Activity: Mix it Up!

Whatever ages you’re teaching, you can help your students build confidence with creating rhythms if you scaffold well. I wrote the short poem “My Taiko Teacher” to help the students practice pulse in a 4th/5th grade virtual program I just finished. (The students LOVED the poem - never underestimate the power of making fun of yourself!)

The poem works great for practicing pulse. You can also use it in the following activity to help students take the first steps in creating their own rhythm patterns:

• Provide this link to your students (I put it in the chat for my virtual program; if you’re working in person, work with the classroom teacher to see how students can access a computer during your class. Alternately, you could ask the classroom teacher to have students print the slide out and bring it to class with you, and then change beats with markers.)

  • This is a “Make a Copy” link that will prompt students to each make their own copy of the slide that they can then work with. If you’re not familiar with this technique, I highly recommend Katie Wardrobe’s webinar Google Slides for Music Teachers. Actually, I highly recommend Katie Wardrobe, period. I’ve learned SO MUCH listening to her.

• If your students aren’t familiar with Google Slides, share your screen and show them how to click inside the green boxes and edit the text.

  • For my residency, I didn’t cover ka and kara because the students were all using rolled up towels as their playing surface . This is great for lowering barriers to participation, but not great for ka and kara.

• Give them a few seconds to change a note, and then have everyone play. If you’ve covered the idea of playing with a jiuchi, then play a ji, but if you haven’t, then play the poem with them without any changes. 

• Go through this process several more times until they’ve changed 4-8 of the notes.

You probably noticed that the poem makes liberal use of pickup beats. If your students are more advanced, point that out and talk about it. If they aren’t, then just tell them there’s a reason that “My” and “I” are in parentheses and leave it at that. Of course, explain if they ask, but my students didn’t.

Let me know if you try this with any of your students and how it goes. Happy teaching!

Activity: Using poems to teach pulse, the middle and high school version

Using poems to build rhythm skills is good for students of all ages! Last time, I shared a (fairly silly) poem I use with younger students and young-at-heart adults. For middle and high-school age students, I’ve used the first three stanzas of “Caged Bird” (aka “I know why the caged bird sings”) by Maya Angelou. This moving work has a strong pulse, was written by an important Black American author, poet, and civil rights activist, and powerfully conveys the despair and rage of the “caged bird.”  If you’re working in an arts integration environment, it connects seamlessly with English/Language Arts (ELA), US history, and social justice topics. This entire activity works well in person and over Zoom. 

Start by spending an entire class session (45-50 minutes) on the poem. Put it up on a smartboard or shared screen and have students take turns reading it aloud, stanza by stanza. Next, put students into small groups to discuss the meaning of the poem. (Hint: it’s not actually about birds. There are good resources online that dive into the meaning; Google is your friend if you’re not familiar with this work or need ideas for discussion questions.) After 5-10 minutes in small groups, bring everyone back together to share out.  

In your next class, go into the music of the poem. First, read it aloud while tapping the pulse on your body. Next, have students say the poem aloud with you while tapping the pulse on their bodies. Do this several times until they have it. Finally, put them in groups of 2-3 to explore saying the poem while playing the pulse on body percussion, taiko, classroom instruments, or whatever they have access to. If time allows, have a few groups demonstrate their work.

You can do this in person or in a Zoom class using breakout rooms and bringing everyone back together for the share out. You will probably need to practice reading the poem aloud and emphasizing pulse without making it sound like a nursery rhyme. This is time well spent. I’d love to hear about it if you try this in your classes, and any adaptations you make! Until then, happy teaching.