Music: Week 8 - Compare/Contrast

With - Axel, Hanix, Isaac R., Jackson, Jesse Q., Simone, and Zooey

When brainstorming how to explore music Axel, Jackson, Isaac, and Zooey all agreed we should sing and learn about songs. We started singing freely then wrote down what we know about singing, here are some of our thoughts -
Jackson - You can yodel.
Zooey - It can be a higher pitch than talking.
Isaac R. - I say hello you say goodbye song.
Axel - I know we can sing in the classroom.
As we reread each comment, inspiration was found for music exploration. We yodelled for a bit, sang in our highest pitch, tried to remember the lyrics to Hello, Goodbye, and wrote down some of the songs we might sing in the classroom.
Singing was still a big interest the next day, so we tried to think of a challenge. Isaac R. thought we should create a "really long list of songs we know," and everyone agreed it was a great idea. Sometimes one song reminded us of another, like The Batman Theme led us to think of Batman Smells then Jingle Bells. There were a few songs that led friends to the question, "Is this a real song or did you just make it up?" like Aliens and Three Bugs in a Car. After Three Bugs in a Car was questioned Isaac R. commented, "There are 4 guys in The Beatles, so maybe you were listening to 4 beetles in a car..."
After our song list was completed we took turns putting on a concert, each friend choosing a song off our list to perform. Some friends chose to use instruments, and others did it acapella. Towards the end we started to make up our own songs, and discuss how people come up with new songs.
The idea of new songs transferred to our explorations on Thursday, so we began to explore some famous composers. We looked through the history of music during different periods, like Baroque, classical, romantic, and modern. After we learned about each period we examined each composer and attributes of their music. We were really excited about listening to some of the music we were reading about, so we listened to some sample tracks from the included CD.
Sometimes our comments were directly comparing the composers from each period, like when Isaac said, "I like Bach better than Vivaldi." or two pieces from the same composer, "He's good when he's deaf," Axel says of Beethoven's 9th symphony. Many friends compared the music to prior experiences like when Zooey excitedly notices, "He did Swan Lake!" while listening to Tchaikovsky or when listening to Beethoven's 5th symphony Jackson says, "I think this one is in a movie." Wagner's Ride of the Valkeries got many friends excitedly describing it. "War music, "music for warriors," and "a battle song," were all shouted out. There were so many wonderful things being noticed as we listened to and discussed each song, composer, and period.