Thursdays are the days when I teach 4th and 5th grade classes as well as Ms. Duron's first grade class, who did an exceptional job with "Sing With A Ying." There didn't seem to be much about rhyming words that they didn't already know. And I was especially impressed by their suggestion of "opera" and "pop" for contrasting vocal styles. I am usually delighted to get "fast" and "slow".
The fourth grade classes working on pitch matching in an wonderful exercise developed by James Harding of the San Francisco School. Here bits of yarn are used to represent the contours of contrasting melody lines. Many of the kids created representational pictures using the string and than "sang" the melodies the lines suggested. As I discovered they are wonderful singers.
Fifth graders learned about polyrhythms. To that end I used a body percussion system developed by Keith Terry, another Bay Area artist and teacher. We began learning two pieces -- "Hey, You, What?" and "The Break."
Ms. Duron, Ms. Abu-Bakir, Mr. and Ms. Oasay, Mr. Anderson and Ms. Lopez -- so happy to meet you. Mr. Albert I look forward to meeting you next week.
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