On Wednesday 12th June, our Primary 1 and Primary 2 pupils got to perform for their parents at our Creative Music Showcase.
There was a fantastic turnout of parents and everyone enjoyed the wonderful musical performances and having the opportunity to see the boys and girls showcase their learning.
We would like to thank Mr Donal Gormley for working with our children this year, as part of the Extended Schools Programme. The children have thoroughly enjoyed taking part in the programme and have benefited greatly.
The children have enjoyed being creative and expressing themselves to a wide a range of music.
They have had opportunities to use a wide range of instruments ?to create arrangements for songs, develop their attention and listening skills and learn to keep a steady beat.
The boys and girls have developed their singing skills and enjoyed singing as part of circle time games. They had opportunities to improvise text to fit a melody, learn to sing in parts and sing in tune with each other.
The children particularly enjoyed creating the Soundscape. They learned about technology and vocal improvisation and loved exploring musical sounds and ideas.
Donal’s teaching is influenced by the Kodaly Approach to Music Education. Developing children’s inner ear using the singing voice is key to this approach. All the songs performed at the Showcase were selected to sit within the most comfortable part of the children’s vocal range, giving the optimal opportunity to sing comfortably.
A lot of nursery songs, while they are wonderful and work brilliantly rhythmically, aren’t necessarily the best choices for children’s singing voices and may work better as listening material or rhymes. Some children may find it difficult to sing them and feel discouraged about their singing voices.
All of the songs performed at our Showcase were within the range of a 6th, containing a limited number (3-6) of pitches to ensure everyone could work on developing their singing voice.
In class the songs are learnt as music games to encourage repetition so that the children can ‘catch’ the song and unconsciously learn the language of music. After many repetitions, the class should be able to sing them independently. As they internalise the songs, we can then use these simple songs and rhymes to develop music literacy, in a similar way to how children learn to read words using phonics.
Some of the songs performed at the showcase included:-
(1) Hello / Goodbye Everyone - P1 / P2
This is a simple action song to bring everyone together at the start (and end) of a session, initially singing in unison, but gradually we can add new elements as the children grow, harmonies, partners, ostinato’s etc.
(2) Food Song – P1 / P2
This was developed from a rhythm game with a variety of favourite foods, where children were clapping the syllables of the food in different rhythm patterns. It developed into a verse of a song. The children collaborated with Donal to create their own verse for the song and created a simple chorus to go with it.
(3) Bobby Shafto with chime bars and scrunchie – P1
Donal used it in class to explore fast and slow, with Pirates and Sea monsters chasing us, and also to explore the beat / pulse of the music using a giant scrunchy and a variety of simple percussion instruments.
(4) Pirate Pirate on the Sea-
This traditional song originally called ‘Sailor Sailor on the Sea’ is used for developing language in several ways:
Descriptive language for the class to guess the instrument.
Learning the words for describing how percussion instruments are used.
Learning the names of the instruments – remembering the word ‘guiro’ and pronouncing it can take some time.
(5) Pirate Song – P1
This traditional song is a lot of fun, it’s great for getting everyone singing, working on rhyming words and for developing gross motor movement skills, coordinating with the music.
(6) Pirate Pete – P2
This fun poem is from a collection called ‘Zim Zam Zoom’ by James Carter. In class we used it to create sound scapes using percussion instruments to illustrate the story. We were able to experiment and improvise with the instruments and use them in unusual ways to get sounds to match our story e.g. scraping or rubbing a drum. We also used some interesting instruments like wave and thunder drums and rain sticks to create a watery based background.
(7) Doctor Knickerbocker – P2
An American folk song based around Dutch settlers wearing knickerbockers in New York. Eventually the baseball team ??was called after them, New York Knickerbockers or the Knickerbocker Nine. The more modern basketball team has been called after them.
We use the song to develop beat and rhythm, clapping/tapping/moving the counting pattern with different parts of the body. We add in simple percussion instruments to work on the beat. We also use it to develop the memory, accumulating different actions which the children need to remember.
Thank you to everyone who came along to our Showcase. The children were all stars and thoroughly enjoyed performing for you all!
Please enjoy the videos and photos below!
