Blog 19.10.17: You know after you’ve been listening to a piece, pulled it apart, put it back together again and still like it, that it is rich in content to include in your teaching cannon. This piece and arrangement has provided much flexibility, extension opportunities and endless teaching possibilities that comes from using a quality work such as this.
As I further develop my “mixed bag” classroom arrangement for Philip Glass’ “Closing” I have been focusing a lot on the idea of how best to connect minimalism music to students. In my own experience, the minimalist movement has been such a great way to connect students with alternate “art” music. It represents music that can be considered as more contextually relevant versus traditional Western Art Music or even nursery rhymes in primary school (Hein, 2013). My arrangement and teaching of, is hoping to follow the principles of Creative Music Movement (Humberstone, 2015) and Orff-Schulwerk to deliver students as active learners and music makers.
Ideally through this experience students “can acquire music knowledge and understanding while engaging in personally meaningful experience” (Banks, 1982, p.42). It will be able to help students participate and have a real “sense of creating music” (Paynter, 1992, p.10).
Within the arrangement I have included a range of parts from key melody lines to simpler accompaniment to cater for the different range of music skills presented in the classroom. My goal is that it can be adapted from later primary stages to high school with the range of instruments, from tuned percussion including a bodrun accompaniment to baritone sax, allowing the flexibility pending what instruments could be available. To enable this I also transposed the piece from F minor to A minor as a more friendly Orff instrument key.
As per the Orff method students “first engage in a music activity that is meaningful to them and that also contains a target concept or musical idea” (Banks, 1982, p. 43). The key ideas of the first section can be easily be learnt aurally (in primary or high school setting) and advancing to the full version for later stages. I have compiled a lesson plan to accompany this arrangement that starts by aurally learning the rhythmic component, then the melodic, then transferring to instruments to cement the main rhythmic feature of the piece. More or less time would be required for the different age groups.
As improvisation is also a key component of making creative music and “aiding in the comprehension and performance of music” (Bernhard, 2012, p. 65). I’ve included an improvisation section that helps to provide access and opportunity to be creative within a safe and successful structure. As Banks outlines “The more a child invests of him- or herself in an activity, the more meaningful it will be” (Banks, 1982, p. 42).
Fine tuning the arrangement, Alder (2002) has been very helpful in providing information on specific instrument ranges and techniques, in particular for brass and viola to be able to notate in an easier centre range. As I delve further into arranging and composing this will be a very useful bible of instruments for me.
What I like most about this arrangement is the flexibility in teaching content pending the level and skill of the students. It can be modeled aurally by the teacher and transferred onto instruments, it can be read in notation in different formats for different instruments for more advanced and still have a quality musical experience with the different parts, or it can also be used as an informal learning opportunity into minimalism music providing aural resources and a structure outline for students in groups to create their own arrangement.
References:
Alder, S. (2002). The study of orchestration, 3rd Ed. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company.
Banks, S. (1982). Orff-Schulwerk Teaches Musical Responsiveness. Music Educators Journal, 68(7), 42-43.
Hein, E. (2013) The problem: Why are so many young people alienated by music class? In
Designing the Drum Loop: A constructivist iOS rhythm tutorial system for beginners. Masters thesis, New York University, New York. Retrieved from http://www.ethanhein.com/wp/my-nyu-masters-thesis/the-problem-why-are-so-many-young-people-alienated-by-music-class/
Humberstone, J. (2015). Towards a pluralist music education. Paper presented at the Orff Schulwerk Association Conference,
2015.
Paynter, J. (1972). Hear and now. An introduction to modern music in schools. London, UK: Universal Edition