What We're Learning
At this point in their musical education your child knows many of the basic building blocks of a song and is ready to dive into more complex and exciting musical elements. I will break down the musical elements into three main categories; rhythm, melody and form. Rhythm refers to the pattern of long and short notes that create a song. Melody refers to the higher and lower tones or pitches that are used to create a song. Form refers to how songs are put together.
We startead off the year reviewing our known rhythmic elements: quarter note (ta), two eighth notes (ti-ti), quarter rest (rest) and half note (too). Earlier in the year we spent time exploring and learning about four sixteenth notes (tika-tika), and we are currently preparing a "mystery" rhythm that has 3 sounds over 2 beats!
We came into 3rd grade already knowing our melody notes do, mi, so & la. So spent some time earlier in our year learning about re which is the melody note between do and mi. This means have mastered the Pentatonic Scale, which is a five tone scale compromised of do, re, mi, so, and la. The scale is considered to be a mile marker in our musical knowledge because of the vast amount of music that can be created with these five tones.
Song Bank
Using the Kodály method, I teach mainly using folk songs. These songs are typically passed down through the generations in a vocal tradition which creates many variants - so you may know a slightly different version than what I teach in class! The beauty of using folk songs to do the bulk of the learning is that each song has a game that corresponds with it - so the kids are learning even when they are playing!
Here are some songs that your child should know from music class!
Hot Cross Buns
Among Us
Somebody's Knockin' At My Door
Closet Key
Alabama Gal