Music at PS 9

Last Updated on Sunday, 05 February 2012 15:50 Written by Deborah Kramer, Lower Music (K-3) and Brenda Gutierrez, Upper Music (3-5)

This year: 2011 – 2012, the school schedule has 8 class periods every day (This year the day is divided into 8 teaching periods, instead of what used to be a 7 period day.) This allows for more music sessions with your children.

Kindergarten and First Grade

• Once a week in the music room as individual classes; once a week in the auditorium as grade-wide “choirs”

• Once a week “Enrichment” period-- an extra class which may be music, art, language arts, Spanish or science (This rotates.)

Second through Fifth Grades

• Twice a week as individual classes in the music room, classroom or auditorium

• Ms. Kramer and Ms. Gutierrez have complimentary lessons with the third grade classes each week.

All students K through 5 learn and explore the Elements of Music:

• Steady Beat: like your heart

• Tempo: from fast to slow (like a horse or a turtle)

• Meter: the number of beats in a measure

• Duration (length): from long to short notes

• Rhythm: a mixture of long & short notes

• Pitch: from high to low

• Melody = Pitch + Rhythm

• Dynamics: from loud to soft

• Tone Color: the quality of the sound

• Texture: from simple to complex: from one instrument to many

• Genre: different kinds of music: Classical, Jazz, Folk, Rock, Rap…

• Form: verse/chorus, ABA…

Ms. Kramer talked about how important it is for all elementary students to sing in their high “head” voices as they breathe from their bellies and fill their lungs with air. She showed how she introduces the concept of “pitch” by tossing an imaginary baseball high while she sang in a high voice and then tossing it low while she sang in a low voice.

In K to 3 music, Ms. Kramer weaves together Movement, Instruments and Singing as the children Listen, Respond and Create in the music classroom. For Lower Music with Ms. Kramer your children need to wear SNEAKERS or rubber-soled shoes as they will run, jump, skip and dance in music class while internalizing rhythm and responding to music. !!!! Music is creativity and communication within a focused structure. In music class children also connect with concepts and classroom work in science, mathematics, language arts and social studies.

In Kindergarten, students start learning how vibrations cause us to hear sound. To demonstrate one way that the children explore what causes sounds to be high or low, Ms. Kramer played a small gong and a large gong. Size, length, thickness and tension all affect pitch. The Kindergarten music performance will be a “Kindergarten Sing” at the end of the year.

Students in First Grade begin to “measure” music with beats that are grouped together in twos, threes, fours and even fives and sixes. They learn to conduct as well as follow a conductor. Their music performance will be a percussion and singing performance in mid-March.

Students in Second Grade examine how words are set to music and create their own class songs, connecting their own lyrics with melodies they compose. The subjects of these songs connect to their social studies work with communities and with New York City. The Second Grade classes will perform their class songs at their music performance around the end of May/early June.

Students in Third Grade use music to connect to their class studies of immigration, China and Mexico. They deepen their understanding of the elements of music and compare the elements of music with the elements of movement and dance. (Outside of their music classes, each Third Grade class will create and perform a “Ballet” in early May with the help of their class teachers and directed by a teaching artist from the New York City Ballet.)

Ms. Kramer’s work with the third grade classes supports Ms. Gutierrez’ work which is more performance-based. Ms. Gutierrez showed a video clip of a third grade class playing “boom-whackers” (tubes that are different lengths and thus sound different pitches when hit).