Natural sounds
Exploring nature through sound is a great way of engaging students in creating soundscapes, the environments that surround the children are rich aural resources that students can draw on as prior knowledge. Students have strong ideas of what places sound like and creating the opportunity for them to explore the reproduction of those sounds enables students to develop some key musical skills of analysing sound, creating and improvising sound and developing those ideas into more sophisticated sound environments.
Included is a sound environment that featured on the previous page, students could identify the sounds that they can hear and then develop ways of creating those sounds with their voice, bodies and found or created instruments.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/CTYE6nJAc3I?feature=player_detailpage
Students will use these sounds as a tool or resource to create their own sounds, through identifying different aspects of the sound, how the tone changes, what they can hear within the overall sound, what else they might expect to hear in this environment. The key is that sound from these natural environments will form the source material for expressive ideas in music and sound art. Again, thinking skills are really important for this process. They must listen carefully, make connections to prior experiences with sound, think analytically about sounds they are hearing and question, speculate and reflect. They will be working together in groups and as a class to realise their ideas about sound and how it can be utilised to create an idea of this location.
One way of potentially engaging students with this activity is getting the whole class to attempt to replicate this performance, and then getting small groups to go off and create their own attempts at creating a sound environment from a different environment with just their bodies and voices. They then come together and perform their pieces and the class guesses what place the students are trying to create with their soundscapes. Students will identify areas where the groups strongly created a sense of being in the place, and areas where the soundscape could have been improved and suggestions of other ideas that the group could have included in their work.
Using a resource such as the percussive choir Perpetuum Jazzile, here is their website featuring other youtube clips, could really help the class identify ways in which to create these sounds. As the choir vividly portrays the potential for sounds to represent a sound idea - in this example of rain, the conception that music education is limited to ukeleles and singing choirs goes right out the window and is rained on by a talented choir of musicians who don't even need to sing.This resource is a great tool to get the students to consider ways of using their body to create a sound environment.
Taonga pūoro - music, literacy and te reo
Looking at instruments from a local perspective. Taking inspiration from the continuing exploration of Taonga pūoro and the opportunities that such traditional Māori instruments create for genuine cultural engagement, you could explore these instruments in your classroom.Furthermore through incorporating such taonga into your classroom environment value is placed upon the musical heritages of New Zealand's diverse cultures.This would enable some learning experiences that value the diversity of New Zealand and validate the cultural heritage that Māori bring to New Zealand. Here is a great website giving some good information about Taonga pūoro and how they link to Māori customs, values and mythology.
This is a video of Richard Nunns who is a contemporary master of Taonga pūoro and Hirini Melbourne, both of which bring a world of experience and knowledge to the performance of traditional Māori instruments.Another great source of information/inspiration is this article from the School Journal with Richard Nunns. Make your own kōauau, School Journal Part 4, Number 2, 1997. In this article, Richard Nunns explains how to make your own kōauau from a shank-bone. A great way to integrate literacy, music and te reo in a meaningful way.
This is a resource from Te Papa entitled "Music to Māori ears". Students could use these resources as inspiration for their own soundscapes or for their research into traditional instruments, or to gain some valuable insights into Māori culture and traditions and assess to what extent the traditional instruments have been maintained or adapted for the modern world.
Creating your own instruments - science, technology and music
http://www.youtube.com/embed/pp9creatingbullroarers
We loved this American scientist who uses the example of making a bullroarer to explore some of the underlying science. Nothing like a little integration in a music classroom for some great opportunities to explore some of the science of sound.
http://www.youtube.com/embed/p9Lq-FhhK50
http://www.youtube.com/embed/AAlosS5AcOI"
These great resources are the work of Steve Spangler, another American who uses a range of ordinary objects to make some really interesting sounds that could be incorporated in your classes soundscape. The great thing about the internet is there is essentially a tutorial at making any instrument, some - like the paper flute that you may see lingering around on some websites promising a beautiful flute sound are not that easy to make, we didn't succeed! Some of the bullroarer tutorials require a stronger heavier piece of wood - which could be dangerous for five year olds, however you can effectively use 30cm classroom rulers. You have to consider some of the safety considerations of these instruments.
With all the knowledge you have gained about making instruments and linking it to the local New Zealand context, you can get started on making your own soundscape with your class!
Processes and incorporating musical ideas
In music education, students work individually and collaboratively to explore the potential of sounds (Ministry of Education, 2007). Students will explore sound sources, sound creation and sound manipulation.Through their exploration of possible sounds they can create with their mouth through to creating instruments , students are aiming to explore the relationship between sounds and musical concepts such as tone, pitch, timbre, tempo and volume. Students are aiming to see what they sounds they can identify, create, explore and develop through the use of their voice, their made instruments, found instruments- as in our Youtube example.
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