Welcome to the 2020-2021 Kodály Musicianship class!!
In person Tuesdays - Online Fridays
And always with Kazoos!
Links to student websites
Caleb
Tyler G
Maitland
Emily
Mahima
Rebeca
Tyler C
Lexi
Scott C
Sydney
Ariana
Jordyn
Emily
Scott H
Chaitravi
Cynthia
Scotia
Amorette
April
Santina
Sarah
Thomas
Anna T
Adam
Anna V
Brooklyn
With a concerted effort to decolonize our musicianship environment we have begun with musics outside the western classical paradigm that too often guide and frame these kinds of classes. We began the term with Aretha Franklin's Chain of Fools and its harmonic use of only the I chord. This past week we entered hearing/singing and responding through our movements to I to V with the help of Hank Williams and Jambalaya. But before doing so asking the students to consider that Hank Williams learned to play guitar from Rufus Payne, and African American blues musician.
An engagement with Billy Ray Cyrus and Achy Breaky Heart encouraged us to line dance while singing the solfege to the chords - great fun!
And all along each week they have been choosing songs to cover by ear in solfege - which has meant anything from the theme to Halo, hymns, Broadway show tunes, and songs from their childhood.
While these engagements may seem to further the 18th century analytic model (white racial frame, Ewell, 2019) the goal is to move toward other understandings, other possibilities, of hearing and harmonizing.
We have started off the year using our ears - in this context we are figuring out a fun (rhythmic and solfege) bass line to sing with Peggy Lee and Fever - movement, sunglasses, and joy!
An engagement with Billy Ray Cyrus and Achy Breaky Heart encouraged us to line dance while singing the solfege to the chords - great fun!
And all along each week they have been choosing songs to cover by ear in solfege - which has meant anything from the theme to Halo, hymns, Broadway show tunes, and songs from their childhood.
While these engagements may seem to further the 18th century analytic model (white racial frame, Ewell, 2019) the goal is to move toward other understandings, other possibilities, of hearing and harmonizing.
We have started off the year using our ears - in this context we are figuring out a fun (rhythmic and solfege) bass line to sing with Peggy Lee and Fever - movement, sunglasses, and joy!
Maitland's version above.
The 2nd week assignment was to improvise patterns and find the home tone - that pesky home tone! Check out Anna!
Here is Mahima figuring out the solfege to a known song - they could choose anything to cover.
Here is Santina figuring out the solfege - in the moment! - to Elvis' Can't Help Falling in Love with You! Listen to how happy she is in her reflection!
Above - you see Caleb singing chords and making up his own line dance! Achy Breaky Heart!
Fabulous fun and embodiment of chord progressions!
We have all been paying closer attention and attending to the ways in which chords are used in music as well as solfege patterns. It turns out we listen and play but we never really consider...
Check out this reflection from Amorette:
"Finding these chords within music we play and listen to everyday is becoming much easier to identify. This class has definitely led me to pay more attention to the chords of songs and pieces that I am playing and listening to. For example, this week when I was playing the Suite Bergamasque Prelude by Debussy, there was a bar that got me thinking about what kind of chord it is and tried to sing it out to figure out whether it is in the home key or not. The photo of this part is the first photo in the slide show on my website. Through this class, I am becoming more curious about the chords and figuring out the underlying harmonies of the music. Another part of the piece by Debussy that got me interested in the chord is the second picture in the slideshow on this post. This is because in this bar, there is a unique melody being played which sounds a bit dissonant and this got me thinking about what kind of chord this bar is originating from. This led me to try figuring it out on the piano and by singing it out as well. This experience showed me the importance of figuring out what key certain chords are coming from, because it can help me with improving my playing which is something that I am always striving for. Another time that I found something that intrigued me was when I was listening to the song Something by The Beatles. This is a song that my cousin introduced to me a long time ago, and while I was listening to it I was wondering what key it was and tried doing the solfège for it. I was trying to figure out whether it was major or minor and what the home key sounded like. This activity has led me to think about the music around me in a deeper manner, trying to understand where it comes from and not just if it sounds good or not. This was a very interesting activity!"
And check out this reflection from Tyler C.:
"This past week I was listening to a lot of music, but I couldn't find any obvious chord changes because I feel like a lot of the music I listen to tends to be very tonally complex, so I decided to go back to some basics. I can very easily her the chord changes in Let it Be by the Beatles- the chords are I V IV VI. I tried stopping after each chord and singing the triad and I could do that. Then later during the week I was listening to Ed Sheeran, and I was humming along and thought maybe I could do the same. I had a little more trouble identifying the chords, but I can definitely can hear the triads and sing them up and down."
And here is Scott thinking through Who Can it Be Now?
"I went back and listened to Who Can It Be Now? by Men at Work and almost right away I noticed that the main chunk of the song tends to swing back and forth between I and what feels like the V below. This back and forth between I and V is set up in the intro of the song, and the pattern is almost never broken. I never really payed much attention when listening to this song because this is typically what I listen to when driving or working on something, but I definitely have noticed the chord changes now. These changes are the core of the song, much like Billy Ray Cyrus' Achy Breaky Heart, and having that brought to my attention really changed my perception of the song."
B is for Book - Pharrell Williams and Sesame Street
Fabulous fun and embodiment of chord progressions!
We have all been paying closer attention and attending to the ways in which chords are used in music as well as solfege patterns. It turns out we listen and play but we never really consider...
Check out this reflection from Amorette:
"Finding these chords within music we play and listen to everyday is becoming much easier to identify. This class has definitely led me to pay more attention to the chords of songs and pieces that I am playing and listening to. For example, this week when I was playing the Suite Bergamasque Prelude by Debussy, there was a bar that got me thinking about what kind of chord it is and tried to sing it out to figure out whether it is in the home key or not. The photo of this part is the first photo in the slide show on my website. Through this class, I am becoming more curious about the chords and figuring out the underlying harmonies of the music. Another part of the piece by Debussy that got me interested in the chord is the second picture in the slideshow on this post. This is because in this bar, there is a unique melody being played which sounds a bit dissonant and this got me thinking about what kind of chord this bar is originating from. This led me to try figuring it out on the piano and by singing it out as well. This experience showed me the importance of figuring out what key certain chords are coming from, because it can help me with improving my playing which is something that I am always striving for. Another time that I found something that intrigued me was when I was listening to the song Something by The Beatles. This is a song that my cousin introduced to me a long time ago, and while I was listening to it I was wondering what key it was and tried doing the solfège for it. I was trying to figure out whether it was major or minor and what the home key sounded like. This activity has led me to think about the music around me in a deeper manner, trying to understand where it comes from and not just if it sounds good or not. This was a very interesting activity!"
And check out this reflection from Tyler C.:
"This past week I was listening to a lot of music, but I couldn't find any obvious chord changes because I feel like a lot of the music I listen to tends to be very tonally complex, so I decided to go back to some basics. I can very easily her the chord changes in Let it Be by the Beatles- the chords are I V IV VI. I tried stopping after each chord and singing the triad and I could do that. Then later during the week I was listening to Ed Sheeran, and I was humming along and thought maybe I could do the same. I had a little more trouble identifying the chords, but I can definitely can hear the triads and sing them up and down."
And here is Scott thinking through Who Can it Be Now?
"I went back and listened to Who Can It Be Now? by Men at Work and almost right away I noticed that the main chunk of the song tends to swing back and forth between I and what feels like the V below. This back and forth between I and V is set up in the intro of the song, and the pattern is almost never broken. I never really payed much attention when listening to this song because this is typically what I listen to when driving or working on something, but I definitely have noticed the chord changes now. These changes are the core of the song, much like Billy Ray Cyrus' Achy Breaky Heart, and having that brought to my attention really changed my perception of the song."
B is for Book - Pharrell Williams and Sesame Street
We listened to Pharrell Williams and Elmo and Cookie Monster singing B is for Book. There is a fabulous descending bass line we tackled plus the bridge. Above Tyler G. is demonstrating how to think through processing the task and the task itself!
Driving the purpose of this class is that these aural skills - dictation and sight singing - have to be applicable to what musicians do in their everyday lives. Integral to that, then, is the way in which we approach dictation. Each week students either individually or in duets and trios present for our dictation. Mahima was first up with You are My Sunshine. She played guitar and sang while we first sketched out the chords then the melody. After getting that worked out half the class sang the melody, half the chords and then we all took the chords and improvised over the progression. WOO HOO!
Four weeks into class and we continue to think about chord progressions: being able to hear them, sing them and improvise over them. We brought Leadbelly's Bring Me Little Water Sylvie into class and then listened to other versions, including Sweet Honey on the Rock. Their task was to arrange their own version.
Lexi's is first up (a BIG shout out to her brother who provides the bass line - IN SOLFEGE!). In her reflection she notes her discovery that "the harmony line is just another part of the chord" - this is EXACTLY what we hope for students - these moments of discovery where they come to realize the ways in which these musics work and work upon us. Beyond the reflection this is a beautiful arrangement and who doesn't love a puppy in the mix!?
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Here is Matiland's version - she was fond of the Waylin' Jenny's version and used those harmonies to guide her arrangement. Glorious!
The male voice! Thank you Thomas! It just feels as if he is happy singing this arrangement!
Brooklyn!! These students are really stepping up to the challenge and doing beautifully!
Working on getting the solfege under our tongue - reflecting on the process of achieving fluency with solfege. First we have Anna V, Thomas, Tyler G. and then Matiland and Cynthia recording themselves as they walk.
Friday dictation time! This week Scotia and Caleb played a clarinet duet for us! Simple yet so musical - thank you both!
Friday October 23, 2020 ZOOM dictation with Cynthia. Again, simple lines played beautifully. Always modelling musicianship. (Accompaniment by Laura)
Friday Dictation with Tyler G. Tyler helped us hear chords in their inversions - throwing in interesting chords to throw us off our normal progressions. A fine fine musician who will be a caring and crazily musical teacher.
We spent some time improvising to a back track and then took those improvisations and made compositions.
Friday Dictation with Lexi on tenor playing Let is Snow with Mahima on piano. We wrote it out and then sang it next class from memory.
Friday Dictation with Amorette! Deck the Halls - We then went on to sing all four parts of the carol in solfege, of course! We sang the song 4 times so we could each take a turn on each part.
Friday Dictation with April and Maitland. They played the Theme from Jurassic Park - this was a favourite of mine, as the fa plays a prominent role in this melody. And they all know by now that fa is my favourite note!
Not sure how or why it took me so long to figure out that you can add and accentuate one's image! LOL! I, of course, blamed the students for not informing me!
Unfortunately we were unable to hold the Annual Solfege Sing a Long which had traditionally taken place in the Airport Lounge. But we were able to sing through several carols in class (in soflege). We talked about HOW to find our parts as we moved from treble to bass clef. Many in the class did not grow up as part singers, so tricks of the trade such as finding your note off another part, felt like cheating to them! We totally set that straight! A large focus of the class is addressing metacognitive strategies by sharing with others how we figured something out. Teachers too often assume students KNOW HOW to figure something out, when they often don’t even know where to begin. This class is filled with mindful teachers to be! Happy to have them in my life.
Final two canons of the term composed by Martini - the assignment was to learn and record. First presentation is Caleb, who enters every project with joy (and conveys such joy in them), the second is from Scotia who has grown so very, very much since the beginning of this term (because she wanted to grow), and the third from Maitland, who recorded both as canons, which is a next term project :)
FRIDAY DICTATION CONTINUES
Anna helps us hear long phrases with Somewhere Over the Rainbow
Anna helps us hear long phrases with Somewhere Over the Rainbow
Rebeca plays an excerpt out of Figaro which helps with hearning melody as chords (and the fun little bit at the end (mfsfm)
And then.... immersing ourselves in Dorian
Sarah singing Scarborough Fair
Maitland found the following and sent it my way - the best is the dropping of the aural skills book at the end!
Thomas recording of Canon #131 Classical Canon book) Composer Webbe (1740-1816)
Glorious!
Glorious!
And Cynthia's version! this is HUGE for Cynthia and not just because it's beautifully but because this is an example of students focusing on developing their musicianship because they WANT TO and not because they are receiving marks
Dorian Improvisation! We LOVE Dorian!!
Anna also makes connections to other Dorian melodies as well as the difference between improvising on her trumpet vs how she hears differently when singing.
Check out Tyler's improv as well! Listen through to the reflection - the educative "piece" lays not just in the musicking but the reflection as well!.
Here come the Dorian canons composed and recorded by the students! First off, Thomas - make sure to listen through to how he ends it and absoltuley read his reflection and the shout out to his mom!
Thomas Reflection: I am very happy with how this project turned out. I am very proud of the result and am quite surprised with how the harmonies sounded in three parts. I did end up recording the canon three separate times to change some notes to make it sound better and it did end up taking me a while to do, roughly 2 hours, but I feel it was worth it because I was still able to make it sound how I wanted it to without having to crop any of the vocal lines until the ending since I added some impromptu ornamentation to end the canon. One thing that was the most frustrating for me was practicing the canon to get it so I could get some of the jumps, but what surprised me was that the big jumps weren't as much trouble to me as some of the minor and major third jumps, (there were plenty). Also, when getting my first track of vocals it was also tricky to stay in tune, (which is why there are a few wonky pitches in some lines), but since I doubled all of the voices i was able to help hide a few of the sharp and flat pitches. Another thing that I am happy with is how the vocals almost have a choral sound to them in the mix with just a bit of reverb and echo effects. In short I am super happy with how this turned out and I hope you enjoy listening to it.
P.S. A little note because I posted this on facebook and some people were wondering. (mainly family members. I'm looking at you mom! lol)
1. No, I did not use any auto-tune or vocal correcting effects to record the song, just reverb and echo.
2. Yes, it is more than just three tracks, it's three parts each tracked two separate times put over top of each other. (something I picked up when I was in the recording studio with my band)
P.S. A little note because I posted this on facebook and some people were wondering. (mainly family members. I'm looking at you mom! lol)
1. No, I did not use any auto-tune or vocal correcting effects to record the song, just reverb and echo.
2. Yes, it is more than just three tracks, it's three parts each tracked two separate times put over top of each other. (something I picked up when I was in the recording studio with my band)
Rebeca added percussion to her Dorian Canon! How about an aural skills class where this kind of creativity is embedded in the learning process - This is stunning! I would totally teach this to a class!
Adam recorded a 4 part arrangement of Kingsfold Flute Quartet - which is in DORIAN!!! Fabulous to have this! Thanks Adam!!
Caldara #39
Jordyn - such a lovely lovely sound! Velvet lower notes - Just glorious top to bottom!
Maitland at a clip! WOO HOO!
Lexi KNOWS knows knows I LOVE those fas!!!
Anna V. - beautiful high tones - floating!
Today was our penultimate class. We thought through, alone and with others, what we experienced this past year. Here is from Amorette
- Smoothly executing Solfège
- Being able to smoothly go through a passage with solfège, something that wasn’t possible at the beginning of the year. Having improved on this has helped with our identification of solfège in songs around us and the speed in which we can identify solfège as well.
- Being able to smoothly go through a passage with solfège, something that wasn’t possible at the beginning of the year. Having improved on this has helped with our identification of solfège in songs around us and the speed in which we can identify solfège as well.
- Improvisation, not being scared of improvising
- Not being scared of improvising now, being able to freely improvise without being scared of it not being right or wrong. By doing exercises with backing tracks and rhythms, it helps with the variety we can do when we improvise. Doing different rhythms and chords is scary but we are more comfortable with it now.
- Using loo, a lot before doing actual solfège
- Practicing on loo which helps us get familiar with the pitches first, since what is bothering us are the names of the solfège and not the pitches most of the time. By using loo first, it can help us internalize the pitch before we go on and change the words. This can help students and us find pitches better and faster, instead of starting off on solfège.
- Learning musical concepts, but facilitating it in pedagogy
- Through learning concepts in class, once we have to do an assignment we essentially have to teach ourselves again. This leads to us teaching ourselves with methods that we learned in class. By teaching ourselves, we are learning how we can teach our future students and the different methods we can use in our future classroom.
- Canons
- Allowing us to be able to stick to a single melody while others are singing something else around you, leading to more focus on your own part in order to fit in to the other parts. It also helped us in being able to understand chords and how each part fit in with each other, writing one helped with this understanding.
- Active listening
- We were able to carefully listen to pieces and being aware of what you are listening for. It helped us identify notes or rhythms through actively listening throughout a piece and finding out to be hyper aware of what is happening within the piece aside from the melody. Actively listening leads us to do so with the people around us, helping us get notes or finding our place when singing in a group environment.
- Labels and being attentive to students
- Being careful of how you address the students and how they want to be addressed. We want to not order students around but suggest or give them option to decline what they are not comfortable with doing, such as standing up, so we say, “stand up if you’re able.” It is also important to not address them as a group, but as individuals, because what is alright for one person may not be alright for another person.
We took the penultimate class to think through what kinds of issues came up throughout the year, what kinds of pedagogical strategies we are taking away. Always fabulous discussion and engaged musicianship.
Below -Caleb singing the melody to Longest Time - in solfege- of course! Everyone was so happy to hear him sing - this is the class community that was built- no jealousy or envy, just joy
Our last class today - perhaps the last ever. BUT lovely lovely shout out to Laura Curtis - extraordinary TA - who helped all of us be more thoughtful musicians and humans! We love you Laura! (Thanks to Maitland and Amorette for this!)
A few weeks earlier everyone chose a song of their own and covered the rhythms - after discussion as to where one might find the straight ahead rhythms mostly found in sight singing books (and large ensembles) - we (Cathy) decided we need to think through why we might need to be able to hear rhythms, or at the very least an outline of them. This is waaaayy challenging. Many of the students thought through the issues of using western notational rhythm syllables to sing through musics that didn't lend themselves or should not be used at all with many musics.
The Assignment was to listen to a song of their choice and figure out the rhythms - of course, the rhythms are never articulated this way and the artists never sing these exact rhythms but such a fabulous assignment to use thinking in rhythm to hear differently.
First up: Tyler G having the time of their life! Such JOY!! and Fabulous singing, Tyler!
Maitland and Champagne Supernova - WOOOO!
Mahima and La Vie en Rose - I LOVE THIS ASSIGNMENT!
April - covering ROCK AND ROLL! (she promised she played this LOUDLY)
Rebeca and the most INSANE rhythmic structures EVER! SO WELL DONE!
Here come the final projects!
Maitland and Mama who Bore me - Music Theatre and these chords at the BEST! Oh my gosh!
Emily covering Somebody that I used to know - I LOVE this song and Emily's cover demonstrates the AMAZING harmonies in there you might not hear normally. GORGEOUS! (perfect "fas"!)
THOMAS CREATED A MUSIC VIDEO! (one of the best things about watching any video Thomas creates is that he always situates the assignment - so if there are any Martians out there wanting to know what we did in this class, go to his website). I also love his joy!
A MAJOR part of this course are the required reflections that accompany each assignment. April's might be on the long side, but what joy and what desire to think about how to be a teacher - thank you for this, April!
Rebeca chose a song her parents love! What a gift! And who doesn't understand the brilliance of Neil Sedaka!? AND the RHYTHM SYLLABLES! WOO HOO!
When I received this I was speechless: Who knew solfege and rhythm names could be so real and beautiful! THANK YOU TYLER GROVES! How about these harmonies!
They all had to email me what they thought they would record before recording and Jordyn told me she wanted to cover the theme song from The Office, I was like- well, who doesn't love that song!? Here you go: Thank you Jordyn!
What would this activity be without BRITNEY! Thank YOU Caleb!!!
Brooklyn! The BEST line in her reflection is when she was musing about the "appropriateness" of this song and then said, "But hey, I'm singing solfege" LOL!
Sydney! What growth over the year! Soooo. very happy for her!
Ariana with City of Stars! She took so many steps to put this togehter!
