Leaving the earth - Music Themes Week 1

The goal of integrating the music subject into the Leaving the Earth Project is to create a project that combined the two subjects in a way that was meaningful from an educational perspective but was also meaningful to the students. Additionally, the project should develop the student’s skills so that they can be applied in projects for subjects outside music if needed.

As each class is divided into tribes, the plan devised with the class was to create music that would allow each tribe to sound different but be a part of the unique class “sound”. This concept was supported by discussing how the English language can be spoken but be spoken with a broad range of accents, though it is still English.

Class by class we discussed in basic broad brushstrokes, what the class would like as a sound as a foundation. This could either be Electronic or Acoustic, we also discussed tempo of their music. This will allow us to combine all the tribed music together to create a class tribe medley for presentation ceremonies later on in the project. Lastly we explored and discussed melodic scales that their melodies would be based upon. As we are using GarageBand on the iPads this excersise is simply a matter of opening one of the instruments and selecting the specific scale.

Once the class decided on their Sound, Tempo and Melodic Scale, the students used the rest of the time to explore any one of those three areas in their tribes which usually were groups of 4.

At the end of the class we instructed the students to set up a project on the iPad and name it based on their class and tribe name.

Next week we will see how we go exploring the idea of “What is a melody” and what the students come up with.

Peter