Making Music

In honor of the fact that the girls love their new music class, I have decided to spend this week enhancing their knowledge of music by teaching them the basics of reading music. 

The kids regularly play my guitar and clarinet (Check out my Sound ‘Speriments blog), and they will bring me sheet music and ask that I play them something; however, I have never tried to ‘decode’ the sheet music for them before.  The best part is that this week, I’m not only teaching the kids, but I’m also teaching my husband how to read music as well!

Looking at a musical staff can be overwhelming because there is so much information in a very compact form, so I break it down to the basics for everyone.  Said another way, I know I’m leaving a bunch of info out, like what key the music is in and everything related to playing the notes (crescendos, staccato, sharps and flats, etc.), but this is our first lesson after all.

“You know how we read books by looking at all of the letters and reading the story?  Well, you can do the same thing with music.  The music book is called the music staff.” I start.

A staff is made up of five horizontal lines.  I draw 5 lines across a piece of paper.  Abby helps me count out the lines. 

“Just like a book usually starts with ‘Once upon a time’”, for toddlers anyway, “a music staff starts with a clef.”

There are two types of clefs, a treble clef and a bass clef, which tells you what range of sounds should be played. The treble clef is a higher range of notes and the bass clef is a lower range of notes.  We’re only going to play in treble clef today.  I draw a base clef and scribble it out and say that we’re going to talk about the treble clef.  I draw a big treble clef on the staff.

Just like a book has pages, the staff is divided into measures to make it easier to read.  The notes go on the staff into each measure.

There’s one more piece of setup - the time signature, which tells you about the beat.  The top number tells you how many beats are in the measure and the bottom number says how long each beat will last.  I draw a 4/4 and tell them that it means that we’re going to have 4 beats in every measure and a quarter note gets one beat.  I tell my husband that this will make more sense in a few minutes because he’s starting to look a little bit skeptical.

To fill our staff, we need notes.  A note has 2 parts: the pitch, which is what the note will sound like (“ba, baa, or bah” I sing in different tones), and the duration, which is how long the note will be played (“like baaaaaaaaa or ba ba ba”).

 The weird squiggly notes are added later.

DURATION

I had planned to start with the pitch, but the curiosity about what we’re doing with all of the construction paper prevailed, so I started with the duration.

I get the first piece of construction paper, which is blue, out and drew a big circle on it.  I then tell everyone that a whole note looks like a giant circle. 

I get out the 2^nd piece of construction paper, which is green, and say now I’m going to show you a half note.  You start with a circle like the whole note and put a stick on it.  This is a half note.  It takes half of the time that a whole note does.  I exaggerate and sing a whole note for a long time and then sing a half note for half of the time.  The kids repeat the singing.  I then draw a second half note on the paper and hand the paper to my husband and tell him to cut the paper in half so that the notes are on 2 pieces of paper.

I get out the 3^rd piece of paper (yellow) and tell everyone that I’m going to show them a quarter note now.  A quarter note takes half of the time that a half note takes.  It starts in a circle like the whole note, then gets the stick like the half note, but this one gets colored in so that you know it’s a quarter note.  I draw 3 more and tell my husband to cut them out.  Briana astutely says “There are a lot of quarter notes on that paper.”  I tell her that’s right.  Each paper is like a measure, and we’re in 4/4, so it takes 4 quarter notes to fill the measure, when it only took 1 whole note to fill the measure.  I sing an approximate duration for all of the notes so far to give everyone a feel for how fast a quarter note is.  I also draw those 4 squiggly quarter notes on the original staff to show them what I mean by having 4 quarter notes in one measure.

The 4^th piece of paper (orange) is for the eighth note, which takes half the time that the quarter note does.  You draw it by starting with a circle like the whole note, adding a stick like the half note, coloring it in like the quarter note, and then adding a flag on the top.  The reason that I draw and describe each new note that way is as a way to review the previous notes as we go.  It also serves to point out the differences in how the notes look so the kids (and my hubby) can distinguish them more easily.  I also draw what 2 eighth notes look like together  on the original staff so everyone can see them together.  (More squiggly lines) At this point, to sing it semi-accurately I have to count out the beat by tapping my foot under the table.  Incidentally, I think that I was the only person in All-State Band (for clarinet) that had to count out the measures for each new piece in my head before I started playing.  My dad likes to joke that I was “a music technician, not a musician”.  I love music but alas I don’t think I’m naturally gifted in it; however, I think, like anything else in life, if you want something (in this case getting into All-State Band) and work hard enough at it, it doesn’t matter what skills you’re born with.  You can have anything you’re willing to work hard for.  Not anything you want, mind you…anything you’re willing to work hard for.  But I digress…

The 5^th piece of (red) paper is for…you guessed it…if I didn’t lose you with my little PSA…the sixteenth notes, which last for half as long as the eighth notes did.  They are made by drawing a circle, like the whole note, adding a stick like the half note, coloring it in like the quarter note, adding a flag at the top like the eighth note, and adding a second flag.  Then I sang out all of the notes and had everyone repeat.  The kids think that the super fast sixteenth notes are funny.  Each time I drew a measure’s worth on notes on the paper and had my husband cut them out.  The big stack of notes will be used later.

I then pull out the original staff that I made. And my husband gets quizzed.  If we are in 4/4 time, 4 beats in every measure and a quarter note gets one beat, how many whole notes go in the first measure?  1.  Yep.  Half notes? 2.  Quarter? 4.  And so on.  Good job, Matt!

PITCH

I ask Briana if she remembers our note song and she does:

‘E-G-B-D-F, E-G-B-D-F. Names of the lines on the treble clef.

F-A-C-E, F-A-C-E. Spaces easy as can be-E.’

Well, she really just remembers the first line of it, but that’s great.  Abby sings “treble clef and treble clef” Hey, at least she remembered the tune!

I draw a new staff and make a whole note on each line.  I then label the notes, E, G, B, D, and F and sing ‘‘E-G-B-D-F, E-G-B-D-F. Names of the lines on the treble clef.”.  I point to each note as I say that.  Then I label the spaces accordingly and sing “F-A-C-E, F-A-C-E. Spaces easy as can be-E”. 

I tell everyone that when any type of note is on the E line, you sing the E note for as long as the type of note.  So if there’s a quarter note on the E line, then you sing it for one beat and if there’s a whole note on the E line, then you sing it for four beats.  We practice.

I remember also learning “Every Good Boy Does Fine” for the lines of the treble clef, but when the kids can’t read that well yet, that would only confuse them.

Activity Time

I wanted to draw a staff on the floor with tape, but since I couldn’t find the tape, I improvised.  I grabbed a stack of white paper and cut a bunch of strips in it.  I labeled the end of every row of strips with its note name.  Then I told the kids, “Everybody stand on the E.” We all did.  “Now, everybody jump to the G” and we jumped to the 2^nd line.  We jumped up to the F and back down the spaces.  Then I asked Briana to do the lines.  To my surprise, given the amount of new info thrown at her today, she jumped – “E. G. B. D. F” and got them all right!  Matt and I were both floored and started clapping.

 We jumped to different notes and played around a bit.  Sadly, this would have worked much better with the tape because we had to keep fixing the lines.

In case you’re wondering why Abby is in pjs and Bree is in a semi-formal, it’s because my diva, Briana, saw the camera come out and said she had to put real clothes on, and then she ran upstairs and dressed herself.  Abby didn’t care.

Then we got out those notes that Matt cut out for us, and put them on the lines and tried to sing the songs we wrote.  We started with short 2 or 3 note “songs” and ramped up when everyone was feeling silly.

 Then I left the music making to my protégés, and I ran out the door to a spinning class.  Hey, I have to take advantage of the few days that my husband is home during the day and agrees to let me duck out for an hour or so.  From what I hear, there was lots of staff jumping, dancing, music composing, and singing all afternoon.

FOUR days later, we went to music class and Briana immediately ran over to the staff on the floor.  She looked at it for a minute and said “Mommy this IS a real music staff.  It has five lines.” She then jumped along them singing “E-G-B-D-F, E-G-B-D-F.  Names of the lines on the treble clef.”  When the kids were told to sit down, Briana said “I’m sitting on music note, Mommy.”  I asked her what note it was and she said she didn’t know at first.  I said “Let’s look at it.  It has circle, with a stick and it is not colored in.  What is it?”  She thought for a minute and then loudly blurted out “It’s a HALF NOTE.  I’m sitting on the half note!”  I couldn’t help but smile with pride as the other moms in the toddler music class looked at me with wide eyes.  Then one mom asked “How old is she?” and when I said “3 as of October.”  She simply replied, “Wow!”.  My thoughts exactly. J

If you want more music related crafts and ideas, I think this blog is a great one:

http://munchkinsandmusic.blogspot.com/2008/08/box-guitar-craft.html

<3 Pedigreed Housewife