S1: Bonus One Piece, Three Ways: Teaching one piece using three approaches

So often we approach our lessons through the lens of one approach.  We all have our favorite lessons and our favorite ways to teach that work for us and our students.  If you're looking to refresh classic pieces in your classroom, I hope this example will give you some ideas!


I'm going to share how to take the element of sixteenth notes (tikatika, tiritiri, dutadata, pepperoni, one-e-+-a...whatever you call it) and explore this concept with one piece using three approaches: Dalcroze, Kodaly and Orff.  It is possible to sequence this lesson so that all three approaches are used and experienced by your students.  In doing this, students have the opportunity to experience it through so many mediums: sing, speak, pat, walk, create, compose, improvise, listen, respond.

The song I'm going to use for this element is a classic folk song that many of you likely already use in your classrooms:  Ding Dong Diggidiggi Dong.

DALCROZE APPROACH

1) Begin with a warm-up.  Ideally this would include something physical that helps students feel the sixteenth note rhythms.  A few ideas:

     a.  Sit on the ground with your legs straight out in front of you.

Play around with the rhythm of the first phrase through pointing and flexing your toes

Alternating feet with the rhythm.  Use other body parts to perform this:

shoulders taking turns moving up and down

rolling wrists

patting lap

b. Play around with longer sounds vs. shorter sounds

Stretching - then shaking quickly

Walking - then tiptoeing very quickly

2) Play the melody on an instrument for students to listen to as they walk the steady beat around the room.  A piano accompaniment example is below.  Play the melody on a recorder.  Or play the rhythm on a drum.  Students continue to walk the steady beat around the room as they listen.

3) Guide students to listening and identifying how many phrases are in the song (four).  Once identified as four phrases, ask students to walk the beat again and switch the direction they are moving at the end of each phrase.

4)  As students walk the phrases, ask them to identify how many steps they take for each phrase (four).

5)  If you want to add more difficulty, ask students to clap the rhythm of the melody while they walk the beat of each phrase.

6)  Ask students to walk/tiptoe the rhythm of the piece.

7) Ask students to perform a broken canon with the piece (teacher plays the first phrase - students step the rhythm of that phrase.  Teacher plays the second phrase - students step the rhythm of that phrase.  Take it a step further and perform the piece as a canon with the teacher playing the first part and the students stepping the rhythm of the piece as the second part of the canon.  You could continue to play a bass line, but not the melody and ask students to perform the canon with movement only.

8) Students sing the melody on 'loo.' Or you could echo-rote teach the piece.  Students find a partner and sit or stand across from them.  If sitting, students sit criss-cross on the ground and place their right hand on their partner's left knee.  If standing, students place their right hand on their partner's left shoulder.  Assign jobs for each partner:  one student taps the beat while the other student taps the rhythm... at the same time!  Then switch jobs.

9) Other ideas include finding same and different phrases, conducting while stepping the rhythm, transfer to creating an improvisatory movement for each phrase...

KODALY APPROACH

Use the prepare-present-practice sequence.  

Go to this link for a Google Slides presentation that you can use with students throughout the sequence.

Prepare:

Teach the song by singing it for them.  Guide them towards discovering the sounds of all the quarter notes for the first phrase through rhythmic speech.  Leave the third beat of the first phrase open with a question mark above it.  Identify everything except the sixteenth note rhythm.  

Present:

Review previous known material and guide students toward discovering that the third beat of the first phrase has four sounds on one beat.  Show students what the sixteenth notes look like and tell them what we call it.  Practice it in context immediately.  Don't spend a lot of time there and move on.

Practice:

Find other pieces that include this same element and follow the same process towards discovering the rhythmic element.  Integrate these songs into the prepare phase as the Diggdiggi Dong song moves into the present and practice stage.  Continue to reinforce the concept over more lessons. 

A few song ideas:

-Chicken on the Fencepost

-Tideo

-Paw Paw Patch

-Alligator Pie

ORFF APPROACH

1) Teach the melody through singing or body percussion. 

If using body percussion, try the following:

1) Transfer the body percussion to barred instruments for phrases 1 and 3.  All of the snaps are played on high C, the pats are played on G below high C and the chest pats are played on the A below high C.  Students play 1st and 3rd phrases and sing the 2nd and 4th phrases.

Students play 1st and 3rd phrases while you sing or play or sing AND play 2nd and 4th phrases.  Teach in sections and allow students to learn the entire melody phrase by phrase.  Add bordun pattern on bass bars or bass xylophone.  A bordun is typically the tonic and dominant.  We would use C/G if playing in C pentatonic.  Sing melody while playing the bordun.  Split class into parts with ½ students singing melody while other half plays bordun.  Switch parts.  Once melody is learned on the instrument, split class into parts using bordun and melody.  This piece is a great opportunity to perform in canon. 

Students could expand on the piece by creating a B section using either body percussion, performing Q and A improvisations, or composing a new melody in the pentatonic scale.  Add complementary rhythmic ostinatos using unpitched percussion instruments.  Create an introduction and a coda - put the whole piece together and let students decide the final form.