Save the Date!

Many of you have been wondering when the Winter Concert is.  The date of the concert is Thursday, December 12.  Please save the date!  Grade 3/4 choir will be performing that evening.

A Step Towards Music Literacy

Music literacy refers to the ability to read and write musical notation 

and to read notation at sight without the aid of an instrument. 

It also refers to a person's knowledge of and 

appreciation for a wide range of musical examples and styles.

~ Zoltan Kodaly

Hungarian composer, Zoltan Kodaly, gave us a very comprehensive definition for the term music literacy.  Different classes experience music literacy in a slightly different way.  Last week, Kindergarten and Grade 1 students ventured into creating their original musical notation.  They tried to use a visual representation of the sound.  By doing so, they had to be able to describe sounds as "conjunct" vs. "disjunct", "loud" vs. "soft", etc.  

Grade 2 students composed new words for a chant that they had learned.  Students brainstormed symbols that represent the city of Calgary, e.g. important structures, events, bodies of water, etc.  Through this activity, they demonstrated their understanding of the relationship between syllables and rhythm.  Grade 3 and 4 students explored what I called "musical legos", i.e. basic rhythmic building blocks that we can use to build longer musical pieces.  They also learned about "intervals", that is, the distance between two notes.  Grade 4 students begin to experiment with sounds that clash (dissonances) and sounds that blend (consonances).  

Listeners and Evaluators of Music

"Music education should begin at an early age and 

should continue to encourage creative expression through 

performance, listening and composition."  

~ Alberta Program of Studies

Over the past week, we continued to encourage students' creative expression through listening.  During the directed listening activity, Kindergarten and Grade 1 students listened for the musical structure as well as the orchestration in the piece In the Hall of the Mountain King by Edvard Grieg.  They were making a connection between what they know about "non-pitched" instruments and what they heard in the piece of music.  Grade 2 focused on listening for the strong and weak beats in compound time while conducting the beats.  They experienced how music can be grouped in 2 beats.

Grade 3 students learned about rondo form when listening to Fossils from The Carnival of the Animals.  They used pictures and letter names to represent the musical structure of the piece.  This helped them understand that music comprises different sections. 

As they listened to Erlking by Franz Schubert, Grade 4 students put themselves in the position of the composer.  They asked themselves what they would do if they were to compose the piece:  how would you show that there were four characters when there was only one singer delivering the performance?  What would you do to show that the main character was getting more and more frightened? 

All of the directed listening activities helped students to develop skills as active listeners so that they can appreciate music at a deeper level.