Teaching- How To Explore Tempo, Dynamics, and More with Elementary Learners

Listening can often become a rather passive activity. That is not entirely a bad thing in the scope of life. Sometimes having music playing and just being is great. However, in the structure of a music class, it is rare that we want listening to be a completely passive activity. 

Expecting students, especially the youngest learners, to sit completely still and silent for several minutes while they listen to a piece of music can be unreasonable.

Instead, there are degrees of active things that students can do while listening.

One idea that a lot of different companies have published are called listening maps. Often, they go with classical pieces, but the idea can be easily developed for other styles of music as well. The listening maps have a visual for students to focus on that usually traces the form, instrumentation, and texture of a piece. When the sound changes, the visual changes.

A variation on this idea is to have students raise their hand, hold up fingers, or another physical sign when they hear a specific thing happen in the music. I like to use this when the piece we are listening to has some type of repeated melody like a fugue. Every time the students hear the theme start again they raise their hand. Keep in mind that fugues do not simply have to be from the Baroque era of Bach and Handel. A couple that I have found work well is “The Shark Cage Fugue” from the Jaws soundtrack and “Going The Distance” from the Rocky soundtrack.

Continuing with the visual element. For some pieces, watching a video performance of an orchestra, choir, or band may help to add a concrete, human element to something that is abstract. Listening activities like this can easily be connected to a unit on vocal range or instrument families.

The next category of active listening is different movements that can help with listening activities. To start simply, students can pat or tap the beat that they hear. This is especially good when the piece has tempo that gets faster or slower over time or stops suddenly. To add some variety to this, handheld rhythm instruments can be used. If you have a good enough sound system, students can use rhythm sticks, maracas, hand drums and still be able to hear the recording.

For exploring melodic contour or dynamic shape, having students trace the shape in the air with their hands can be useful. For slightly older students, basic conducting patterns can be used in much the same way. When older students get confident with simpler conducting patterns, it can actually help them to feel the organization of beats within a piece.

The most complex level of movement while listening can be full dances. Dancing is a natural activity that all young students seem to enjoy. When they get older, some get self-conscious, so modifying dance activities can help all students to feel comfortable. I like to do a balance of “free dancing”- meaning that students decide how they move based on what they hear and “structured dancing” in which students follow a set of steps like a line dance, circle dance, or ballroom patterns.

Like with any activity, I make sure to establish procedures for safe dancing from the beginning. The basic expectations that I use all have to do with safety: stay in your own space (so not moving all around the room; occasionally we will plan a conga line); keep all body parts to yourself, and keep feet on the floor (it is amazing how many students want to lay on the floor during dancing time and this is just asking for fingers to get stepped on). Once you establish the procedures and review them several times, dancing time comes with the expectations automatically.

One game that students of many ages love is freeze dance. This is a good way to guide students to listen to patterns if you pause the music at specific points. The students freeze when the music is paused and dance when the music plays. It is also interesting to pause the music at unexpected times like in the middle of a phrase and discuss why pauses during a phrase sound wrong.

A variation on freeze dance is hot potato, which works well for long pieces. I usually have a soft object that students pass from one to the next. Just like with the dancing expectations, we review procedures of not throwing the object before ever doing it.

When using simple modifications like ones I have mentioned, students are still listening to music (and may listen to pieces that last 5-10 minutes long), but feel like they are not just listening as their minds and bodies are active the entire time. I have found these activities are very successful and often, students look forward to them.