Spontanious Combustion of Collaboration!

Students were told to finish up some work and then go practice the melody of an Orff (Keetman) piece I taught them in the previous class. While I was working with some students on their written assignment, I realized that several practice groups emerged-  clusters of students working together to review the melody. One child who was working the same melody at the piano was sort of leading the troops and later decided to change "do" (the tonic) to a different pitch which sounds horribly wonderful!

I was hesitant to stop the delightful collaborative work, but I wanted to make sure the melody process was complete so we could venture forward next time and shape the piece with other instrument parts and form... here's how lovely the melody turned out after a very short time of practicing:

The piece is from a book I love called "Discovering Keetman," compiled by Jane Frazee- the name of the activity is written down as "Keetman #12" because there isn't really a name for it- or even a poem that goes with it. Next week, these students will compose their own lyrics and we will create a form based on "verses" they've written alternated by the melody played on instruments.

If you're interested in the process of this lesson... the time before in music class, I said- "hey everyone listen to this song you're all going to be able to play by the end of class!"

I played it and then listened to their comments like, "that's too hard" or "I won't be able to remember all of that!" or "how did you DO THAT?"- but when we analyzed the melody through solfege and the wrote the rhythm out together phrase by phrase- the kids were "tricked" into already having it memorized before ever touching an instrument. Gunild Keetman, a student of Carl Orff, wrote these exercises with young children in mind. She truly inspires me!