Viennese Musical Clock movement to Rondo Form

Got this lesson from the amazing teacher I student taught with.  This video is too cute not to share!  

Students created all the movements in the video except the clock movement for the A section. The B, C, and D sections show the toy soldiers that come out on the hour. A student "conductor" points to where they are in the form. 

Lessons leading up to this:

• Reviewed AB and ABA form.

• Learned the term rondo form by making different forms out of the songs/chants "Hop Old Squirrel," "Whisky Frisky Hippity Hop" (both Jump Right In 1st grade), and "Gather acorns in the fall, little squirrel must do it all."

• Moved to this piece, Kodaly's Viennese Musical Clock, section by section then putting it all together, asking what form is it if we stop here? What form is it if we add this? 
• The original movements to Viennese Musical Clock:
• A section: move hands like the minute and hour hand of a clock
• B section: the toy soldiers come out and play trumpets
• A: clock again
• C: the toy soldiers salute on the beat
• A: clock
• D: the toy soldiers march (move locomotor for the B, C, and D sections once the kids know the piece)
• A: clock
• coda: arms up on the big chords! :)
• Finally, students came up with their own "toy soldier" movements. (This class chose swaying their arms, jumping, and marching locomotor.)

Autumn leaf rhythms to read!

Here are 5 different autumn leaf printables with duple meter rhythms to read. All rhythms are 4 beats long, and have just quarter notes and eighth notes.

3 of the rhythms come straight from the first duple meter Verbal Association LSA, representing the  Easy, Medium, and Difficult patterns that the kids learn to chant.

Download the leaf rhythms here.
Print these on autumn-leaf-colored paper (I used red, orange, yellow, brown, and green, and printed 6 of each pattern), cut, and laminate, for a cute rhythm reading activity where the kids can hold different rhythms they'll get to read!


As an extension to the activity, print out BLANK leaves, and have small groups write their own 4-beat rhythms!  Then have the kids perform the rhythms for each other in a Rondo form using a fall song as the A section of the rondo, and each small group as the B/C/D/E sections! (I use a song called "Fall Canon," which I got from an Orff class.)

7 Habits songs: Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw

Habit 7 version 1: song

This is a 4-chord song written to sound like a pop song to fit the theme of having fun and renewing yourself, which defines Sharpen the Saw. :)

A cute rhythm creativity, chant composition activity. Great for Orff teachers too because the kids compose 4-measure chants listing their favorite things to do when they Sharpen the Saw. 

Student creativity for the song:  Students create their own chants listing 4 things they do to sharpen the saw.  Perform as a rondo: in the A section everyone sings the song, in the B/C/D/etc. sections each small group performs their 4-macrobeat chant twice.

Noteflight notation for version 1 of the song can be found here.

Habit 7 version 2: duple chant

Habit 7's chant notation is on Noteflight here.

Habit 7 version 3: longer song

In this version as well, students create 4-macrobeat chants listing what they do to sharpen the saw.
Noteflight notation for version 3 of the song is found here.

Pirates of the Caribbean listening activity!

Download the listening worksheet here (free and editable!!!).

Pirates of the Caribbean Theme Song, Hans Zimmer

link to track used: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUnrWo6z9WY. Stop the music at the awkward edit at 2:19.

Activities leading up to this:

• Learning Sequence Activities in triple meter
• Songs in triple meter
• The “poison rhythm” game where students have to remember the main rhythmic motive of the song and not repeat it or they’re out J

1.  Have students chant the main rhythmic motive on solfege after me, showing the weighted articulation using a fist gesture on macrobeats in the air as they chant.  (The motion is as if they’re using a hammer in the air.) Showing them the rhythm on the board, have students echo it looking at the notation. Have them identify if the rhythm is in duple or triple meter (or other) (triple).  We’ll call this the pirates theme.

2. Listen to the first A section with the students, pausing after every time the rhythmic motive happens to point it out or to ask students if it happened in what they just heard. If they need help hearing it, have them whisper-chant the motive as they listen to those measures again.

3.  Hand out the call chart, clipboards, and pencils.   Ask them to keep tally in the blanks next to “A” of how many times they hear the pirates theme, and follow along with the beat with their finger in the other sections. Listen and call out the following sections at these times:

A: at 4 seconds

Waves: at 38 seconds

B: at 45 seconds

Waves: at 59 seconds

A: at 1:11

Waves: at 1:47

B: at 1:52

Waves: 2:06-2:19.

4.  Ask them to listen again to check their tallies (at least once more here). Tell them this time before they start that in B the articulation changes—see if they can listen for that change and describe it afterward.

5.  Ask for the answers to your questions:  number of times for pirate motive in each A section, what happened to articulation at B (we’ll call it the smooth sailing section after they answer).

6.  Listen again and count together each time the pirate motive comes.

Extension: students come up with moves they could do on beat for the different sections J

Wake Up! Locrian song + rhythmic improv

Songs used: Slow Locrian song from Experimental Songs and Chants without Words and Wake Up! chant from Music Play

My kindergarteners LOVED this activity this year and would always beg for us to keep going longer!! 

Musical concepts covered in this lesson:

• exposure to Locrian tonality, duple meter, and triple meter
• vocal exploration (they looooove the tongue trill at the end of the song
• AB/AAB form
• 2 meters and 2 tempi, duple and triple + fast and slow
• piano and forte
• flow with pulsations
• rhythmic improvisation

Lesson:

• Tell the students to lean their heads onto their hands and close their eyes, pretending to sleep. Sing the slow part of the song, gently rocking back and forth on macrobeats. At the fast part of the song, use exaggerated facial expressions and large flicking movements on macrobeats (flow with pulsations) to "wake up." Pretend to stretch from high to low as you do the tongue trill at the end.

• After the song is over, pick one student who was keeping the beat well to come into the middle. As you sing the song again, their job is to audiate their own rhythm pattern in triple meter. Give examples. They lie in the middle of the circle and pretend to sleep, then wake up, then chant their rhythm pattern on "BA." 

• That student looks for someone who is really trying their best (or listening well, or keeping the beat well, or moving with flow well, etc.) to be the next improviser. This incentive really motivates all the students to try their best, knowing they may get a turn soon!

Variations/Extensions:

• Use a cat puppet and a mouse puppet. Tell the students during the song, one of them will move up and down to the macrobeat, and the other to the microbeat. For example, move the cat during the fast section to the eighth notes (microbeat), and move the mouse during the slow section to the dotted quarter notes (macrobeat).     You can also use the two animals to show two different dynamic levels during the two parts of the song.  Which animal was singing piano, and which one was singing forte?

• Have the student in the middle improvise rhythms in a Q&A rhythm "conversation" with you. Making sure the triple meter tempo you chanted the song isn't TOO fast, you chant one pattern, and they chant something different back to you.

***What Do You Do With a Drowsy Sailor?***
 This activity can also be done with the song "Drunken Sailor," replacing the word "drunken" with "drowsy." I did Drowsy Sailor with 3rd and 4th graders, who loved it and would choose it on music choice day when they had the option between different activities!

For Drowsy Sailor, students stand in the circle, moving the macrobeat in their heels and tapping the microbeat on their shoulders. On the words, "Way, hey, and up," students do a move that they as a class created (my students like moving one arm up and accenting the word "up").

One person is lying in the middle of the circle, and starts to wake up at the words "Way, hey, and up." After the song is over, they improvise a rhythm in duple meter using syllables, such as DU-DE DU, DU-DE DU.

Whether the Weather round + rhythm creativity FREE DOWNLOADS

I love "Whether the Weather" because you can do SO many things with this song. This year, my 2nd graders used this song to...

• experience and move to triple meter
• sing a tonic ostinato + the song for the first time
• sing in a round for the first time
• play Orff instruments with the song (using the notes D and A in various patterns and borduns)
• create, individually, their own short patterns using D and A on the instruments
• create, in groups, their own ostinati chants using weather words and the cards below
• perform the song and their ostinati in a rondo form

My AWESOME mentor teacher even used this song in a concert with singing and Orff instruments. So many possibilities.... :)

Here is the song:

Using the rhythm cards below, the class first read the rhythms using DU-DA-DI syllables and then saying the words in rhythm.

Then students broke into their small groups (4-5 students per group) and I handed each group a set of cards, with 2 of each of the cards below.

The groups created their own arrangement of 4 of the cards to create a 4-measure chant: for example, "Rain, Tornado, Hurricane, Rain."  Groups practiced their own chant in rhythm on its own, and as an ostinato chanting it as the rest of the class sang the song.

For the grand finale, the whole class performed a Weather Rondo!  The form went like this:

• A section: All students sing "Whether the Weather" 
• B section: Group 1 perform their 4-measure chant 
• A section: All students sing "Whether the Weather"
• C section: Group 2 perform their 4-measure chant
• A section: All students sing "Whether the Weather"
• etc.!

Images of the rhythm cards used in the activity (download the cards at the bottom of this post!):

And, last but not least, the lyrics with pictures:

Download the weather rhythm cards for free here.
Download the lyrics (with pictures) to "Whether the Weather" here.
Download the sheet music to "Whether the Weather" on Noteflight here.