Winter Bells : Pitch Exploration

Lesson Demo and more

Rhythm is a foundational concept in music. Students should have a strong and natural sense of rhythm and time in order to be successful performers. However, it is not true that the Dalcroze approach is not useful in developing strong TONAL concepts. Melodic and harmonic facility are huge priorities in our work, with many innovative and powerful principles for teachers to embrace. When I’m working with primary students, in grades K-1, my first priority is simple PITCH COMPARATIVES. Which is higher? Which is lower? Which is the same? There are ways to embed these simple concepts in engaging and playful games that activate the whole body and integrate other musical elements. In this post I’ll share a demo of one of these activities and a “song” I use. But first…

Housekeeping:

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From the Archive:

This lesson starts sitting in a circle. I have a few of these “bell ladder” sets, and I have put them to good use in this lesson!

We’ll listen to the bells individually BEFORE we put them on the ladder and figure out together what order they should go in. This is an effective way to make the “higher” and “lower” terminology a concrete and visual reality. Sometimes it’s confusing because the “smaller” bells are “higher” even though they are often shorter than the bigger ones…. seems counterintuitive to the students.