KINDERGARTEN: PLAYING PERCUSSION INSTRUMENTS


These past few weeks, Kindergarten students have been filling the music classroom with the sounds of very diverse percussion instruments. These pitched and un-pitched musical instruments expanded the expressive possibilities of our musical experiences, and, of course, are the children's favourite medium for music making. We used them to learn about pitch, timber, colour, using them to create a sound landscape for a story. We used them also as another way of experiencing fundamental music elements such as beat and rhythm. At the same time, they allow us to reinforce the cooperative and management skills necessary for making music together: listening to others, respecting turns, taking care of your instrument, responding to visual and musical cues to be able to begin and finish together, or to intervene on time.

Unpitched instruments: Students learned the names and proper usage of the instruments: hand drum, guiro, claves, blocks, tambourin, triangle, cabassa, or rainstick. They inquired how different materials create a particular type of timber: metal, wood, and membranes. They also explored the different ways of creating sound: striking, rubbing, or shaking.

Students sit in a circle. They switch instruments by moving to the next mat clockwise. This allows them to play all of the instruments.

Practicing basic skills to play in an ensemble: responding to the cues and finishing together!

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Students created their own versions of a story.

Students accompany their singing.

Pitched instruments: Xylophones, metallophones, glockenspiels, the so called Orff instruments. Students learned barred-instrument technique: how to release the sound, to hold mallets as if riding a bicycle, with no fingers on top, elbows out slightly, mallets pointed inward, and sitting posture.

The children's ability to play musical instruments is related to their physical development. In music class, we use the creative context of a story, a rhyme, or a song to explore sound. Kinder students work on their muscular coordination and the most refined eye coordination necessary to play barred instruments, first with two hands simultaneously, and then with alternating hands guided by a creative purpose.