Teaching Melody to Older Beginners without Barred Instruments
Our example today is going to revolve around teaching melodic patterns that use low la. This is at the request of a friend inside The Planning Binder. She’s starting a music program at a school that hasn’t had music in years and years, so she’s in the process of getting barred instruments. With her older beginners, she noticed they’re having trouble figuring out pitch relationships and noticing melodic contour in patterns using mi re do and low la.
Instruments and Older Beginners
Self-efficacy and singing: Generally, we see a higher interest in singing in younger grades and a lower interest in singing in upper grades
The body is the first instrument
Transfer melodic understanding to an instrument
Melodic Curricular Sequence for Older Beginners
There’s a step-by-step series of melodic concepts in our curriculum outline. There’s also a step-by-step series of learning events that are outlined in the concept plans. Let’s start with the curricular sequence and then jump to the learning progression.
There are many options here! What repertoire makes the most sense for your students’ musical background and musical preferences? (Probably not sol and mi)
Do re mi - low la - low sol - sol - la (ABC - Jackson 5)
Do re mi - sol - la
If we’re having trouble with low la, it’s a good idea to be curious about how we were understanding do re mi. This is a melodic sequence because our future understandings depend on how we understand the current pitch set.
You’ll see in the learning sequence that we’re comparing the known to the unknown
Melodic Learning Sequence for Older Beginners
These are the steps of moving from the known to the unknown when we teach melody.
Like all things in life, people do things differently. Different doesn’t mean wrong. So if you’re looking for a framework, give this one a go. This is aligned with the Kodaly concept - this isn’t something I invented. This would all be under the umbrella of preparation in the Kodaly concept - we’ll talk more about adjusting the process in a moment.
Can we sing the melodic element tunefully?
This happens in the context of repertoire, which is why so many teachers talk about the repertoire being the curriculum. The repertoire is the context.
With older beginners, a good formula is singing + ____(body percussion, drums, movement, game) ___ = singing
Singing is still an important first step to melodic understanding because we use the body as the first instrument.
Are we matching pitch?
This is why universities use sight singing and not sight reading as aural training. The voice is the most direct representation of what’s happening in our brains because there’s not a transfer instrument to type like on a barred instrument. (To be clear, we won’t be reading the new element in standard Western notation in this stage of the learning process, but we’re working on sound before sight.)
Low La Example: Sing and play the game to Big Fat Biscuit
Can we show the melodic contour through movement?
Body percussion, solfege hand signs (with an invented sign for the new element), melodic contour, pointing to melodic contour, pointing to a barred instrument visual placed vertically.
The vertical placement is important because this shows the outline of steps and skips
Low La Example: In Big Fat Biscuit, put “chew belew” on body percussion with a partner in a way that matches the melodic contour. In The Planning Binder concept plan for low la, this is something we did with Alabama Gal (“Come through in a hurry”)
Can we notice the melodic element and describe it?
Is it higher or lower than x?
How many times in the song or the phrase do you hear a pitch lower than x?
What is the lowest / highest pitch in the song or phrase?
Does this melodic phrase have a twin or double agent in another song? (Such as “sing about the sea” from Sea Shell and “do remember me” from Rocky Mountain)
Low La Example: Aurally identify do re mi in “big fat biscuit.” Which direction does the melody move in “chew belew?” (down, then up, like a smiley face) Is the space between the pitches like the pitches are skipping or stepping? (skipping) Articulate that the low pitch is lower than do (we know that because we already know what do re mi sounds like. We can hear that “chew” is do. We know the next pitch is lower. Therefore, it’s lower than do.)
Can we show it visually?
Barred instrument visual, graphic notation, stairsteps, tone ladder
Which phrase on the board matches the target phrase?
Drag the icon higher or lower to match the melodic contour
Many people would stop here and label the element. I like that. I do that often.
Figure out pitches on a barred instrument placed vertically (Playing by ear is really important to me. Beatles documentary)
This uses aural skills and visual skills. Barred instruments physically show the outline of steps and skips in a way that a recorder or ukulele doesn’t. These instruments still have pitch relationships (like frets) but a barred instrument is a more straightforward way to show intervals. When we figure out the pitches at a barred instrument, we’re using our visual cues of high and low pitches, just like we would visually place a melodic contour phrase on the board.
Low La Example with barred instruments: Play “big fat biscuit, chew belew” on barred instruments. We already know that chew belew is “do - skip lower - do” so when we place a barred instrument vertically and I tell you do is on F right now, you can figure out that the low pitch is D because it’s a skip below F. If I tell you that do is C, we can tell that the low pitch is A. If I tell you that do is G, we can tell that the low pitch is E. With the barred instrument placed vertically, we just need to know the pitch relationships.
Low La Example with boomwhackers: Play “big fat biscuit, chew belew” on boomwhackers. Students line up with boomwhackers from low to high (the teacher can help, but notice that the low pitches are longer and the higher pitches are shorter. This is exactly the same as our barred instrument.) Use a human xylophone to play the melody.
Low La Example with body percussion: Play “big fat biscuit, chew belew” on body percussion. Four students line up with a body percussion level from low to high: stamp, pat, clap, snap. Use a human piano to play the melody.
A Quick Word on “Methods”
Within each step of this process, we can be creative and give students choice about arranging and improvisation. In my opinion, this isn’t a Kodaly sequence for Kodaly people. It’s a sound framework that can live differently in many different situations. Imitate, Explore, Create is compatible here, especially as we expand our work here and move into the practice phase.
Circular Progression or Linear Progression?
These are steps, but when we finish a step we’re not done with it. We’ll want to circle back in each class to review. For example, after we sing and play the game at the beginning of the process, we’re not done singing and playing the game. It’s just that these are mile markers we need to pass before moving on. We can’t hand students boomwhackers and say “play big fat biscuit” if students have never heard or sung Big Fat Biscuit. These steps are intentional in their progression, but there’s no way to isolate them completely.
Checkpoints
If this sequence gets stuck at any point, we’ll pause and go back.
We can also pause and go back with other songs that use this target element, such as Alabama Gal, Up Again (Dan Bremnes), and maybe an additional song.
We mentioned a curricular progression and a learning experience progression. If we’re having trouble with low la, that would make me wonder if students really grasped the pitch relationships with do re mi. Do we need to back up and play the game to Big Fat Biscuit more (step one of the learning progression for low la)? Or do we need to back up to the repertoire we were using for do re mi and review that instead (the previous melodic pattern in the curricular progression)?
Barred Instruments and Melodic Understanding
Experience the melodic element
Notice it
Show it visually
Barred instruments can come into play at any point in this process. But without a barred instrument, we’re still doing the process. Hopefully if you’re in a situation where you don’t have an instrument collection, you’re moving toward that direction. When we teach in a way that focuses on pitch relationships instead of isolated “how to play a a song on an instrument” we’re equipping students with what they need to transfer their knowledge from their personal experience, to an instrument, to the staff, to a new song, or to a new melodic creation.
