Day Five in the Orff Sphere

I do not know how, but the first five days in San Francisco have passed in a blink of the eye;  Monday morning we are meeting each other for the first time and then BOOM, it is the weekend and we are organising to get together for a night of Salsa lessons and Saturday picnics in the park. Apart from meeting and making new friends what else have we done...

1. We have looked at how we can use rhythm games to learn each others names;
2. We have explored using rhythmic patterns and chants to lead into learning songs and then how we can extend this to providing simple but effective 'elemental' ostinati and basslines that sound so effective and intricate when performed together;
3. Less talk, more action - using signs and non-verbal direction to ensure the exercises move between tasks more efficiently;
4. Some of us (i.e me) have developed from having two left feet to having a left and a right, even if one of them is a peg leg;
5. Movement and music are interlinked and should feed off one another.   While I may never perfect my North Yorkshire Sword Dance, other movement tasks have definitely shown me new ways of tackling old musical problems, e.g. timing, pulse, working in groups and learning from one another;
6. Recorders are still effective instruments for the classroom and can be quite fun to learn when starting away from the usual BAG first three notes.

              

Personally, while there has been a lot to take in (so many songs in so many different languages!), which I am bound to forget much of, hopefully I will be able to effectively make the fundamental shift in how I approach teaching in the classroom that has been demonstrated over this week.

Week two is promising to be just as good as this one has been, although hopefully it will not be moving as fast as I would like to saviour the moments a little more!