OAKE SESSION REVIEW:

“TAKING OFF FROM A SOLID BEAT FOUNDATION”

presented by JOHN FEIERABEND

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One of my favorite sessions I attended at the OAKE Conference was with John Feierabend. He is so good at putting things “in a nutshell” and organizing thoughts about our ultimate goals for our students. These are his broad goals:

“Students should become TUNEFUL, BEATFUL, and ARTFUL.”

-          To be tuneful means to be comfortable and competent enough to sing Happy Birthday or a lullabye or a church song with a pleasing tone.

-          To be beatful means to be able to rock on the beat to a lullabye, tap the beat while playing pat-a-cake type games, clap the beat along with a group of people at a concert or sporting event, and maybe even be comfortable dancing at your own wedding!

-          To be artful means you can be moved by beautiful music, that we seek out expressive music experiences, attend classical concerts, and sing to our children with feeling.

This session dealt with being BEATFUL. John believes as Kodály did that music education begins before a baby is born. At 30 weeks gestation the baby can hear a heartbeat, songs, and voices. So as soon as the baby is born we must continue to sing those familiar songs a help the child feel that beat at the tempo of the familiar heartbeat. Bouncing, tickling, stroking, patting, rocking, tapping and dancing with the child will help transfer the feel of the beat to the child’s body so he can feel it himself. John has an entire song collection for these types of activities. He reminds us that the beat tempo for children 3-10 years old should be within the range of 120-136 to match closely to their own heartbeat.

John shared his SEQUENCE FOR TEACHING MOVEMENT WITH BEAT:

1. Teacher follow the child’s chosen pulse and tempo- for example, let the child start tapping his beat first, then you say or sing the rhyme to his beat
2. Students follow the teacher’s tempo-for example, teacher tap beat on drum while saying “Listen, listen, here I come, Some one special gets the drum.” Hand the drum to one student to play the beat while starting the chant again.

 This can be done with various instruments and the appropriate song- for instance:

Frog in the Meadow- play beat on guiro

Hickory Dickory Dock- play clock sounds on woodblock or tick tock block

Train songs- play beat on sandblocks

3. Eventually feel beat in groups of 2 and 3
4. Feel the common group beat with a chant like “Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves”
5. Stand and step beat in place to songs
6. Travel with the beat in the feet
7. The last step should be to teach notation of quarter and eighth notes. John agrees with Phyllis Weikart that this step should happen in second grade and not before!

Submitted by Vivian Ferchill, Past KET President