What We're Learning

We will start the year reviewing our known musical knowledge. I will break down the musical elements into two main categories; rhythmic and melodic. Rhythm refers to the pattern of long and short notes that create a song. Melody refers to the higher and lower tones or pitches that are used to create a song.

We will start off the year reviewing our known rhythmic elements: quarter note (ta), two eighth notes (ti-ti), quarter rest (rest), half note (too), four sixteenth notes (tika-tika) and syncopation (syncopa). We will also review our known melodic elements which include the pentatonic scale (do, re, mi, so and la).

After reviewing our known knowledge we began to prepare our next melodic elements, low la (la,), low so (so,) and finally high do (do').

We also spent a good deal of time learning about the families of the orchestra and taking a deep dive on each instrument in preparation for our virtual field trip to listen to the Plano Symphony Orchestra in May!

Song Bank

Using the Kodály method, I teach mainly using folk songs. These songs are typically passed down through the generations in a vocal tradition which creates many variants - so you may know a slightly different version than what I teach in class! The beauty of using folk songs to do the bulk of the learning is that each song has a game that corresponds with it - so the kids are learning even when they are playing!

Here are some songs that your child should know from music class!

• Somebody's Knockin' At My Door

• Cut the Cake

• Early in the Morning

• Lil' Liza Jane