Playing – Shake, Rattle and Roll

“Jazzy Cats’ Walk”, music by Tracy Rohan

Learning Context:
Playing instruments; Music literacies; Technology
YEAR/S: 1-3 / DURATION: 4 – 8 sessions
CURRICULUM LEVEL: Level Two
Values highlighted in this unit / How will these values be encouraged?
Excellence / Striving for rhythmic playing with correct playing technique.
Innovation, inquiry and curiosity / Willingness to ask questions and try new things.
Diversity / Students of all abilities and backgrounds can engage together using the language of music.
Equity / All having opportunities to participate to the best of their ability.
Community and participation / Joining in all activities and working collaboratively. Listening to others.
Care for the environment / Respect and care for the instruments.
Integrity / Sharing resources and ideas openly. Respecting others in their group.
Key Competencies highlighted in this unit / How will these competencies be encouraged?
Managing self / Setting personal high standards. Showing enthusiasm and commitment.
Relating to others / Sharing ideas, listening to others. Following a leader/conductor.
Participating and contributing / Active participation in all activities. Tolerance and understanding of individual differences.
Thinking / Drawing on previous knowledge to bring to simple improvisations. Following the beat.
Using language, symbols and texts / Early music reading opportunities.
Achievement Objectives highlighted in this unit
Developing Practical Knowledge in Music – Sound Arts (PK)
Communicating and Interpreting in Music – Sound Arts (CI)
Developing Ideas in Music – Sound Arts (DI)
Learning Outcomes
In this unit the children will develop the ability to:
  • Use suitable playing techniques with untuned and tuned percussion instruments. (PK, CI)
  • Play in time with the beat. (PK)
  • Improvise simple rhythmic and melodic patterns over a beat. (PK, DI)
  • Read and play simple rhythmic notation. (PK, CI)

Information for teachers
This is a pentatonic piece using the notes C, D, E, G and A. It includes improvised melody and rhythm lines. The other parts can be either simplified or made more difficult to suit the playing confidence of your children. For example, adding some quaver (eighth note) patterns would make the piece more challenging and rhythmically interesting.
The instruments for this piece are suggestions only. Substitute other instruments that are available to you.
Resources
  • Tuned percussion instruments
  • Untuned percussion instruments
  • Sound files – Pentatonic scale in C, “Swing Low” ostinati (2 versions), “Jazzy Cats’ Walk”.

Games and Starters
Beat detective
The children sit in a circle. A child is chosen to be the beat detective and goes out of the room. Another child is then chosen to lead the actions, which the rest of the children copy in time to the beat of a piece of music. The leader must change the action as often as possible. The beat detective returns, stands in the middle of the circle, and tries to guess who is leading the actions. Choose music with a strong, slowish pulse for this game. Teddy Bears’ Picnic works well.
Guess this
The teacher or a chosen leader claps the rhythm of a familiar song, poem or a child’s name for the others to copy and then guess.
Pentatonic play
Give all the children one chime bar from the pentatonic scale of C (either C, D, E, G, or A). Clap a rhythm for them to echo on their chime bar and discuss how the notes all sound good together.
Mouse and hippo
Talk to children about how they can tell the difference between high sounds and low sounds (shorter bars are the high sounds, longer bars are the low sounds.) Using a mouse picture and a hippo picture to make a pattern. For example, mouse, mouse, hippo, mouse. Children play a high note for mouse and a low note for hippo.


Learning Experiences
  • Introduce the concept of the pentatonic scale of C. The notes are C, D,
E, G and A. Help the children to remove the Fs and Bs (frogs and butterflies) from the barred instruments. If the bars can’t be removed put sticker dots on the bars that can be played. Play around with these notes, for example, play for the children to echo: C C C C C, D D D D D, E E E E E, G G G G G, A A A A A. If you don’t have enough tuned percussion for the whole class, have the remainder of the children using body percussion or untuned percussion and swap around regularly.
  • Play Pentatonic scale in C, listen to it a few times, and then get children to join in.
  • Explore the song, “Swing Low Sweet Chariot” and create some very simple ostinati, for example, C, C, C, rest/ C, C, C rest or G, A, G, G/ G, A, G, G
  • Use the audio file examples and play along. Half the class could be the “choir” and the other half, the “band”. The two ostinati on the audio file are: C, C, G, G / C, G, G, rest (Ostinato 1) and C rest C,D / C rest, C,D. (Ostinato 2)

Swing Low - Ostinato 1 Swing Low - Ostinato 1 and 2 combined
  • Provide some opportunities for some simple improvisation. Use question and answer with untuned percussion and then tuned percussion. Encourage the children to keep their improvisations simple and rhythmic.
  • Introduce “Jazzy Cats’ Walk”. Listen to the recording.
  • Choose children to be the jazzy cats. These children improvise either on the rhythm, using untuned percussion, or the melody, playing the notes of the C pentatonic scale on tuned percussion.
  • The others play the ostinati (repeated patterns) as illustrated on the recording.
  • The child who is improvising on tuned percussion may need the support of a repeating rhythmic pattern to improvise to, for example, “jazzy, jazzy, pussycat”. They can then play any notes from the pentatonic scale to the rhythm pattern of these words.

Assessment
Repetition, reinforcement and regular involvement in practical playing activities are the keys to supporting children’s development of rhythmic and melodic playing skills.
Use suitable playing techniques with basic percussion instruments, both tuned and untuned. (PK, CI)
  • Can the children identify playing techniques that make the clearest, most resonant sound?
  • Are they using mallets correctly on the tuned percussion instruments?
Play in time with the beat (PK)
  • Can the children keep a steady beat using body percussion and instrumental percussion?
  • Can they identify and play in time when the beat is slow, fast, getting slower and getting faster?
Improvise simple rhythmic or melodic patterns over a beat (PK, DI)
  • Can the children improvise rhythm over an underlying beat, using body percussion or untuned percussion instruments?
  • Can they improvise a melody or melodic pattern using two or more notes from the pentatonic scale?
Read and play simple rhythmic notation (PK, CI)
  • How well can the children read and respond to simple rhythmic notation that uses conventional notation?

Accessed from Into Music 1 Classroom Music in Years 1 - 3, Ministry of Education 2001 (Learning Media)