Concert Band Turned Composer Band
Create, Perform, Publish to the World!
www.composinginband.weebly.com
The Why?
Elementary general music curriculum has a strong
compositional and improvisational background through various teaching methods.
In addition, music technology electives are popping up in many middle and
high schools which usually involve music creation as part of its natural being.
But in concert band, a time and place which has trained instrumentalists
ready to perform, we usually leave the creative touch to those students who are
in the jazz band. Students who want to dig deeper into music might take a
theory class filled with vocabulary and drill. What if there was a way to
marry the performance ability of concert band students with their untapped
creativity by channeling their understanding of music through composition?
My journey and questioning of how to run a
successful rehearsal began a few years ago. At that time I faced my
band’s biggest weakness: poor intonation. To help solve this, I read all the
books on the market written for how to run an effective band rehearsal and even
posted messages on the Band Director Facebook group to see if there was a
consensus around the country. This profound moment in my teaching career helped
our rehearsals become more efficient with a solid warm-up routine which
included daily singing, breathing exercises, chorales, and guided listening.
I was on cloud nine and thought the only thing that could get us to an
even better spot would be having a bassoon and oboe in our ensemble. Yet,
I was wrong. (It’s okay to be wrong sometimes!)
Last year I was part of Pentucket’s District
Determined Measures task force, aimed at creating an avenue for teachers to
show student growth through project based learning. When questioned about
what activities we do in band to provide personal meaning, I gave the typical
“Well, we’re music. Everything we do has personal meaning.” Everyone pretty
much agreed with me. However, after looking at the Bloom’s Taxonomy diagram, I
realized I was still missing the mark on what brings a higher level of thinking
and meaning in music making. I had to admit that my students did not create
music in concert band. They were able to connect that a note on the music
staff meant they could make the intended sound on their instruments but they
were not put in charge of deciding the order in which the notes were placed.
It is similar to reading books for years, understanding what is in the
books, but never writing down your own sentences for others to read.
During this reflective time period I was
leisurely reading Drive: The Surprising Truth of What Motivates Us by
Daniel H. Pink. Pink was able to bring case studies together to show that
students and people in general are more motivated and productive when they have
bits of unstructured creation time, or “20% Time” as Google named it for its
own workers. He states that “for artists, scientists, inventors,
schoolchildren, and the rest of us, intrinsic motivation—the drive do something
because it is interesting, challenging, and absorbing—is essential for high
levels of creativity.” In my opinion the “20% Time” in concert band is
composing. Based off of feedback from my music technology course, it was
pretty clear to me that students enjoy making music to animations and so I
created the composition unit below.
The Students will:
- listen to composers talking about
their compositions and process creating.
- complete small compositional tasks
and then perform them in front of the class on their own instruments. The
tasks include the devices of step, skip, leap, melodic motion, repetition,
variation, sequence, motive, augmentation, diminution, retrograde,
extension, truncation, and harmonizations via I, IV V chords.
- analyze a pop song covering items
covered in step 2.
- in small groups, students select a
short animation to download from www.archive.org which
has Creative Commons copyright for sharing and adapting
- download the animation and delete
the soundtrack on software such as GarageBand or MixCraft.
- create a timeline noting changes
in moods and sound effects along with time markings
- compose music for the animation
while referencing the timeline. Students will interview their peers
to learn about proper playing ranges for instruments.
- rehearse, perform, revise, and
then record music to the short animation.
- sync the performance recording
with the animation on Garage Band/MixCraft and publish online.
- reflect!
I have
since been impressed with a new online curriculum developed by an elementary
music teacher in New York called “The Young Composers and Improvisers Workshop”
(www.yciw.net) and have purchased subscriptions which include Noteflight Learn
accounts for each of my band students at a price of $5 per student. This
program is well thought out and digs deeper into form and harmonizing. It uses
the Canvas learning management system which includes a gradebook and tutorial
videos.
We started this project last May up until the
last day of school in June when student engagement is typically low. The
experience was incredible and composing is now part of the fabric of our
concert band curriculum. We are working on putting together a composer
concert, workshops, and having students write music for local businesses via
YouTube commercials. Students who want to dig deeper are now receiving
private lessons in composition and can take an independent study during the
school day to compose music for credit. Next year we are expanding our
offerings to include a film and video game music composition course.
This change in our program has enhanced the
musicianship of our students. Additionally, they are finding ways to
incorporate composing music for projects in English and history courses.
Students are composing and arranging on Noteflight at home, extending what they
learned from the school day. Visit www.composinginband.weebly.com to listen to student examples.
Source:
Pink, Daniel H. Drive: The Surprising Truth
about What Motivates Us. New York, NY: Riverhead, 2009.
Comments