Hickory Dickory Dock – An Exploration in Sound
Posted November 30, 2021by
The Hickory Dickory Dock Sound Story
Materials:
Barred instrument(s)
Finger Cymbal or other metal unpitched percussion
Tick-tock block
A way to proceed:
- Present the rhyme to the students using purposeful vocal inflections and extended pauses at the end of each line (you can use the slides at any point within the process)
- Patschen the beat that you wish to use for your bordun
- Speak the rhyme while students patschen the bordun (depending on the ability level of the students, stressing over the steadiness of the bordun maybe effort best spent on other things)
- Discuss how the rhyme will be in 5 sections
- Hickory Dickory Dock – Broken bordun
- The mouse ran up the clock – ascending mallet playing
- The clock struck one – Finger cymbal
- The mouse ran down – descending mallet playing
- Hickory Dickory Dock – Broken bordun
- Practice the entire thing without instruments
- Add instruments
- Use the Tick-tock block to “maintain” your tempo
- Add a coda – unison play after the last word
Click here to download a copy of Patrick’s slides
See all posts by Patrick Ware
6 Comments
Leave a Comment
Filed under Lesson Plans
Sign up for latest Orff Tips, Lesson Plans and Advocacy Tools
Empower your students to create their own music in this free 3-day challenge with Roger Sams. (Lessons delivered via email)
Learn about the legendary factory that started it all and why so many teachers like you love our instruments.
This looks wonderful. I know this poem as a child. When there are mallet parts like bordun etc., is there a specific set of notes, melody to this poem? I only know this as a poem. Forgive my naivety. Thanks so much for any feedback.
Hans,
There was/is no specific melody. I set this instruments in a way that gives the greatest opportunity for success. In my schedule last year I had three self-contained special ed classes in a row. I was able to set up 2 instruments with just C (bar 1) and G (bar 5) and the other instruments were set in C pentatonic. I was able to leave them set that way for most of the day.
Hope this helps,
Patrick
Do you perform your Patschen along with the rhyme or after each verse ?
Patrick!!! Hello, friend 🙂 Do you have a video of yourself teaching this? I always find videos to be the most informative thing. If you ever want to lead an in-service for music teachers and put it on youtube, it would be epic…. And I would want to be there…. 🙂
Kate Fellin
Kate!!!!
So good to hear from you. I will have to make a video of the next time we do this.
Freamon,
I perform a steady beat alternating patschen along with the “Hickory Dickory Dock” part of the rhyme. During the other parts of the rhyme we perform a patschen that matches what we are doing on the instruments.
-Patrick