EDCI306A
Recorder Progress – March.6 – 26
After I had successfully learnt Mary had a little lamb and felt confident in my breath control, I moved on to learn “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”. This song was by far the most challenging for me. It was significantly longer than the other 3 songs I had learned prior and consisted of a wider range of notes. Since I felt confident in my ability to play each note separately, I went straight to the measures. I started by playing the first measure over and over until I could play through it smoothly. The biggest challenge for me was moving from the C to the G as it was a big jump. Since I struggled with this, I practiced just transitioning between these two notes. This helped me to smooth out that transition. I then moved on to the next measure, which had the F note in it. I find that the F note is tricky to move into as the fingering for that note is more complex. I had to slow down this part to be able to play this note correctly. After a lot of practice, I could play each measure successfully. I then attempted to put all of the measures together. I started by playing at a slower pace. I found this is where I struggled the most with my breath control. I could get through the first 3 lines, but by the 4th I felt out of breath. I practiced focusing on my breath and taking those breaths when I could so that I was able to get to the last line without feeling lightheaded and out of breath. After quite a bit of practice, I successfully got to the last measure without feeling out of breath. Once I got through the whole song and could control my breath well, I moved onto playing the song at the normal pace. This was a challenge, but after lots of practice, I was able to play the whole song at the correct pace. Once I had the pace down, I began practicing without the notes. By the end of my practicing schedule, I was able to successfully play “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”. This was a big accomplishment for me as I found it was a difficult song to play. Overall, I now feel more confident in my ability to play the recorder, which will be beneficial for me as I move into the classroom. If I have to teach a music lesson at least now I have more background knowledge, then I previously did.
Recorder Progress – Feb.24 – March 6
The next step I took was to learn “Mary had a little lamb”. For this song, I put a large focus on my breath control, because this was still something that I had trouble with. This song was more advanced than the first two, but it was a good progression. I found this song challenging because it had many lower notes in it. I find the lower notes much harder to get the right sound out of. I practiced each note separately to make sure I felt confident in each one before putting it all together. I found making that “tuh” sound into the recorder was very helpful, and it allowed me to get the correct sound out of the note. This was when I had to put an even larger focus on my breath control as I found that as soon as I began to feel out of breath, the “tuh” sound was much more difficult to make, affecting the sound of the note. Once I could confidently play every note in the song, I started to learn each measure. I started on the first one, which was EDCD. Since I had spent a lot of time practicing each of these notes, it was easy to play the measure. Even though it felt easy to play the measures separately, I still practiced each one so that I felt confident in my abilities before putting it all together. I then put all of the measures together. To start, I went at a slower pace so that I would successfully learn each measure. My first try went well, but I made a few mistakes when transitioning between notes. So, I went through the song multiple more times at that slower pace until I was error-free. After accomplishing that, I played the whole piece at the actual pace of the song. I had to practice this multiple times as I struggled with transitioning from note to note at a faster pace. I especially found it challenging going from the lower notes (E, D, C) to the G note. After practicing the song at this pace, I was able to go through the whole song smoothly. I continued to practice even when I got it so that I could make it sound as good as possible. By the end, I was happy with my progress, and I felt confident in my ability to play “Mary had a little lamb” without looking at the notes.
Protected: Recorder Progress – Midterm
Recorder Progress – Feb.5-24
After I had mastered “Hot Cross Buns” and was feeling even better about the notes I learned, I began to try learning a more complex song. I chose “Happy Birthday”, which included the notes D, E, G, F, A, B, and C. This song had a significantly larger variety of notes, which made it much more challenging. I started slowly and worked measure by measure to allow me to practice switching between notes. Since this song had a larger variety of notes, I found it difficult to switch between them, especially ones that were not right beside each other (like they were in hot cross buns). It was also more challenging than “Hot Cross Buns” because it had both low and high notes. I was still working on mastering those lower notes, so it took me even longer to work on switching from lower ones to higher ones. After quite a bit of practice, I felt confident in my ability to play each measure and switch between notes smoothly. The next step I took was to put the four measures altogether. This took me quite a bit of time to be able to do smoothly. I found it challenging to put all of the measures together while making the transitions flow between the notes. I made sure to start doing this slowly to give myself more time to switch. Once I felt more comfortable, I sped up the pace to the normal tempo of the song. I had to practice it many times at the normal pace to be able to feel confident in my ability to play the song. After I felt comfortable playing it, I practiced “Happy Birthday” without looking at the sheet. This did not take me too long to learn as I already had a lot of practice with the song and the notes within it. I now feel as though I can confidently play “Happy Birthday” and I am excited to play this for my students when there is a birthday in the classroom. Overall learning this song was a challenge for me, but after lots of practice, I was able to play it well. I am excited to challenge myself even further and learn harder and longer songs.
Recorder Progress – Jan. 24 – Feb. 5
I chose to play the recorder for my musical growth project. The last time I played recorder was when I was in grade 3, so safe to say I was very rusty at the beginning. I started with the wrong hand positioning, which made learning some of the notes quite difficult. I felt that I could not reach my pinky down to the bottom hole and as a result, the notes were sounding off. I shortly realized that my left-hand goes on the top and that allowed me to reach those low notes. I then started my journey by learning the basic notes on the recorder. I was able to get a hang of the first few notes right away (B, A, and G), but I found the lower notes much more challenging. I found it difficult to keep the note consistent. It was very dependent on my breath and I had not figured out that technique yet. I struggled with playing the note softly enough but not too soft that you couldn’t hear it. After Anita taught me the breathing technique of making a “tu” sound as you breathe out, all of the notes were sounding much better and I found it easier to control the softness of my breath. This tip allowed me to play each of those notes correctly. I now feel confident in my ability to play C, D, E, F, F#, G, A, B, C, D. Once I felt as though I had mastered that, I began to learn my first song, which was “Hot Cross Buns”. This song was a good place for me to start especially because it consisted of the three notes I was feeling most confident about (B, A, G). I started off slow and had difficulty controlling my breath. I was finding that I would get halfway through the song and would feel like I needed to stop to take a breath. After a few days of practicing, I figured out my breath control and was able to play the song much better. I now feel that I can play this piece well and I do not need to look at the notes to guide me. It has been a fun journey so far and I am excited to continue to learn and develop my skills.
Blog #4 – FPPL and Teaching Reflection
In my Music Education class, I along with three others had to create a lesson plan that incorporated Music and one of either Language Arts, Science, or Math. My group and I chose to do our Music lesson integrated with a Language Arts lesson. We also incorporated the First Peoples Principle of Learning into our lesson.
Going into teaching, I felt a little nervous, but mainly excited. I was excited about the activities we chose for our lesson and was eager to share them with my classmates. As a group, we taught the first 15 minutes of our lesson and divided this up into four equal parts so that we all had a chance to teach a part. I think overall this went smoothly and that we all had time to practice our teaching skills. Our first activity involved the use of alliteration in the song “Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear”, in which we gave each student a wooden stick to hit the ground or their desk with everytime the heard the “T’ sound. In this activity, you could see the students focus and accuracy, which as a teacher made me feel as though this activity was a success. Our next activity was the one that I co-teached with one of my group members. She started off the lesson, and I finished it. Together we did a good job of explaining the activity briefly, but concisely. Our peers were engaged with this lesson and seemed to be having a lot of fun with it. As the teacher, this was great to see and made me feel like our lesson was well planned out and engaging. We received a lot of great feedback at the end of our lesson, which made me feel more confident in both my lesson planning and teaching skills. Two things that we could work on for next time were, handing out the wooden rhythm sticks after the instructions are fully done otherwise some students play with them distracting others from the teachers instructions and clarifying what “T’ sound we were looking for (te as in teddy vs tuh as pronounced in the). Other than these two suggestions, I feel that our lesson ran smoothly and I am happy with our outcome. I personally felt like I accomplished the professional development goals we created for our lesson and that our lesson was a success! I also gained some valuable tips that would be helpful for me the next time I teach this lesson.
Within our lesson plan, we included the First Peoples Principle of Learning. Before this year I did not have a lot of knowledge or understanding of the FPPL, but with some discussions about it in class and some resources provided by my teacher, I gained a much deeper understanding on the FPPL and how to incorporate them into the classroom. For our lesson plan, we chose two principles that we believed best fit our lesson. Those were “Aboriginal spirituality is not about religious dogma, but rather is about establishing healthy relationships with all things, including one’s relatives, one’s nation, and the natural environment” (Stonechild, in Rebeiz & Cooke, 2017, p. 20) and In the past, “teaching was not didactic, but accomplished through storytelling, ceremony, experiential learning, reflection, and modeling” (Simpson, 2011, p. 137). We thought that these two were the most fitting for our lesson plan. I found I could incorporate these FPPL into our lesson plan and I felt that it was important to add these in. With a few good resources and a class discussion on these FPPL, I found I gained a much better understanding of the First Peoples Principles of Learning.
Overall, my first experience teaching a music lesson and incorporating the First Peoples Principle Learning went very well. I felt confident in my teaching and proud of the lesson plan we created. It was well received by our peers and everyone seemed to be engaged in the lesson. I am glad we had this opportunity.
Blog #3 – Shift in Musical and Professional Identity
I have now completed all of my goals for my musical and pedagogy growth plans. This has really shifted both my musical and professional identities and my confidence in both my ability and knowledge. Going into this course I had almost no musical knowledge and was nervous, now through these growth plans, I feel much more confident in both my musical and professional abilities. Since my midterm, I believe that my ukulele skills have improved significantly and I have gained quite a passion for playing. I have also obtained 5 more valuable resources that I can use when teaching students.
My musical identity has greatly shifted since the beginning of this course. I now know how to tune a ukulele, how to play 8 different chords – G, C, Am, F, A, Gm, Dm, and G7, and how to play 4 songs – I’m Yours by Jason Mraz, Riptide by Vance Joy, Sunday Morning by Maroon 5, and Yellow by Coldplay. The last 4 chords I learned really challenged me and allowed me to gain a more depth understanding of how to play the ukulele. I still struggled with moving my fingers quickly between chords, but I believe that I did improve at this and with a little more practice I will be able to move my fingers quickly to the different chords. The two new songs I learned for this half of my musical growth were both much more difficult songs, however, I thought the challenge allowed me to get better at my ukulele skills. I now feel confident in my ability to play the ukulele and I am excited to keep learning more to further my skills. My next goal is to get a capo and play around with that.
My professional identity has also greatly shifted from the testing of the apps I have done. Since my midterm, I have thoroughly tested and reviewed 5 more apps. By reviewing these apps I have gained many resources that will help me when teaching music to my future students. It has also allowed me to become more comfortable with using a variety of different apps and has improved my technology literacy. I have also further developed my skills in note reading, and rhythm from spending time using each app. I feel much more confident in my ability to teach music to students and I have gained many helpful resources that will be of use to me and my students.
Overall, creating both my music and pedagogy growth plans has allowed me to gain more experience both musically and professionally and I have gained many helpful resources from doing this. Since my midterm, I feel even more confident in my musical and professional identities. I am grateful I had the opportunity this term to work on my musical ability and knowledge because I now feel more confident in teaching elementary students about music and its importance in everyday life. I am excited to keep learning and expanding my skills!
Protected: Musical Growth – Final
Musical Pedagogy – Final
Since my midterm, I have reviewed 5 more music apps. I have now in total reviewed 10 music apps, which has allowed me to find ones that would be helpful when teaching music. I gave a list of pros and cons, a summary and an overall rating for each app. From these 5 apps, my favourite one was Rhythm Cat. I liked how it taught the user about rhythm in a fun and engaging way and that you would level up when you were accurate enough. From all the apps I have reviewed my favourite one and the one I would be most likely to use is Notes Teacher. This app is a very useful tool to help you learn the notes in a fun challenging way. Below are my 5 music app reviews.
App #6: Notes Trainer
Pros:
- Free
- Many exercises to choose from which allows you to work on a specific thing that you’ve been struggling with (ex. notes on lines or notes between lines)
- Allows you to learn note positions and the sound of them
Cons:
- The more detailed version costs money – this one only has 9 exercises to chose from
- Only is good for learning notes and gets repetitive
Summary:
This app is a great tool for practicing basic note training. You can choose if you want to learn the notes that are between the lines or the ones on the lines, which I think is great because some people struggle with one in particular. It gives you a few measures and you chose which note you think it is and if you are correct it plays the sound of the note. This allows you to not only learn the location of the note but also what each note sounds like. When you finish it tells you how you did ex.32/34, which is good for showing your progress as you go along. I would recommend this app for a basic note-reading unit, as it is easy to use and informational. The problem with this app, however, is that there are only 9 exercises to chose from so once you have done them all it gets very repetitive. If you want to access more exercises you have to pay. Overall I am impressed with this app and I personally would use it as a visual for students who are struggling with note reading. It is a fun way to learn the location of the notes. I would rate it a 7.5/10.
App#7: Musical Me
Pros:
- Fun and easy to use
- Free with no ads
- Teaches you about rhythm, notes, and pitch in a fun and playful way
- 5 different activities to chose from
- You can move up in levels
Cons:
- Basic game
- Does not teach a lot of educational information – really simple
- Only fun for primary aged students
Summary:
After playing around with this app and its various different activities I have determined that this is a fun app for kids who like to play around with rhythm, notes, and pitch, but not a great app for educational purposes. It has a good variety as it has 5 different activities to chose from (memory, rhythm, dance, instruments, and notes), however, these activities get quite repetitive after a while until you move up in a level. The app is very playful and colorful, which makes it fun to use and it allows you to use your creativity to create your own songs. The songs that are used in the app are all popular songs that most children have heard of. These features make it very fun for kids in the primary grades, but older kids may find it too simple and childish. I would highly recommend this app to parents etc. who want to find a fun app to let their children play around with some basic music skills, but I would not recommend this app to educators. Its simplicity does not allow for an adequate amount of musical knowledge. If you want a fun app then this app is great, however, if you want an app to teach your students about music there are many better options. Overall I would rate this app a 7/10.
App #8: Rhythm Cat
Pros:
- Teaches you about rhythm
- As you complete a level successfully you move onto the next one and unlock harder ones – if you do not pass you have to try again
- Free and easy to use
- Detailed instructions to explain how to use it
- Shows you how well you do by the color of the note (green = perfect, yellow = okay, no color = missed it)
Cons:
- Need to play in a quiet area because you need to be able to hear well
- Could seem too easy for those who already know rhythm and there is no way to start at a harder level (you have to unlock it)
- More advanced variations cost money
Summary:
Rhythm Cat is an app that allows its users to practice their rhythm skills in a fun and easy way. You are given a few measures and you have to press a green button when you think the note is. As you advance, you are given a variety of notes (such as half notes, whole notes, etc.), which further allows students to deepen their understanding on the beats of the different notes and rhythm. The app gives you detailed instructions, which is helpful for those playing it. You start off at a basic level but as you complete levels you advance to harder and harder ones. It also shows you how well you did on each note by the color shown (green = perfect, yellow = okay, no color = missed it). I think that this is a great app to teach children and students about rhythm. It makes learning fun and keeps you engaged and wanting to learn more. I would definitely recommend this app to teachers who want a good way to practice rhythm with their students. I would personally use it as a resource during my rhythm unit when teaching music to elementary students. Overall I rate this app a 9.5/10.
App #9: Music Sparkles
Pros :
- You can choose from bongos, drums, and a xylophone (free)
- Within each instrument, you can play a music loop of your choice – guitar, drums, banjo, and piano
- There is a vocal note section where you are shown the note range of do re mi fa sol la te do
Cons:
- All the other instruments you have to pay for (11 more)
- The only aspect of the app is playing the instruments (no teaching about the instruments)
- The vocal note part allows you to hear the note but doesn’t allow you to learn the notes or practice note reading
- Simple which could get repetitive for students
Summary:
Music Sparkles is a well-designed app with some fun features. It allows you to play certain instruments (3 free ones available) with or without a background music loop. This gives users the opportunity to express their creativity and musical abilities, which I think is a great aspect to the app. If you want to go beyond the three instruments, which are given to you for free, you have to pay for the other ones. This limits what users can do on the app if they do not want to pay. I like how you have the ability to play the instruments, however, I think it would be beneficial if it had an aspect of teaching in it so you would learn about the instrument you are playing / the notes. Another cool feature to this app is the vocal note section, which shows you the do re mi fa sol la te do and their position on the measure. This is a neat feature, but I think users would gain more from it if it also taught you about the notes and allowed you to practice note reading/ naming. All in all, this app is fun and allows you to use your musical creativity, however, it is simple and after a few uses would seem repetitive. I think this is a good app for parents to show their kids who are interested in music. I would not recommend it for teachers as there is no real educational aspect to the app and students would just be randomly hitting buttons. I personally would not use this app in my classroom. Overall I would rate Music Sparkles a 6/10.
App #10: Piano Dust Buster
Pros:
- Starts off at an easy level so you understand how it works
- Allows you to practice hearing piano notes and the rhythm of songs
- There are different well known and fun songs for the different levels – have to play to go up and unlock the harder songs
- The more you play the more versions you can unlock, which keeps you engaged and wanting to learn
- When you click the note it will show a color to show you how well you were on the beat (green = perfect, yellow = good, no color = missed or too early)
Cons:
- Need to create an account to use the app
- You need to complete the earlier levels to do a harder one even if you are more advanced
- Only focuses on rhythm and timing
- Pretty basic with not much variation until levels are unlocked
Summary:
Piano Dust Buster is a fun app with a unique way of engaging students in learning piano notes and when to play those notes in a song. It uses little germs and when the germs get to the line you have to click the correct note, if you click it in time then the granny will swat them away. This is a unique illustration that engages its users. You start off playing the Jukebox level with the first song available being Mary had a Little Lamb. After you successfully complete this song you unlock harder songs and level up. Starting off with an easy level makes sure that the users know how to play the game and aren’t going beyond their skill level, however, for more advanced players this would be frustrating as you cannot move up until these levels are completed. I like how it indicates how well your timing was by showing a color on the line, green for perfect, yellow for good, and no color for a missed note or if you clicked it too early. This allows students to see their progress and want to improve. The app uses well-known songs for its levels, which makes it even more fun for all ages. Songs ranging from “When the Saints” to “Dancing Queen” to “Call Me Maybe” engages its users and appeals to a wide range of ages. I think this is a fun app for children wanting to learn the main piano notes and practice their timing. I would recommend it to students to help them improve those things at home, but I personally would not use it in my classroom, as I believe it does not touch on much else other than the timing/ rhythm aspect of playing the piano. Overall I would rate this app a 7/10.
elissahalliday 