The Music Exhibition... coming soon to a classroom near you! (Nov. 18 AM, Nov. 19 PM)

In the 1930s,  Zoltán Kodály began his reform of Hungary’s music education system. His approach incorporated other methods already created at the time, such as Chêvé’s rhythm syllables, Dalcroze’s use of movement, Glover’s movable “do,” and Curwen’s hand signs. The combined result, as well as further development in educational sequencing, led to the Kodály method taught at Mustard Seed School today as well as other classrooms around the world.

As the parent of a seventh or eighth grader, you may have seen your child live with a new piece of music, most likely a folk or worship song for the fall term. In September, students were surveyed about which age or song they would like to teach for this year’s music exhibition. By the end of the month, students were assigned a piece and started learning the song and developing a level of expertise. 

Students were not taught their song to help them prepare. Instead, they needed to rely on their skill set they have built through their years at Mustard Seed. Converting a song to stick notation to simplify the rhythmic element, they spoke their song on rhythmic syllables and started adding the text. Soon after, they had to solfege their song and perform it on solfege and pitched rhythmic syllables in front of other seventh and eighth graders in their academic team. Once the solfege was analyzed, students defined their tone set, tonal center, scale type, time signature, key signature and harmonic structure (for the more advanced students). 

Once each student learned their song, they were scheduled to visit a Nest, Lower School or Choral classroom where they taught a five to fifteen minute lesson (longer durations were permitted to upper school classes). At this point, the lesson plans started to form including ways to engage the children leading up to an observation of the classroom music teacher teaching a lesson. Students also spoke with the teacher about how they traditionally introduce their song (since it is a part of the annual curriculum). Lessons were practiced in music class again with seventh and eighth grade peers... and then they were ready to go!

While these lesson plan preparations with the children were going on, students started to learn about the benefits to each child's learning. This included what the child was learning musically, physically, and what this prepared them for. Some songs in the Nest developed pre-literacy skills, vocabulary, motor skills (gross and fine), and incorporated musical pre-literacy skills. Students learned what these words mean and started to connect their experience with how music brings together other disciplines and why their song is necessary in the classroom. Students also made another lesson plan for teaching their song to a more mature audience in their exhibition for middle school students and MSS staff. 

In their exhibitions next Tuesday and Wednesday, students will perform their song using the Curwen hand signs, rhythmic syllables, counting system or text. They will teach their song to their audience, explain their analysis and learning process, speak about their lesson plans and benefits of their song in younger classrooms, teach the game that accompanies the song, and some will even perform an arrangement of the piece on a musical instrument. 

The exhibition process gives students a chance to build their mastery of musical vocabulary as well as their self-confidence in the discipline. Teaching in a classroom requires mastery of the material, but also becomes a moment of humility and learning for the teacher. In this exhibition process, students get that experience - learning from the teaching experience itself what is truly mastered, where they as conveyors of knowledge have yet to grow, and that plans require flexibility when we are working with living students. In our community, grace is extended by all students, teachers and parents as we learn more about the music, students, and ourselves.  

Please join us for exhibitions and our reflections next Tuesday, November 18th from 8:30am to 10:30am and Wednesday, November 19th from 12:30 to 2pm. Parents are warmly encouraged to attend!