by Group 5, followed by Group 6

plays Phrase 4

III. BLOSSOMING

The ‘Blossoming’ lesson ideas, written for Primary 5 and 6 students, help to expand their musical explorations by facilitating a more open-ended framework for decisionmaking and musical organisation. As such, students take on greater ownership of their learning. Teachers can also help them make more relevance of their creative process when relating to their social-cultural context; thus making real-life application in music-making.

N1 Rebecca Lau Palm View Primary School

Brenda Ng Rivervale Primary School

Where Do I Live…. Improvising, Rapping & Singing

PART 1 IMPROVISING THROUGH RAPPING

Arousing Interest

1. Students are shown the lyrics of ‘Telok Blangah’, a song from the ‘Stories We Sing’ publication. They are asked to identify the words/ places that caught their attention.

2. Teacher writes the words on the board as a word-splash, categorizing them according to places, actions and description of feeling. Note: Teacher may need to explain to students what are feeling words and to give one or two examples.

3. Teacher scaffolds with questions, leading the class to see that the song ‘Telok Blangah’ is written about the songwriter’s (Kevin Mathews) childhood days.

Pacing and Maintaining Momentum

4. With a pulse, the teacher leads the class to rap the verse and/or the chorus, stressing on certain syllables of the words in the lyrics. Teacher asks students how the rap will sound if the beats are stressed on different syllables. For example; to stress (the bold syllable) the beat on Vi-vo-ci-ty’. In pairs, the students may pick a verse or the chorus to explore this different way to stress on different syllables. Some students to share their ideas by demonstrating.

5. Teacher asks students how it will sound when some of the words are rapped with different rhythmic patterns. He/she demonstrates an example. In pairs, the students may pick a verse or the chorus to explore this variation of rhythmic patterns in their rapping of the lyrics.

6. Teacher facilitates several different pairs of students to rap their respective version of the verse or chorus.

PART 2 CREATING THE CLASS RAP AND SONG

Empowering Learner Engagement

1. The teacher facilitates the students to create their own word-splash relating to their own childhood memories or places they have lived. Teacher to suggest words of places, actions and description of their own feelings. These are written on the whiteboard.

2. Teacher uses these words to facilitate the writing of a verse for the class rap. This is followed by the teacher facilitating the class to rap the verse together with a given pulse, inviting the students to suggest what words to stress and with what rhythmic patterns.

3. For the chorus, teacher has the students suggest places that they would like to live in. This is then constructed into the lyrics of a chorus section.

4. Teacher guides the students to develop the melody of the chorus with the notes of chords I, IV and V. Teacher leads the class to sing the chorus.

EXTENSION

Students are to create their own rap and song on the theme ‘My Childhood’ or ‘Where do I live?’. They are to rap a verse and sing a chorus section. Students can use the earlier suggested word-splash or add new words to create their own verse for the rap.

The lesson ideas are intended to provide the students opportunities to create music in both instrumental and vocal settings, individually and in groups. Students get to apply their understanding of different rhythmic patterns through rapping the verse and to sing the notes of I, IV and V chords in their created melody lines of the Chorus.

Issues to note

The students were observed to be more engaged when they had to work in pairs. They had more opportunities to contribute their suggestions during the pair work as compared to a class discussion. Some students had some difficulties in rapping their verses with the pulse. It was noticed that when the students had either too many or too few words in each phrase of their verse, the rhythmic patterns did not quite fit musically and rhythmically.

The scaffolding process enabled the students to enjoy the creative process, making the task less daunting for them. It enabled the students to experience joy of learning. Starting with a rap is more familiar for the students than improvising melodies for a song. Students tend to write their lyrics in prose manner rather than short punch-lines. There is a need to consistently have the students try rapping each line that they have created to check if they are able to include the different rhythmic patterns and stresses at appropriate junctures.

Audio Example

AUDIO 1 https://soundcloud.com/user-293745347/ n1-audio-01-rap-2-v2-only

N2 Cluster Priscilla

Khoo Northland Primary School

Liew Siim Wii Xishan Primary School

Rhythmic North South Line

TUNING-IN

Arousing Interest

1. Teacher sets the context for the lesson by asking how (i) the students come to school from their homes and (ii) most Singaporeans travel to work from their homes in the morning. Teacher to move the conversations to the idea of using the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) mode of transportation.

2. Teacher to show 2 to 3 verses of the song ‘East West Line’ (from Stories We Sing publication) to the students and discuss with them what they think is interesting in these verses e.g. about the stations mentioned, what they can find and do at the stations.

DEVELOPMENT 1 (RECITING VERSE 1)

Empowering Learners

1. Teacher sets a pulse and have the students recite Verse 1 in a rhythmic manner (to the pulse).

2. Once the students recite Verse 1 in a rhythmic manner, teacher has the students explore reciting the verse in another manner e.g. changing the rhythmic pattern (with syncopation/ dotted rhythms/semi-quavers etc), the tempo, the tone and expression.

3. Teacher to have a student to recite his/ her version; class imitates. Teacher to ask the students: If you recite this way, how has the verse become more interesting?

4. Teacher leads the class to perform another version of Verse 1.

5. Teacher adds a rhythmic ostinato (with body percussion) to accompany the recitation.

DEVELOPMENT 2 (IMPROVISING A NEW VERSE WITH THE NORTH-SOUTH MRT LINE)

Encouraging Learner Engagement

1. Teacher leads students to a class discussion about stations on the North South MRT Line. The purpose is to bring the students’ social cultural context of the North-South Line’s stations e.g. Sembawang/Yishun/Khatib etc into the lesson.

2. Teacher has students list the stations, places and things they can do at these places.

3. Through this class discussion, teacher and students select 4 stations and compose the new verse for North South Line.

4. Teacher sets the pulse and has the students explore possible ways to recite this new verse on the North South Line (similar process as described in Development 1)w with a rhythmic ostinato.

DEVELOPMENT 3 (IMPROVISATION AND CREATIVITY)

Facilitating Collaborative Learning

1. Teacher divides class into groups of 5. Each group is to create their version, using the context of the North South Line together with an ostinato.

2. Each group can select a percussion instrument of their choice/body percussion to perform the ostinato.

3. Performance: Each group will take turns to perform their composition. This can be performed in a Rondo structure, whereby Section A is the version created in Development 2 lesson, and Sections B/C etc are the respective groups’ verse.

EXTENSION

1. Students can add texture to their performance through layering of voices, call and response manner, or solo/tutti entries. Teacher can encourage the use of dynamics contrast, articulation contrast (staccato and legato) in their recitation.

2. Movements can be added to reflect some of the lyrics. Students improvise the lyrics in a setting that they can relate to as it is set in their social cultural context i.e. MRT in Singapore. It also enabled them to experience the creating of music in both instrumental and recitation settings through their composed verse and rhythmic ostinato, collaboratively. The lesson ideas also explored different rhythmic patterns through their creative recitation and in their performing, with the inclusion of musical elements of tempo, dynamics, texture and the rondo form.

Students were excited when they were crafting their lyrics. They needed little guidance in creating the lyrics. Some groups had some difficulty at times when they tried to recite their lyrics in a rhythmic manner with the pulse, and thus required the teacher’s guidance.

AUDIO 1 https://soundcloud.com/user-293745347/ n2-audio-01-students-chant

N4 Martin Cheah North Spring Primary School

April Tan Horizon Primary School

So Singapore!

by Edvard Grieg and Peter & the Wolf by Sergei Prokofiev. Listening extracts will be provided to aid students in their understanding. Students were generally excited and liked doing the task. Here were some of their responses;

• I like the bells! May we use the resonator bells?

• We would like to go first (when being asked to volunteer to perform).

To enable students to understand how music and words can bring out meaning in pictures and to paint different scenarios. This also serves to develop an understanding of what Programmatic Music is and how it can play a part in communicating ideas across audiences. This lesson idea seeks to develop Learning Objective 1 & Learning Objective 2 of Stage 3 (Primary 5 & 6) whereby students create and perform music in both instrumental and vocal settings, individually and in groups.

Arousing Interest

1. Students will be shown pictures of various places of interest found in Singapore (E.g. Sentosa, Gardens by the Bay, Merlion, Universal Studios, Chinatown, Singapore Zoo) with the aid of PowerPoint slides or hard copies.

2. In groups of 5-6, students are asked to list nouns that can be seen in the picture. For each noun, students will then suggest 3 adjectives related to moods or emotions that reflect the noun which they have chosen.

Empowering Learners

3. Students will improvise a musical phrase that accompanies their selected adjectives, taking note of the possible moods or emotions. Students are free to select any musical instrument which will help them to improvise at this point e.g. Xylophones, congas, ukulele etc. For the melodic lines, the teacher can suggest the use of pentatonic scales.

4. While the students are coming up with their musical phrases, Teacher can encourage the students to explore music elements such as dynamics, pitches, tempo, timbre in their improvisation.

Encouraging Learner Engagement

5. As teacher facilitates the group work, he/she can ask the students guiding questions such as ‘What makes you choose to play/create the phrase in this way?’

6. Once the students have created their musical phrases, encourage them to make a graphic representation of their phrases to help them remember. Some students may wish to notate their phrases through music notes. Teachers can demonstrate how to create a graphic representation of their musical phrase.

7. Teacher to ask the students to use their 3 selected adjectives and nouns to form a short story that is connected to their selected place of interest.

8. Using their improvised musical phrases created earlier, the students will arrange them according to the flow of their short story.

9. The students will perform their composition. Each group will have a narrator to read their story with the musical phrases. The group can also recite and/or sing their lyrics, with or without instrumental accompaniment.

10. After the students have performed, the teacher can ask the students if they have come across music that tells a story. The teacher can explain the concept of programmatic music and provide examples such as the Peer Gynt suite

Example of students’ work

Issues to note

The improvisation can be played on various melodic and non-pitched percussion instruments. This activity can be a precursor to the exploration of soundscapes in creative music making. Teachers to note that the lesson idea is focus on the improvisatory process, and not the language content. Some students will require more guidance than others in that they may not know what nouns or adjectives are. The teacher can illustrate with examples to aid these students.

Audio Example

AUDIO 1 https://soundcloud.com/user-293745347/ n4-audio-01-universal-studios

BLOSSOMING

With Improvisation: Transforming Words Into Music Your Way!

TUNING-IN

Arousing Interest

1. Teacher asks students ‘What kind of transportation do you usually take to move around Singapore?’ Students’ possible responses: Bus, train, car, grab, taxi, etc.

2. Teacher asks students ‘What are some of the public transportation modes in Singapore?’ Students’ possible responses: Buses, MRT, taxis.

3. Teacher asks ‘Which type of public transportation can ferry a large number of people?’ Students’ possible responses: Bus! MRT!

INTRODUCTION

Empowering Learners

1. Students to form groups of 5 (based on a class size of 40 students).

2. Teacher to show the lyrics of the song, ‘East West Line’ to the students. He/she invites the class to think of some possible titles based on the lyrics to frame their thinking and set the context for their composition.

3. Teacher asks each student to choose a word or phrase of their interest from the lyrics of the song. He/she writes these words/phrases on the whiteboard.

4. Teacher asks them these questions and have the students to discuss in pairs;

• Why they chose the words/phrases

• How the words sound like to them

• What feelings are incited with the words/phrases

• What sounds come to their mind based on the feelings.

MAIN ACTIVITY

Resources

• Mini whiteboard and whiteboard markers

• “East West Line” Song from Stories We Sing and cut-outs of the phrases from “East West Line” (see Picture 1)

• Piano/Keyboard/ pitched percussion instruments

• Classroom non-pitched percussion instruments i.e. tambourines, maracas, triangles, bells, shakers, woodblock, etc.

• iPads with Garageband installed

1. Each group will have a good mix of classroom music instruments (this may include iPads with Garageband installed to give them a more varied choice of instrumentation).

Facilitating Collaborative Learning

2. Class decides on a word/phrase from the list made earlier for example, ‘Her Majesty’. The groups are to collaboratively create a musical motif to reflect the character of this word/phrase Teacher facilitates the composition process by asking the following questions:

• What kind of music do you usually hear when the Majesty is coming?

• What instruments are usually used to play the music?

• How does that kind of music make you feel?

• Should we use the major or minor key?

• What are some of the notes we can use?

3. Teacher invites the groups to play their musical motifs.

4. Teacher invites class to peer comment on the different musical motifs by asking the following questions:

• Does it sound like the Queen is arriving?

• What makes it feel like that? Was it the melody/rhythm/tempo etc?

• How can we help to make this motif sound more majestic and give the audience the feeling of excitement?

Using Questions to Deepen Learning

5. Teacher invites pupils to join their motifs together to make Section A of the composition by asking the following questions:

• How can we join our motifs together? What is the possible flow of these motifs?

• What should the texture of this section be like?

• Should we play in layers/staggered entries or should we play them all together?

• How about the dynamics of this section?

6. Class to play Section A which was based on a collaborated effort in deciding the order of these motifs.

Facilitating Collaborative Learning

7. Based on the title of the music which was suggested earlier, each group can decide how the music can be continued by choosing their own choice of word/ phrase from Verse 1 or from another Verse.

8. With reference to their chosen word/ phrase, they are to compose another musical motif based on this new word/ phrase that they have chosen.

9. Teacher moves around the groups to facilitate discussions and encourage the inclusion of musical elements (dynamics, articulation, tempo) in their musical ideas. Groups to perform their motifs. Similarly, these motifs can combine to a sequential order.

10. Teacher facilitates the class discussion by asking the following questions:

• What form should this piece of music have, i.e., binary, ternary or rondo?

• How would you like the ending of the music composition to be?

11. The teacher invites the class to perform the whole composition.

12. The teacher concludes the activity by having the class listen to the instrumental and entire track of the original song.

EXTENSION

Teacher can facilitate a discussion with the students regarding how different or similar that their composition was, compared to the original song.

The intent of the lesson idea is to create music in an instrumental and collaborative group setting. It also uses words or phrases from the song, ‘East West Line’ to create a context for their composition. It gives opportunities for the students to use pitched and non-pitched instruments to compose and perform their motifs in an ensemble setting.

Students were engaged and very interested in composing their own music. Based on their own understanding and interpretation of the words/phrases derived from the lyrics of the song, students were able to compose music that suited the title of the music. They were also able to tap on their prior knowledge of various musical genres to create the mood of the music. Furthermore, giving students the autonomy to choose instruments that they were interested and comfortable with also helped in the engagement and confidence level of the students.

Issues to note

It will be beneficial to have a mixed group of students in terms of musical abilities as the more confident student-musicians can help to lead the group in improvising and pushing ideas forward. Having peers to comment on each other’s composition also allowed students to gather more ideas and helped them in improving their compositions. The teacher’s role is also to facilitate the group’s learning by asking good questions regarding performance directions and the use of musical elements in their creative process.

Students who chose untuned percussion instruments tended to compose a soundscape with no distinct rhythmic patterns. Hence, it is crucial for teachers to suggest possible rhythmic patterns for the students to explore, so as to create a more musical soundscape.

CLUSTER STAR CHAMPION SCHOOL

S1 Sarah Koh Hui Khoon Holy Innocents’ Primary School

Katherine Faroek Ang Mo Kio Primary School

Colour My World With Musical Sounds

Arousing Interest

1. Students to watch animated film “Silent” twice.

• Video link: https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=KA6azZALMiE (Dolby Laboratories, 2014)

• The intent is to later lead to the students creating contrasting motifs to depict the characters and also reflect students’ understanding of tone colour in the storyline.

Encouraging Learner Engagement

2. Teacher to lead student to create a 2-bar melodic motif to represent the father character in the film and another 2-bar melodic motif to represent the child. Students to sing the motifs as it is being improvised.

3. Students to watch the animated film “Silent” twice.

a) Teacher facilitates discussion with reference to the 2-bar melodic motifs created in the previous segment.

Questions to ask: What instruments can be used to play the motifs representing father and child? Why?

b) Teacher to facilitate the students’ recall of the sequence of events according to the chronological order in the film.

Question to ask: Did all the events happen sequentially? Were there events and activities happening concurrently?

c) Using an excerpt of the film (see Step 4), teacher leads the students

to identify instruments that can describe what is happening in the film.

Questions to ask: What made you choose the instruments? How should the instruments be played in order to depict the happenings in the film? How can we vary the dynamics and tempo?

Students volunteer to perform sequence of events on their chosen instruments. Include 2 students to play the melodic motifs of father and child characters.

Facilitating Collaborative Learning

4. Teacher has the film truncated into 5 parts as he/she can divide the class into 5 working groups of 8 students each.

Excerpt A 00:00 – 00:45

Excerpt B 00:46 – 01:18

Excerpt C 01:19 – 01:28

Excerpt D 01:29 – 01:36

Excerpt E 01:37 – 02:31

5. Working in their respective groups, the students are to follow through the process as described in Step 3(c). Teacher to remind the students to include the 2 earlier composed musical motifs (as according to their given excerpts) and explore the use of dynamics, rhythmic patterns and tempo (as according to their given excerpts).

6. Students sequence the instrumentation and rehearse their respective performance excerpt in their groups. Teacher to move around to facilitate their creative processes.

Questions to ask: Why should this instrument be used to represent the rain? How will you play it? The rain gets heavier. How will you show that using your instrument? Why have you chosen to play it that way?

7. Teacher to encourage students to make edits by evaluating their musical choices and developing their musical reasoning by questioning their musical decisions.

8. Teacher leads students to perform excerpts in chronological order to hear the class’ orchestration of the film work.

EXTENSION

Students transcribe their musical sequence using Garage Band as a form of notation process. This task fosters musical creativity in students through the process of musical collaboration. In every segment, the teacher uses questioning as a powerful tool to develop critical thinking in music by steering students to question their own decisionmaking process and providing rationale for their musical decisions. Through his or her facilitation, the teacher gets students to consider the musical elements employed and how they orchestrate these elements to achieve a musical flow. The performance task is a powerful one because it ensures that students’ learning is not compromised by the lack of professional musical training. Every student can develop a musical voice through composition by offering their creative input and be empowered to make changes to their

Issues to note

creation so the sense of student leadership and ownership of their own learning is musically engineered.

ANNEX

This creative task stimulus is taken from “Silent, A Short Film”.

Works Cited

Dolby Laboratories. (2014, February 18). YouTube. Retrieved from Dolby Presents: Silent, a Short Film: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=KA6azZALMiE

Audio Example

AUDIO 1 https://soundcloud.com/user-293745347/ s1-audio-01-excerpt-a

AUDIO 2 https://soundcloud.com/user-293745347/ s1-audio-02-excerpt-b

AUDIO 3 https://soundcloud.com/user-293745347/ s1-audio-03-excerpt-c

Students were clear of what was required of them in every segment of the performance task. Teacher provided the class a common ‘musical motif’ so as to enable the students to focus on other musical elements. Every segment was achievable as the tasks did not favour only those who can read musical notation. As a result, students were willing to try and felt they were able to contribute their ideas. As the teacher had modelled how to facilitate the creative process, the students were able to ask their peers about their musical decisions and give suggestions for changes to be made to their peers’ compositions.

Refer to soundbites (in QR code).

AUDIO 4 https://soundcloud.com/user-293745347/ s1-audio-04-excerpt-d

AUDIO 5 https://soundcloud.com/user-293745347/ s1-audio-05-excerpt-e

AUDIO 6 https://soundcloud.com/user-293745347/ s1-audio-06-complete

Students to have prior experience with exploring tones and timbres of pitched and non-pitched percussion instruments and also to understand the musical concepts of tempo and dynamics. As the teacher moves around the groups, he/she would need to model how to question/facilitate the creative process which encourages students to evaluate their decision-making. This is later reflected in students’ responses as they watch their friends perform their segment. As students provide peer suggestions, the teacher facilitates the exchange of musical inputs. This process is then highlighted by the teacher to help student understand that composition in the music profession often takes similar approaches of questioning, evaluating, critiquing and editing.

A possible area to work on is the students’ ability to consider more than one musical element at a time. For example, the student knew he wanted to use sand blocks to represent the “approaching train” but he had not considered the tempo and dynamics he could employ or vary throughout the performance. He could also be guided to perform a rhythmic ostinato with the sand blocks.

III. BLOSSOMING

S2 Amos Leong Sek Kee Queenstown Primary School

Lim Zi Kai Pei Tong Primary School

Song writing 101

PART 1: CREATING THE LYRICS

Empowering Learners

1. Students to suggest interesting places to write a song about. For example: their school, class, neighbourhood, the Mass Rapid Transit. Teacher to choose one of the students’ suggestion as the theme to create a stanza.

2. Students to suggest words or short sentences/phrases to describe the theme. Teacher to write down their suggestions on the whiteboard. For example; based on the theme of a food centre – ‘lots of noise’, ‘has a variety of food’, ‘families’, ‘sound of food being cooked’. Teacher to also elicit responses from students to give descriptors to create these words.

3. Teacher to facilitate the construction of a stanza (of four lines), using the students’ suggested words/short sentences.

An example of such a stanza:

Clementi, Clementi

Busy, noisy, lots of foods

Clementi, Clementi

Where I stay with my family

PART 2: CREATING RHYTHM PATTERNS FOR THE STANZA

Encouraging Learner Engagement

1. Teacher asks the class to identify the keywords and less important words (e.g. conjunctions, prepositions). This is because the keywords should be emphasized with longer duration or placed on the strong beats.

2. Teacher invites a few students to recite the lyrics rhythmically and to refine the recitation. The whole class is to recite together.

3. To allow the students’ creative experience, they are to pair up and improvise their version. Each pair is to recite the lyrics to each other, with each partner reciting a line.

PART 3: ADDING MELODY TO THE WORDS

Pacing and Maintaining Momentum

1. Based on the earlier composed class rhythmic patterns (of the stanza), the teacher facilitates the improvisation of the melody contour of the lyrics using C major tonality. Teacher can explore other keys e.g. F major, D major. Note: teacher will play the notes on the keyboard or xylophone to help the students to pitch the melody accurately.

2. As the melody contour of the lyrics is being improvised, the teacher has the students hum the melody instead of singing the lyrics. He/she to lead the students to hum the melody phrase by phrase (similar to a call and response manner).

3. Teacher leads the students to sing the lyrics using the melody (in a call and response manner).

PART 4: GROUP COMPOSITION

Setting Meaningful Assignments

1. In groups of 3 or 4, students will select a theme and create a 4-line stanza that describes their chosen theme. They are to compose the rhythm and the melody of their stanza.

2. Students to perform their composed song for their peers.

3. Teacher can have the class ask questions about their peers’ song after each performance;

• What made you choose this theme?

• As a group, how did you decide the way the melody of the stanza is moving?

EXTENSION

Students can use a keyboard/xylophone to accompany the song and also include appropriate un-pitched instruments to add more layers of texture in their song.

The lesson ideas is intended for the students to compose and perform with voice and classroom instruments, diatonic melody of 4 bars and also to understand their roles of composers and performers. This creative exercise will allow the application of the students’ musical understanding regarding the recognition of similar patterns in lyrics and rhythmic/melodic motifs making up the musical phrases.

Listen to the soundbyte of this work! (refer to QR code)

Audio Example

AUDIO 1 https://soundcloud.com/user-293745347/ s2-audio-01-audio

Issues to note

Teacher to consider having the entire creative song-writing project split into bite-sizes and to conduct each part of the creation process separately, i.e. students to complete part 1 in their groups and receive feedback, before teacher demonstrates part 2 and students continue to work on their composition. It was noticed that in Part 1, where the teacher is to encourage students to create coherent, meaningful sentences, they tend to try to fit in as many words as possible in each sentence of the stanza. Teacher to suggest to the students to keep to 8 syllables or less per line. Encourage students to “spice it up” in the way they recite their lyrics and add some interesting elements to their rhythm such as accents, dotted rhythms syncopation. Teacher can model some examples.

III. BLOSSOMING

S4 Julie Lim Hong Wen School

Goh Wan Yu River Valley Primary School

Osti-Rap With My Friends

INTRODUCTION

Empowering Learners

1. Class to recite the first stanza of the poem (see Annex 1).

2. Teacher to invite a student to recite stanza 1. Encourage him/her to recite at his/her own pace and manner. Teacher to take note of the student’s intonation during his/her recitation.

3. Teacher to ask students if another student could recite Stanza 1 differently from the earlier student i.e. to recite with different emotions, tone and emphasis on some words (using accents). He/she to encourage students to lengthen and shorten the manner to which the words can be pronounced or recited.

4. Teacher may invite 1 to 2 more students to recite the stanza individually; the intent is to explore different ways to improvise their recitation.

RECITING AS A RAP

Pacing and Maintaining Momentum

1. From the last few recitations, teacher to select a student’s recitation and facilitate the class to repeat the stanza rhythmically in the manner of a rap.

2. As the class recites the rap, the teacher can provide a basic groove (as a pulse) on the cajón or through body percussion or to through the use of a rap beat backing track. An example of a rap beat backing track: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=nI-6Svg1UVU)

3. Some students can imitate the teacher’s rhythmic accompaniment on the cajón and/or body percussion. This rhythmic accompaniment is played as an ostinato.

4. Teacher to divide the class into 2 groups; a group to perform the rhythmic ostinato while the other group does the rapping.

GROUP ACTIVITY

Facilitating Collaborative Learning

1. Class to form groups, with 4-5 students in each group. Each group to receive a different stanza of the poem. Teacher to remind students when they improvise their rap to include the use of the following characteristics; different wemotions, tone, tempo and emphasis on some words (accent).

2. The task is to create a rap from the words of the stanza and also a rhythmic ostinato to accompany their rap. A choice of body percussion and non-pitch percussion instruments can be use when playing the rhythmic ostinato.

PERFORMANCE OF THE RAP (WITH OSTINATO)

1. Invite groups to perform for one another.

2. Teacher to facilitate during group discussions with these suggested questions;

• How did the group create some interesting ways to recite the rap?

• What made you use these instruments as the rhythmic ostinato?

• What did you like about this group’s rap and ostinato?

3. As a summary, the teacher to have all the groups’ recitation performed as a continuous flow. Note: A class continuous performance of the stanzas should have a 2 bar instrumental bridge / interlude between each stanza to enable a smoother transition from group to group.

EXTENSION

1. Teacher is to work with the class to create 2 to 3 sentences as a conclusion to the class performance of the poem. These sentences are to be performed in unison. Suggestion; the 2 sentences can be taken from the poem e.g.

You make me laugh and make me smile

You put some sunshine in my day

Thank you my friend

2. The above sentences can also be the Section A to be performed in unison; the other stanzas are Sections B, C, D etc. The whole structure can be treated as a rondo form to which the class is to perform in the manner of Sections A, B, A, C, A, D, etc, ending with Section A.

By starting with a class activity (rapping based on 1st stanza), the students were more confident in creating their own rap. By having the groups perform their work/rap in progress (as a mid-point check) motivated the students to practice and they became more assertive in their rapping and more in rhythm with the ostinato.

ANNEX 1

Just Because by Anonymous*

Today is not a holiday

It isn't even your birthday

But I still thought I'd like to send

A special message to my friend

You make me laugh and make me smile

You ease my troubles for a while

When clouds are thick and skies are gray

The lesson ideas are designed to apply the students’ musical understandings through the improvisation and creation of a rap and rhythmic ostinato and performed as a small ensemble of 2 parts and in the context of a form/structure.

You put some sunshine in my day

You're really thoughtful sweet and kind

A friend like you is hard to find I know I've told you once or twice

That I think you are very nice

But someone who's as great as you

Should be told more often than I do

And so I send these words with love

Why did I send them? .....just because

Issues to note

The students to have prior experience in creating rhythmic ostinato patterns. As the teacher facilitates the group work, he/she is to listen out for the groups’ ostinato pattern being suitable with the group’s rap. Teacher also to note that the ostinato is not the same as rhythm of the rap lyrics but it should be complementary.

* shared through a website ‘Ellen Bailey Poems’

S5 Gloria Loh Lin Li Anglo-Chinese School (Junior)

Chen Huifang Farrer Park Primary School

Anywhere, Anytime, Anything

these items and varying the different timbres using these materials.

Suggested Resources for this Improvisation: (1) Chopsticks (2) Plastic Cups (3) Chairs (4) Metal spoons (5) Plastic bottles (6) Staplers (7) Pails

Note; Resources can be provided by teachers or students can suggest and bring their own items prior to this lesson being carried out.

INTRODUCTION

Encouraging Learner Engagement

1. Students imitate body percussion rhythms played by teacher in a call and response manner.

(Refer to Annex A for rhythm examples)

2. Using the same rhythmic examples (from Annex A), this can be demonstrated with the use of the everyday items made of various materials (see resources suggested). Students can also explore different ways of creating sounds using

3. Students to take turns to create a rhythm for their classmates to imitate. The class can be divided into smaller groups to allow students to have the opportunity to take the lead.

DEVELOPMENT

Facilitating Collaborative Learning

4. Students are organised into groups based on the materials/everyday items that they have. All members of the group will have similar sounding materials e.g. wooden, metal or plastic type of material. These everyday items from each group should be made of the same material and have similar timbre when played.

5. Each group creates a rhythmic pattern (a 4-beat pattern) and repeats it like an ostinato.

6. Teacher plays a basic rhythm e.g. ta ta titi ta and he/she cues each group to join in and play their rhythm, layering it upon the teacher’s basic rhythm ostinato. All groups to keep repeating their rhythmic patterns in an ostinato manner. Section A is when the class plays together with the teacher’s rhythmic pattern.

7. Teacher experiments by having different groups to play together to find sets of complementary rhythms. For example; Section B - Group 1 and 2, Section C - Group 3 and 5, Section D - Group 2, 4 and 5. Refer to Annex B for complementary rhythm examples.

8. Students can also play their 4-beat rhythm using body percussion, adding some dynamics e.g. loud, soft expressions

9. Ending/coda – class suggests a 8-beat rhythmic pattern to be played in unison as an ending/coda to the composition e.g. ta titi ta ta, rest ta, ti-ti, ta-a)

CONCLUSION

10. Arrange the different sections into a structure/flow. Each section to be played in 4 sets of a 4-beat cycle) A possible performance structure;

Section A – All

Section B – Groups 1 & 2

Section A – All

Section C – Groups 3 & 5

Section A – All

Section C – Groups 2, 4 & 5

Body Percussion – All or one group after another continuous manner (with the teacher keeping a pulse if necessary)

Section A – all

Ending/Coda

The lesson ideas are to enable students to perform rhythmic patterns in simple time as an ensemble, applying musical concepts within the rhythmic composition, such as tempo, rhythm, beats, form, timbre and texture. It is also to give opportunities for them to create rhythmic improvisation/ composition in an ensemble setting using everyday objects/found sounds. Students were able to create the rhythms using the visual representation. Students tended to play their rhythm using only one sound. Having 2 different pitches would give more colour to the rhythm.

ANNEX A: BODY PERCUSSION RHYTHM EXAMPLES

ANNEX B – COMPLEMENTARY RHYTHM EXAMPLES

Note: Teacher to facilitate the students’ exploration of the groups’ complementary rhythmic patterns based on the rhythms that the students have created. The groups’ complementary rhythmic patterns should not have too many overlapping rhythm values.

Example 1 (Section B)

Group 1

Group 2

Example 2 (Section C)

Group 3

Group 5

Issues to note

Teacher to possibly use a visual representation for students to notate their rhythmic patterns.

III. BLOSSOMING

E2 Murugesu Samarasan East View Primary School Tan Yee Hwee Red Swastika School

E4 Catherine Lim St Anthony’s Cannossian Primary School

Song Writing Through The Eyes Of ‘My Singapore’

PART 1 GENERATING LYRICAL IDEAS FROM VISUAL STIMULUS

Establishing Interaction and Rapport

1. Students are shown a map of Singapore as visual stimulus.

2. Teacher invites students to share 1 or 2 words on what they like about Singapore. He/she lists 10 of the students’ responses on the whiteboard and terms these as ‘Words’.

3. Teacher elicits from the students, ‘Feelings’ associated with the ‘Words’. The teacher may ask, “What are your feelings when you see this word?” or “What excites you about this word?”

4. For every ‘Word’, teacher writes a corresponding ‘Feeling’ suggested by the students.

Empowering Learners

5. Teacher facilitates a class discussion to choose 5 ‘Words’ and 3 ‘Feelings’.

6. Teacher guides the class to combine the words and feelings into 2 lyrical phrases For example,

• Words could be ‘Food’ and ‘MBS’

• Feelings could be ‘Happiness’ and ‘Pride’

• A phrase could then be, “Happiness is food, MBS is our pride”.

7. Teacher guides students in creating phrases from their suggested word-splash. He /She facilitates the recitation of the phrases, inserting silence between the words and reciting the words as short and long sounds (see Figure 1).

1

PART 2 IMPROVISING MELODIES BASED ON PHRASE 1

Encouraging Learner Engagement

1. Teacher to have students explore/improvise with humming, followed by singing the 1st phrase (We live in the second largest solar system in the galaxy). He/ she to provide possible chords for the melodies and also to play these chords on keyboard/guitar/ukulele for the students to listen. Note: suggested chords to use are C, G, Am, F, Dm, Em as these are chords that are common in popular music styles.

2. Teacher to get student(s) to draw a melodic contour ‘map’ based on the class’ humming/ singing.

3. Teacher facilitates a class discussion based on the melodic contour map, highlighting how the contour shape visually follows the class’ pitching as they sing the melodies. Accents and dynamics can also be marked on the melodic contour map and discussed.

PART 3 IMPROVISING MELODIES COLLABORATIVELY

Facilitating Collaborative Learning

1. Teacher organizes class into groups. Each group is to create melodies for phrase 2, 3 4 or 5 based on Figure 1 (which was created earlier in Part 1).

2. As each group sings their improvised melodic phrases, they are to also notate their melodic contour map (using the process described in Part 2).

PART 4 PLAYING THE CHORDS OF THE PHRASE ON THE UKULELE

Pacing and Maintaining Momentum

1. Teacher has a student to demonstrate playing a progression of 4 chords (C, G, Am and F) on the ukulele.

Figure

2. Using the melodic contour mapped earlier, the teacher demonstrates how the chords on the ukulele can accompany phrase 1. Groups to work out what chords to play on the ukulele as they sing their created melodies (from Part 3).

3. Each group records the performance of them singing the group’s melody along with the ukulele accompaniment.

PART 5 STRUCTURING A CLASS PERFORMANCE

Facilitative Collaborative Learning

1. Teacher to have every group take turns to perform their melodies.

2. Teacher to have the students choose one group’s melody to be sung in unison as a class.

3. Teacher to facilitate a class discussion to decide the sequence of the other groups’ performances.

4. Groups take turns to perform in the sequence decided by the class, with the unison melody of phrase 1 (Section A) recurring in between groups’ performances of their phrases (Sections B/C/D etc)

5. Teacher to introduce the Rondo concept.

PART 6 REFLECTION USING VISIBLE THINKING ROUTINES

Concluding the Lesson

Approach 1: Headlines

1. The teacher requests a ‘Headline’ from each group. A ‘Headline’ is a succinct phrase that captures the group’s key thoughts and ideas about their song writing experience.

Approach 2: 'I used to think ... Now I think ...'

1. The teacher requests each group to complete the sentences – I used to think er , now I think with the concept of song writing in mind.

2. This helps students to reflect on their thinking about the process of song writing and how their thinking has changed.

Note: more information about Visible Thinking Routines can be found in ‘Making Thinking Visible’ (2010) by Ron Ritchhart, Mark Church and Karin Morrison.

EXTENSION

1. Using the process described in Parts 1 to 4, the students in groups can create their own song.

2. Students could explore creating a song with a verse-chorus structure. These are two examples they can use for their song writing (lyrics and sound clips)

• It’s All About My Family

• Teamwork Makes the Dream Work

3. Students could also explore using Garageband on iPads to arrange and create a digital music piece to sing along with their lyrics.

The lesson ideas introduce the students to the song writing process in a collaborative setting. It provides students with opportunities to perform and create music in both instrumental and vocal settings, and in groups. They also learn how to notate the melodic contour of their improvised melodies.

Students were engaged and interested in experimenting with melodic contours to come up with tunes for their lyrics. Students gained more confidence in composing music with the use of chordal accompaniment on the ukulele. It helped to pitch their singing and in making edits to their melodies. The Visible Thinking routines also elicited deeper thinking about their learning experiences in song-writing.

Issues to note

The students need to have prior knowledge of playing C, G, Am and F chords on the ukulele.

Audio Example

AUDIO 1 https://soundcloud.com/user-293745347/ e2-e4-audio-01-family-audio

AUDIO 2 https://soundcloud.com/user-293745347/ e2-e4-audio-02-teamwork-audio

III. BLOSSOMING Lesson Ideas for Stage 3

E3 Ng Kay Gek Angsana Primary School

Jasmine Tye

Cindy Khoo Sengkang Green Primary School

Creating Memories Through Song Writing

Arousing Interest

1. Teacher tunes in the lesson with an audio clip of “Pasir Ris Sunrise” (composed and sung by Mr Kevin Matthews). Teacher facilitates a Hear-Think-Wonder visible thinking routine with the students, asking these questions;

• What did you hear in the song?

• What do you think is happening?

• What are you wondering about? / I wonder if…..

Note: the song is on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zgu3Z7Mzwjw

2. Teacher introduces the social cultural context of the song to students; ‘Pasir Ris Sunrise’, was written by Kevin Matthews and reflects a typical morning for a typical Housing Board resident in Pasir Ris. It speaks about waiting for the feeder bus and for the train amidst the hustle and bustle of human traffic. In contrast, ‘Telok Blangah’ reflected Kevin’s experience growing up in Telok Blangah during the 1960s.

Pacing and Maintaining Momentum

3. Teacher have the students listen to an extract of the song e.g. Verse 1 and map the melodic contour of the verse of the song “Pasir Ris Sunrise”.

4. Teacher have the students ‘connect the dots’ and invites students to share their melodic contours drawing with the class. Some examples could be -

Using Question to Deepen Learning

5. Teacher shares another song by Kevin Matthews; the lyrics of ‘Telok Blangah’ with the class. He / She facilitates discussion to help students make meaning of the song using a See-ThinkWonder visible thinking routine with the students, asking these questions;

• What did you see in the song?

• What do you think is happening?

• What are you wondering about? / I wonder if…..

Note: Teacher can also show some pictures of Telok Blangah in the 1960s. The song is in the ‘Stories We Sing’ Publication by STAR, pg 59)

6. With a given steady pulse, the teacher has the class recite the first four phrases (Verse 1) in unison several times. Teacher to ask the class, “Which words do you think fall on the strong beats?” Teacher may ask the class to recite again, paying more attention to the words that fall on the strong beat.

Facilitating Collaborative Learning

7. Teacher have students work in groups of four to five to explore reciting phrases with accents placed on different beats. Groups may choose to work on the verses or chorus sections. A drum loop can be used to accompany the recitation.

8. Teacher invites individual groups to perform their recitations. He /she facilitates a class discussion to decide on one version of the verse and one version of the chorus to be ‘adopted’ and performed by the class. A class performance of the chosen version of verse and chorus is recorded.

9. Teacher facilitates the melodic improvisation of the chorus in ‘Telok Blangah’ by prompting students to improvise the first phrase by humming. He /she invites the class to sing their different melodies together.

10. Teacher invites a student from each group to sing their improvised melody of a phrase or whole chorus. Groups are to discuss how their representative’s improvised melody may be improved and practice singing it as a group.

11. Teacher has the groups create a melody for the second phrase of the chorus. Each group takes turns to perform their version of the entire chorus. Teacher facilitates a class discussion to decide on one version of the chorus to be ‘adopted’ and performed by the class.

12. Teacher facilitates groups to each create a melody for the verse. Each group takes turns to perform their version of the verse. Teacher facilitates a class discussion to decide on one version of the verse to be ‘adopted’ and performed by the class.

13. Teacher facilitates a class performance of chosen versions of the verse and chorus.

14. Teacher shares the original version of ‘Telok Blangah’ with the class and invites students to sing along to the track.

The lesson ideas are to provide opportunities for students to improvise, perform and create music in vocal settings, based on the lyrics of ‘Telok Blangah’. Students also learn to recognise and describe melodic contours, ascending and descending melodies.

CLUSTER STAR CHAMPION SCHOOL

W5 Shahrin Mahmud Greenridge Primary School

Lee Lufang Charmian West View Primary School

Digital Music Composition Inspired by My City My Sayang

Initially the students encountered some challenges in reciting the verse in groups. The teacher may need to model more recitation demonstrations and offer suggestions to groups at appropriate junctures to guide them.

PART 1 TEACHER FACILITATED COMPOSITION ACTIVITY (“WE DO IT”)

Empowering Learners

1. Teacher have the students read Verse 1 of ‘My City My Sayang’ silently and individually; How is my city a song? How do I float tunes in her river?

Do I go whistling in her gardens? Swinging between her chic skyscrapers?

Note: this song is from the ‘Stories We Sing’ publication by STAR

2. Teacher elicits responses from the class, “Can you tell me 3 words which describe the mood that the lyrics evoked?” He /she writes these words on the whiteboard.

3. After the class has responded, the teacher gets students to read the verse again. The teacher then elicits another set of responses from the class, “Can you tell me another 3 words which describe the mood but which would contrast with the previous 3 we had?” He /she writes these words on the whiteboard.

4. Teacher invites each student to choose 3 of these words, with at least 2 of the words contrasting the other. Students write their 3 choices on a note pad.

Encouraging Student Engagement

5. Teacher provides every student with an iPad. Using the Garageband app, students choose a loop that reflect the mood described by their 1st word choice. The teacher then gets the students repeat the loop to create an 8-bar motif (Section A).

6. Teacher gets the students to choose 2 more loops; these 2 loops are to reflect the mood described by their 2nd and 3rd word choices. He / she highlights to the students that the loops should be repeated to last 8 bars each; the 2nd loop is Section B and the 3rd loop is Section C.

7. Students to read the verse of ‘My City My Sayang’ again as they listen to the loops that they have selected. Students may modify their compositions by

III. BLOSSOMING

re-ordering the sequence of the loops or choosing new loops. The intent is to connect the words with music.

8. The teacher invites students to share their composition with the rest of the class (by playing it using the Garageband app) and facilitates a class discussion on the compositions shared.

PART 2 COLLABORATIVE COMPOSITION ACTIVITY

(“YOU DO IT TOGETHER”)

Facilitating Collaborative Learning

1. Teacher organizes the class into groups, with 3 or 4 students in each group.

2. Each group to select a verse or the chorus from ‘My City My Sayang’. Students to create a group composition using the process outlined in Part 1.

PART 3 PEER APPRECIATION AND FEEDBACK

Checking for Understanding and Providing Feedback

1. Groups take turns to share their compositions and teacher facilitates an ‘Appreciation-andFeedback’ discussion after each sharing. Some examples of the questions the teacher can use;

• Can you describe the mood depicted in each section of the composition?

• What features do you hear in the group’s composition that you like?

• How would you have done this differently?

• Pose this to the group who composed the music; If you have an opportunity to recreate this composition, what would you change and what would you keep?

PART 4 REFLECTION

Concluding the Lesson

1. The teacher facilitates a class reflection. Some questions the teacher can use for the reflection:

• What did you learn?

• What did you enjoy about the composition process?

• Did you meet any challenges along the way and how did you overcome them?

• How did you feel when you listened to your group’s composition?

• How did you feel when you listened to your peer’s composition?

• Can you describe the steps your group took to create the composition?

Using ICT apps such as GarageBand help to facilitate and develop creative processes in music composition. GarageBand is just one of the many tools to create the sounds; the software premade loops are useful for building confidence in song-writing. The lyrics of the song and the suggested moods serve as stimuli to inspire the creative process. The teaching process begins with the teacher providing guided instruction, followed by students assuming more responsibility. Reflective learning allows the students to step back from their learning experience to help them develop critical thinking skills and improve on future learning process by analysing their experience.

tStudents enjoyed exploring with the sounds and selecting the different loops. The digital inclination in the students made them learn the technical aspects of GarageBand fairly easy. Several students who had the software were motivated to continue their compositions on their own. Grouping the students with mixed ability and those familiar with iPad in various groups allowed opportunities for peer learning and teaching.

Issues to note

The freedom to explore in this lesson comes before structure. Hence, in a creative activity, only minimal parameters, if there is any, should be provided. An authentic learning experience/task provides not just the motivation for the students to complete the task but it also provides a more meaningful learning experience for them. As such, teachers need to help the students make connections with their prior experience and the learning in the music classroom.

STAR Li Yen See Singapore Teachers’ Academy for the aRts

Improvising and Composing for Musical Understanding

PART 1 RESPONDING TO A VISUAL STIMULUS

Arousing Interest

1. Teacher divides the class into 6 groups, with 5 students in each group.

2. Each group receives a picture from “My City, My Sayang” song.

3. Using the picture stimulus;

• Each group to suggest a list of 3 responses (feelings) as they appreciate the picture and write these words on a piece of paper.

• The group then passes their list to another group, who will add to this list with 3 other responses. The new set of words should be different/contrasting to the existing words (on the paper) and also a response to the same picture.

PART 2 IMPROVISE 3 MUSICAL MOTIFS/PHRASES

Empowering Learners

1. Out of the 6 responses, each group is to choose 3 responses.

2. Each group to improvise;

• 1 corresponding musical motif/phrase for each of the 3 short-listed responses (each group can choose to use 1 to 2 pitch instruments)

• 1 motif that uses the Pentatonic notes of DEF#GA

PART 3 1ST DRAFT OF COMPOSITION

Note: Teacher to do an audio recording of the students’ first draft

Facilitating Collaborative Learning

1. Each group to decide on the flow of their composition (from one motif to the next) and to include the use of Repeat (s) where appropriate.

2. In their composing process, teacher gives each group a pair of ‘Set 1’ cue cards. Each pair is selected to add layers of different musical elements to their composition.

• Each of the ‘Set 1’ cue cards (refer to Picture 1) contain some musical concepts that the group must incorporate into their composition e.g. Legato and piano / Allegro and forte/ accelerando and Largo

• Each group to perform Draft 1 of their composition. Teacher to record their performances for further edits in Draft 2 of their composition.

Picture 1 – ‘Set 1’ Cue Cards

Pacing and Maintaining Momentum

3. Students to do group reflection using a 3-2-1 Visible Thinking routine. The routine;

• Name 3 interesting experiences you had in class today.

• What are 2 takeaways from the way your group had explored the musical ideas?

• 1 thing that you would need help with in your composition.

PART 4 2ND DRAFT OF COMPOSITION

Using Questions to Deepen Learning

1. Each group to be given ‘Set 3’ question cards. These cards ask questions that could help explore the groups’ compositional process and intent. Teacher can use these cards to question;

• How do you use articulation (legato, staccato or accents) to reflect the mood / character/ feelings of your music?

• How do the dynamics of your music create contrast? What does the contrast in your dynamics express?

• How are the sections repeated? Does the repetition have any significance to the piece?

• How do you organise your musical ideas/phrase into sections?

• How do you create contrast between fast and slow musical ideas/phrases? What do these contrasts express?

• What is the story to your music? How do you begin and end?

Note: With regard to which question card to give the group would depend on what the teacher hears from the Group’s 1st draft composition. The intent of the card is to prompt the students to explore new sounds and probe more deeply into creative possibilities.

2. Groups to make refinements to the 1st draft of their compositions after discussing the question(s) that they had received from ‘Set 3’ question cards.

3. Each group to share how they answered the questions on their respective card(s) before playing their composition.

4. Each group to perform the 2nd draft of their composition. Teacher to record their performances and students to have a group reflection-on action. Suggested question(s);

• What musical idea(s) worked very well and what parts/sections would you have liked to change? What makes you say that?

Concluding the Lesson

5. Students to do self-reflection using ‘I use to think…Now I think..’ Visible Thinking routine in the context of composing.

RECORDINGS OF COMPOSITION (REFER TO QR CODE)

Group 1 1st draft (with crescendo, ritardando); 2nd draft (add repetition)

Group 2 1st draft (with p, legato); 2nd draft (add dynamic contrast)

Group 3 1st draft (with silence, solo); 2nd draft (add fast & slow contrasts)

Group 4 1st draft (with subito p, diminuendo); 2nd draft (add fast & slow contrasts)

Audio Example

AUDIO 1 https://soundcloud.com/user-293745347/ star-audio-01-grp-1-1st-draft

AUDIO 2 https://soundcloud.com/user-293745347/ star-audio-02-grp-1-2nd-draft

AUDIO 3 https://soundcloud.com/user-293745347/ star-audio-03-grp-2-1st-draft

AUDIO 4 https://soundcloud.com/user-293745347/ star-audio-04-grp-2-2nd-draft

AUDIO 5 https://soundcloud.com/user-293745347/ star-audio-05-grp-3-1st-draft

AUDIO 6 https://soundcloud.com/user-293745347/ star-audio-06-grp-3-2nd-draft

AUDIO 7 https://soundcloud.com/user-293745347/ star-audio-07-grp-4-1st-draft

AUDIO 8 https://soundcloud.com/user-293745347/ star-audio-08-grp-4-2nd-draft