I recently talked about how concerts AREN’T everything. BUT, they ARE still a part of life. And not only are they a part of life, but sometimes you can’t help the situation. They may be required, your school may have specific performances that are done every year and changing that will be an issue, or you’ve committed to them. Whatever the case, conceptual learning can still happen during the busy times of year. Here’s a few was you can use holiday and concert music to teach concepts.
Songs with Age Appropriate Concepts
If you are singing songs that *happen* to have age appropriate concepts and nothing else, go for it! For example, Up on the Housetop is a great song for Half Note. If you want this file for teaching half note, check it out here.
Isolate
More likely, you’ll have songs that have a wide variety of concepts that don’t necessarily fit the age group singing it for conceptual learning. As it should be. Students should be exposed to songs with “more difficult” rhythmic concepts and a wide variety of tones. Not only is it long term prep for learning those concepts, no one wants to sing only sol-mi-la songs if those are the only ones they have ‘studied’ in class.
For example, The Twelve Days of Christmas is a great way to isolate Low Sol to Do even though the song has “more complex” solfege concepts in other spots.
Without focusing on a religious holiday, Auld Lang Syne is a great song for Tam Ti
When isolating music for conceptual learning, sing and use as you normally would, rehearse or however you are using it. Then when you need to work on that concept in the prepare/present/practice stage you are in, isolate just that phrase/set of text that contains the target concept. This 2 measure phrase above would be all that I would show if I was isolating for Tam Ti even though the rhythm continues similarly.
Focus on Musicality
If you are struggling to make concert music work for a concept, work on some of the other elements of music! This is a great place to add in tempo and dynamic terms, talk about mood or look at performance norms. Have students experiment with different dynamics, crescendos or decrescendos in different places, or play with tempo changes to see how it alters the mood.
A great listening example of this is Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas vs Michael Buble’s version!
I hope this has given you some ideas!
