Week 3

We have finished the third week, during which we not only reviewed the concepts, but also went over a few new things. The concepts that we reviewed was rhythm and steady beat, which we started to go over last week, but it was expanded on. We also discussed melody, which is a combination of various pitches, either high, low, or the same pitch. We learned the song Bee Bee Bumble Bee to work with melody and we walked on the steady beat, so it helped us understand both of these concepts. We also learned about musical notes, the treble clef which is also called G clef in western music, and that lined notes are EGBDF and spaces are FACE. Music on the recorder is in treble clef. Also, we went over note value
One of the ways that we were taught about these different concepts was listening to a song, double double ice cream, where we clapped hands with a partner to get a better grasp of steady beat, which had 4 beats per line, and rhythm. We wrote out x's, larger ones that had more value, to learn rhythm. We also did this with pictures for a song called rain and our name rhyme. To get kids to understand note length they can comprehend the rhythm more with X's and pictures, with larger pictures for longer notes, so we went over that. In the ice cream song we also went over the patterns found in music. Note value was explained to us by using the example of a loaf of bread, and breaking it up to understand how much each is worth. On Friday we worked on the GAB notes on our recorder and made up our own song to help us learn.
Melody was important for us to learn because it make up the basis of songs, so it is one of the basic concepts we really need to know. Also, kids tend to sing on a higher pitch depending on the age level, so melody comes into play with that. The treble clef and notes are important for us to know because in order to understand what pitch to hit and whether or not your voice is supposed to go higher or lower there has to be an understanding of the scale. Because children learn things so much better in songs, it is important that we continue to learn more of these and different ways to incorporate the methods in our classroom, which is what we did this week.
The reason why it's important for children to learn these things is because they have probablly been using different musical skills and concepts without realizing it, but it's important they actually know the definitions and how it came about. Also, if they learn notes and how to read music at a younger age it will be much easier for them in the future, and the will understand music much better.