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

The post Hickory Dickory Dock – An Exploration in Sound first appeared on Teaching With Orff.

If you’re like many teachers, this is a word you might have heard before or read about without a clear understanding of what it is. Today we’ll define what borduns are, look at four different types you can try out, and think through as some guidelines for making your own musical decisions.

Let’s jump in.

WHAT IS A BORDUN?

A bordun is normally an open fifth (normally scale degrees 1 and 5) that is played continuously throughout a piece, like an ostinato drone.

Borduns are a beautiful way for students to begin adding more texture to pieces from a young age! They really fill out an arrangement and can make a musical product sound much more solid.

The purpose of a drone is to make a piece more stable – rhythmically and harmonically – and to provide a sense of being grounded. This sense of being grounded happens because throughout the whole piece, we hear a strong tonic on the strong beats of the song.

Bordun Categories

There are several different types of borduns students can interact with depending on our goals and students’ musical development.

The three general categories of borduns are: simple, single-moving, and double-moving.

• Simple: Students always play scale degrees 1 and 5 throughout the whole piece
• Single-Moving: Students play scale degrees 1 and 5, but one mallet moves back and forth to an upper neighbor and back to the original pitch
• Double-Moving: Students play scale degrees 1 and 5. Both mallets move to the upper neighbor and back to scale degrees 1 and 5.

The most commonly used category is simple, so that’s what we’ll focus on today.

SIMPLE BORDUNS

Chord Bordun

The two pitches (scale degrees 1 and 5) are played together at the same time.

This is the lowest barrier to entry for students beginning harmonic work, so this is often the first drone we use.

I normally ask students to play a steady beat on do and sol without introducing the word bordun. If we’re doing partwork before students have conscious knowledge of do and sol, I’ll ask them to keep a steady beat on the “big C and big G,” or whatever tonic and dominant are in that particular song.

Chord Bordun Example

Broken Bordun

The two pitches are played one at a time with alternating hands.

This is another option that works well for students just beginning harmonic work.

I ask students to play a steady beat on do and sol, and to have their hands take turns playing. The important thing here is that they start with the left hand, or, on the biggest bar.

Broken Bordun Example

Level Bordun

In a Level Bordun, the two pitches are played together, but they alternate between different registers. Those registers might be octaves on the same instrument or on different instruments.

As students gain more motor skills and are ready for more of a challenge, a level bordun can be a great option.

I ask students to start on the low pair of do and sol, then float their mallets to the top pair.

Level Bordun Example

Arpeggiated Bordun

The arpeggiated bordun is also called a crossover bordun because The left hand crosses over the right to play the higher tonic pitch.

This is the most involved in terms of physical coordination, but a fun challenge for older students!

Arpeggiated Bordun Example

USING A BORDUN: WHAT TO CONSIDER

Since borduns make such a big impact musically, we use them a lot! Here are some things to keep in mind when you’re deciding when and how to use a bordun.

Harmonic Considerations

Harmonically, It’s convenient to use a bordun with pentatonic melodies or melodies that are modal.

The bordun doesn’t change with the harmonic outline of a piece like it would if we were using chords in functional harmony. You’ll recall that these bordun patterns stay on scale degrees 1 and 5, so the melody needs to be something that can rest on that tonic pitch without wanting to be pulled in different harmonic directions.

Bordun vs Functional Harmony

Not every song is a candidate for a bordun. Here’s an example with the song, One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Once I Caught a Fish Alive.

One, Two, Three, Four, Five with Functional Harmony

Because of the melody of the song, we naturally want to pull to the dominant chord.

One, Two, Three, Four, Five with a Bordun

We can hear that this song isn’t a great candidate for a bordun. We’d be better off using chords and chord changes so we can show that functional harmony.

Note:

As with all musical rules, the real rule is that you make creative decisions for your classroom based on your informed musical opinion. There are times you may choose to use dissonance intentionally based on your creative musical goals.

Rhythmic Considerations

Rhythmically, borduns are simple.

While they certainly can utilize combinations of long and short sounds, the purpose of the bordun is to make the piece feel solid and grounded. This particular part in the ensemble is unlikely to have interesting combinations of long and short sounds. The simpler the better, and most of the time, keeping a steady beat on instruments is the right way to go if you’re not sure what to do.

Along those same lines, we want the bordun to fall on the strong beats of the meter. This means the downbeat, and then perhaps a secondary strong beat depending on the meter.

When to Introduce a Bordun

When are students ready to work with a bordun?

It’s likely that students are ready to use a bordun early in their musical development, around 1st grade, especially if we start with something like a chord bordun. However, there are some things we can do before moving to instruments to help students be successful when they try this out.

We’ll look in to that more in the next post.

As we add new textures and harmonic possibilities for students in elementary general music, we provide opportunities to strengthen musical independence. We also open students’ ears to new options when its time for them to make their own informed, creative decisions.

The post Types of Borduns in Elementary General Music first appeared on Teaching With Orff.

The Deep Blue Sea
by Audrey Wood
ISBN-10: 0439753821

Grade Level: 1^st
[Adaptable to Kindergarten]

Objectives:

• Sing Sol-Mi-La patterns from icons.
• Perform beat accompaniment (chord bordun) for a pentatonic song using appropriate mallet technique.
• Use instruments to represent characters or special words in a story.
• Dramatize a story with movement; use creative movement to represent characters.

Process: 

• Read story to group. Review sequence of events with class or summarize story.  (Be sure to point out the cloud’s progress on each page.)
• Teach song “In the Sea” 1) by rote, or 2) use the following process using fish icons to represent Sol-Mi-La on a two-line staff:
  • Present a visual such as below:

• • Fish icons contain text of song
  • Teacher sings/plays first melodic phrase, students move fish to notate melodic contour. (The Smart board is perfect for this activity or you can make your own by using pre-cut fish and writing the text on fish.)
  • Add steady beat chord bordun accompaniment on D and A.

• Add melody on the recorder for the A¹ Students explore swimming through space like fish.  Extend to using fish finger puppets (different colored scarves would work great too).  Perform A A¹A.
• As a class, practice experimenting moving to demonstrate each color word, i.e., “How can you move to show the sea?” “How can you move to show the sea differently?” Explore all colors, and then proceed to next step.
• Add the following props, puppets, and special unpitched (for storm and colors) to the story:

“Blue”       – blue and white scarves wave/ocean drum

“Red”        – red scarves pop in the air/rocks click together once

“Green”     – flutter green scarves/wind chime

“Brown”    – brown scarf circles/woodblock plays one time

“Purple”    – purple scarf “swoops” down/voices swoop high to low (or use slide whistle)

“Orange”   – using orange scarves, move through space like a butterfly/cabasa

“Black”      – gong or cymbal

“White”     – Use a two-sided “cloud on a stick.”  It begins by moving across the space taking small sideward steps.  It continues across the space during story, with the cloud flipping over to the gray side on the word “gray.”  (In the classroom, use two pieces of white card stock, cut out a cloud shape and attach to a ruler “popsicle” style.  Color one side of the cloud gray.”)

“It’s raining on the rocks” – rainstick (or ad lib notes played on SX/AX in D pentatonic)

“Ocean/sea”  – Ocean drum (3x)

Final Performance:

• Begin with song (Form: A=song, A¹= recorder plays melody/fish swim, A=song) followed by three “waves” conducted by narrator/teacher.
• Read story. As each new color is introduced in the story, the correlating scarf, instrument, or prop performs each time it occurs in the story.
• Song is performed on the pages where the following text occurs: 1) “The fishies come up to play,” and 2) “It’s raining on the rock.”
• On last page as accompaniment plays, students hum melody of song. Students with scarves gather around fish, hold hands up high (with scarves in hand).  The cloud is in middle of circle held up over fish.
• Coda – Ocean drum plays 3x.

Extensions:

• Consider adding more instruments to create a storm such as a bass drum, temple blocks, thunder tubes, etc.
• Allow students to choose the instruments to represent the special words.
• Add a creative writing/arts element after the final performance; students can write about their experiences performing the story and then draw/color a picture to illustrate the performance. Another possibility would be to provide questions such as “My favorite part of the story was when ______________.”  “My special job in the story was ________________________.”

The post Engaging Children With Literature: The Deep Blue Sea first appeared on Teaching With Orff.

Lesson Process

Learning the Song

• Speak the full poem for students. Then have them repeat it phrase by phrase until they learn it.
• Using the same process, sing the full song for students and then have them echo by phrase to learn the song.
• Introduce bordun pattern by having students pat the pattern on their legs while they sing.
• Move some students to the instruments and have them play the bordun pattern while the rest of the class sings.

Question and Answer in a Circle

• Have students sit in a circle and tell them to think of their favorite Valentine’s day candy.
• Introduce a question and answer with students.
  • Sing your question on the pitches Sol and Mi: “What’s your favorite candy?” and students can reply with “I love chocolate,” “I love M&Ms,” and so on.
  • Give them several examples so that they are sure of the process before you proceed.

• Sing a question and answer with students, going around the circle so that each student gets a chance to answer the question.
• Several students can stay on the BX and BM to play the bordun and keep the beat.
• Sing the question and answer with 3 or 4 students and then sing the “Roses are Red” song again as a refrain. Do this AB pattern (refrain – Q&A) until you get all the way around the circle.

Next Steps

Word Chain and AB Form

• In a later lesson, come back to the refrain (Roses are Red) and sing it with students.
• Students should sit in duets, trios, or small groups. Then have students brainstorm their favorite types of candy.
• Give them a few minutes to write out the names of their favorite candy.
• Show students how to create a short word chain out of the candy names. For example, you could have something like

• Have them piece together their own word chain in their small group.
• Play the bordun pattern for students while they practice saying their word chain.
• As a final form, students sing the A – refrain of “Roses are Red” and then let each small group speak their word chain as a B section while you play the bordun.  Alternate A and B until each group gets the chance to speak their word chain.
• As a further extension, each small group could clap or pat the rhythm of their candy word chain.

National Standards Addressed:

 Creating:

Anchor Standard #3. Refine and complete artistic work.

Evaluate and Refine Plan and Make Enduring Understanding: Musicians evaluate, and refine their work through openness to new ideas, persistence, and the application of appropriate criteria.

Essential Question: How do musicians improve the quality of their creative work?

Performing:

Anchor Standard 5: Develop and refine artistic techniques and work for presentation.

Enduring Understanding: To express their musical ideas, musicians analyze, evaluate, and refine their performance over time through openness to new ideas, persistence, and the application of appropriate criteria.

Essential Question: How do musicians improve the quality of their performance?

For more inspiration and encouragement, visit David’s website – Make Moments Matter

The post Roses Are Red: An Orff Inspired Valentine first appeared on Teaching With Orff.

by BethAnn Hepburn and Roger Sams

We trust you and your young students will enjoy this lesson taken from Purposeful Pathways: Possibilities for the Elementary Music Classroom, Book Three – by BethAnn Hepburn and Roger Sams. Designed to encourage active music making, this lesson includes pathways to rhythm, literacy, partwork, ensemble, and improvisation. A printable version can be found here.

PATHWAY TO Rhythm: Eurhythmics treble-bass follow exercise

• Students begin in scattered space and walk to the steady beat, which you play on a low pitch on temple blocks or piano.
• Students continue walking the steady beat while you play 4-beat echo patterns on a higher pitch. Students echo these rhythm patterns (clapping) while walking the steady beat.
• Begin with even rhythms then introduce syncopated rhythms. Example:

Teacher Talk: Moving from simplicity to complexity
When teaching students to follow the beat and rhythm at the same time it is important to start simply and move incrementally toward more complex rhythms. Begin with the students echoing quarter notes and progress sequentially through the more difficult rhythm patterns found in the song.

• Continue to practice rhythms until the class is successful walking the beat while simultaneously clapping the rhythmic echo. Emphasize rhythms that contain syncopation.
• For an advanced challenge have the students step the rhythm in their feet and clap the steady beat in their hands.

PATHWAY TO Literacy:  so, la, do re mi

• Students read the rhythm of the song.

• Use the solfa tone ladder to prepare the tone set of the song. Ask the students to sing what you point to. After you have presented patterns from the song, point out the entire song on the solfa tone ladder.
• Students sing the melody from rhythmic notation with solfa

• Students sing the melody, with solfa and hand signs, reading from the staff.

• Students sing the melody with text.

PATHWAY TO Partwork: Rhythmic Ostinato

• Perform the BP ostinato. Ask the students to join you when they are ready. (simultaneous imitation)
• Students sing the song, while patting and clapping the rhythmic ostinato. Establish the ostinato before adding the singing.

• Transfer to BP ostinati to tubanos, or other large drums, producing low sounds (bass) with the palm of the hand near the center of the drum (pats) and high sounds (tone) with the fingertips near the rim of the drum (claps). Pat becomes bass and clap become tone. Encourage the students to alternate hands.

PATHWAY TO Partwork: Song with descant

• Students read the rhythm of the descant.
• Students play the rhythm of the descant on soprano recorder on the note B.

• Students sing the letter names for the BAG version and practice recorder fingerings with recorders resting in finger position on their chins.

• Students play the BAG version on recorder.
• Divide the class in half. Half sings the song. Half plays the BAG version of the recorder descant. Trade parts.
• Students sing the letter names for the advanced version and practice recorder fingerings with recorders on their chins.

• Students play the advanced version on recorder.
• Divide the class in half. Half sings the song. Half plays the advanced version of the recorder descant. Trade parts.
• Consider singing in two parts.

PATHWAY TO Ensemble: Split moving bordun, descant, countermelody, and BP ostinato

• Model patting and singing solfa for the BX/BM ostinato. Ask the students to join you when they have figured out the pattern. (simultaneous imitation)

• Divide the class in half. Half sings and pats the BX/BM ostinato. Half sings the song. Trade parts.
• Transfer BX/BM ostinato to barred instruments and put together with singers.
• Model patting and singing solfa for the AX ostinato. Ask the students to join you when they have figured out the pattern. (simultaneous imitation) If using a text is a support for your students, use the following text while teaching the ostinato.

• Divide the class in half. Half sings and pats the BX/BM ostinato. Half sings and pats the AX ostinato. Trade parts.
• Transfer this split moving bordun to barred instruments and put together with singers.
• Perform the BP part for the students, patting when the text says “alternating hands, both” and clapping and stamping as the text indicates. Ask them to count how many times you perform the opening motive. (seven)

• Ask the students to perform this BP motive with you seven times and then add three stamps as a final cadence.
• Divide the class in half. Half performs the BP. Half sings the song. Trade parts.
• Add the BP part to the arrangement.
• Students read the SX melodic ostinato, singing solfa with hand signs.
• Students prepare the SX ostinato by singing solfa and patting their legs, moving up and down as if they are a barred instrument.

• Transfer this ostinato to SX and add to the arrangement.
• Put all of the percussion parts together with singers.
• Add the SR (or singing) descant and put the entire arrangement together.

PATHWAY TO Improvisation: Question and Answer with focus on how tonic functions

• Set up the barred instruments in G=do pentatonic. Acclimate the students to the pitch set with singing and playing 4-beat solfa echo patterns.
• Model singing the improvisation structure for the students.

• Model question and answer improvisation for the students. Explain that the phrases are eight beats long, beginning with singing and ending with barred instrument improvisation. Ask them to determine what the difference between your questions and your answers. Model questions that do not end on do and answers that do end on do.
• Divide the class in half. Half the class sings the beginning of the question and then completes it with four beats of barred instrument improvisation not ending on do. The other half of the class answers by singing and then improvising for four beats, ending on do. Trade parts.
• Ask the students to figure out how to play, “Wake up, you sleepy head!” on the barred instruments.
• Repeat the process with the students playing everything, rather than singing and playing.
• Give the students an opportunity to improvise a question and answer chorus in the context of the entire 32 beats of the full orchestration.
• Put together with the song in a satisfying final form.

Excerpts from Purposeful Pathways, Possibilities for the Elementary Music Classroom, Book 3 by BethAnn Hepburn and Roger Sams. Copyright © 2015 by MIE Publications. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

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Download the lesson here:

Moving Bordun Assignment

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Download the lesson here:

Chord or Level Bordun Assignment

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Broken or Arpeggiated bordun setting for pentatonic melodies

Download the lesson here:

Broken or Arpeggiated Bordun Assignment

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