Spotlight on Specials: Music

George Oakley, Music Teacher

People are musical beings. As children we start out with an inherent joy for sounds--be they sounds from nature or organized sounds like music. As we get older we develop or learn fears around making music. We tell ourselves we can't sing or we have a "tin ear". I say "Poppycock"! There is an expression from Nigeria which goes something like this: "If you can walk, you can dance. If you can talk, you can sing".

I believe in this expression wholeheartedly. My goal in teaching children music is to bring them through a transition from being young and undisciplined, to becoming young, skilled musicians who keep their inherent joy for music intact.

Here are some of my techniques:

• Using humor to engage the students
• Using each song as a manipulative to explore the dimensions of music: pitch, rhythm, minor key, major key and dynamics and rhymings
• Exploring these dimensions with instruments, such as: drums, shakers, boomwackers and finally the recorder flutes
• Teaching some of the Italian terms and musical notations related to the things we do our voices and instrumentss
• Using listening games to teach the students to have a discerning ears
• Bringing in real instruments to the classes on a regular basis; the children get an up-close hands-on experience with these instrumentss

Don't let this get out, but I think teaching music to children is the best job in the world. Working at the River School is the best of the best. The children here really keep me on my toes. They sometimes even correct me, in a polite way. As a result, I learn from the children. I think the River School provides children with an environment that is conducive to learning any Art, particularly my passion, music.