Last week, I shared with you the program overview from the Music Program of Study in Alberta: "Music education should begin at an early age and should continue to encourage creative expression through performance, listening and composition."
As the first step to expressing themselves through composition, Kindergarten students explored different non-pitched instruments ---- wood family, metal family, shake and scrape family, and membrane family ---- and listened for the various timbres. Grade 1 students took it a step further by creating a soundscape for the story Midnight Fright, hence, engaging in their learning as "composers" of music.
Grade 2 students explored creative expression by choreographing the song I Hear an Owl and added dynamic contrasts to the poem In a dark, dark wood. They also explored 2-beat time and conducted the duple time as they walked to the beat.
Grade 3 and 4 students also choreographed the songs they were singing and continued to master the performance of multi-voiced texture. Through the performance of these multi-voiced textures, they experienced what it is like to perform in an ensemble where different instrumentalists may be playing different rhythmic and melodic materials simultaneously.
