#Songs with binary form how to#

I want to instill in my students a love for music and I want them to leave our school system feeling like they are empowered to join in the music-making process for the rest of their life. We need to engage students with music that is culturally relevant and prepares them for a lifetime of music-making. WeвЂ™re not doing our kids justice if we only stick to classical. Sometimes you need to mix up your music listening examples. My Kindergarten kids just used ElgarвЂ™s Faeries and Giants for this purpose ( this is something I blogged about last yearвЂ“ Read about that HERE). There had to be something better! Of course I still use classical examples all the time in my classroom. Even when we met as a district musicВ teacher PLC and looked at the song, we all had different ideas of the form and when sections changedвЂ¦ not a great example of AB. First of all, IвЂ™m not even sure that that song is an AB form and second, I know that form identification with that song is impossible for my kindergarteners! ItвЂ™s just too hard to parse out for those little people because there are not clear delineations between sections. When I first started teaching, my district curriculum suggested that we use вЂњThe AquariumвЂќ from the Carnival of Animals to teach AB form to Kindergarten. Things in classical music can be really subjective and hard to understand and I think that so many of us can relate and remember those lessons in college where WE couldnвЂ™t really distinguish changes (Were we really at the recapitulation? What signals the change in the development? Did we really transition into that last movement?). While we might instinctually fall back on classical music, sometimes itвЂ™s hard for little ears to really distinguish when weвЂ™ve moved from one section to another.

I find that often when we start to teach kids to listen for form and pattern in musical examples we start with classical music examples. IвЂ™ve learned a lot since those first few lessons and I definitely feel more successful and understand the different strategies I can use to help kids learn to listen for specific things.

I know now that kids are not wired to just sit and listen quietly to even the most engaging of songs. I remember those TERRIBLE lessons where I would put on music and expect kids to just sit and listen.

#Songs with binary form how to#

When I first started in the classroom, I wasnвЂ™t sure how to teach kids to listen critically to music.