In Year 2, I think children are ready to start part-singing. I start training them through round singing. I spent a whole month teaching them about rounds and canons; we sang songs and build rounds on board. As a closing to this unit, I chose to show them a performance of the famous piece - Canon in D by Johann Pachelbel.
This video's resolution quality is high, the performance itself is amazing. At first, I was afraid that children would find it boring. To my surprise, this became one of the best teaching experiences this year:
- a few students took out their notebooks and copied down the songs's name without me asking them to. (some of them even copied down the complicated youtube link)
- a few came back and told me that they had shared it with their parents.
- 2 boys said that they recognize this piece of music from weddings they've attended.
- ALL the 6 classes I teach requested to see it for the second time.
It is a bit different to teach children the idea of a musical canon. Thanks to this music animation video. The different colours that represent different instrumental parts help children understand how a canon is formed and how the sounds of different instruments weave in and out with each other to create beautiful harmony. (The score at the bottom also helps!)
I'm amazed how much the children like Baroque music. =)
