The Beginning and the End

My school district hosted our All-Districts music festival last Friday. Before I made my way over to the high school to help out and observe some master conductors at work with the best and brightest high school musicians in the area, I held a before-school beginning band rehearsal for our first concert. It went well, as I expected it to. The kids have been working hard in their group lessons, practicing at home, and taking risks to help them improve their playing. We're taking on the beginning band classics, Hot Cross Buns and Mary Had A Little Lamb, and playing We Will Rock You for a fun ending that's a bit more relevant to pop culture. Our two "harder" songs have four notes each. This is absolutely normal and developmentally appropriate for beginning band, given our rehearsal schedule and the age of the students.

The All-Districts band I got to watch, on the other hand, was playing dozens of notes. They took on some amazing rep, including Wagner's Elsa's Procession to the Cathedral and a very difficult Persichetti piece. The chorus, orchestra, percussion, and jazz ensemble were likewise grappling with challenging music, pieces which represent significant artistic achievement in their respective musical fields.

It's fascinating to see the differences in these two groups, and the similarities. "Breathe together to play together", a phrase my beginning band students have heard enough to finish for me, doesn't just apply to fifth graders. Students talked and laughed together during breaks, just as my students tend to do. They left instruments in precarious positions, just as my students do.

For many of the All-Districts students, they're at or near the pinnacle of their musical journeys - for some, even near the end - while my fifth graders are just beginning to understand and experience band. It's gratifying to see where they're going musically, that their potential in six or seven years includes more than five notes and making beautiful music together. But it's also helped me to see the beauty in simplicity, in getting students to play simple music really well. So much of the limited district rehearsal time was spent on fundamentals, things that my students are already working on. Playing a scale in tune is hard! It takes years of practice! But it's important, even if it's not immediately gratifying. Good beginnings are so important in music, so that students can excel when they get to All-Districts or just life beyond elementary school band. It's not about Hot Cross Buns, it's about building the skills to go beyond the basics later.

Books in the Elementary Music Room: Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? by Bill Martin Jr and Eric Carle

I love using books in my music classes! Picture books engage students in so many ways - visually hearing the story (sometimes with a song), seeing beautiful illustrations, and often acting out the story - that enrich their imaginations and help them create music. I'm planning to make a little series out of these posts, but today I'll be discussing Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? by Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle.

This adorable little book is the sequel to the well-known Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by the same authors. Each page follows a question and answer format, leading the reader through bright, large illustrations of each animal mentioned. I've used it in general music classes for a few different concepts:

• Vocal exploration (making animal sounds from the book and discussing how they are similar/different)
• Musical phrases (musical "questions and answers")
• Ensemble skills (differentiating between a soloist singing the question and the group singing the answer, or different groups singing the question and answer)
• Sequencing (remembering the order of animals in the book, creating new possible orders of animals and figuring out which words need to change to make that happen)
• Introduction to instruments (two animals in the book are described as "fluting" and "trumpeting", which I used as a chance to demonstrate flute and trumpet)

I also used this book as part of our December Singalong assembly. I learned a simple melody that works with the words of the book from another teacher, and taught parts to all my students K-5. At the assembly, we were able to put the whole thing together and sing the book as a school, complete with student trumpet and flute players for those animals! It was a really nice way to have all the students cooperating towards a common goal and having a lot of fun roaring, hissing, and snarling their way into December break.