Hi, everyone! This is
Jamie Parker. Like many of you, I am on spring break this week. Each year on
break, I like to set aside some time to think about how my students are progressing
and where they still have room to grow before the end of the year. One skill
area that seems to need improvement each year is improvisation. Personally, improvisation
has been an area of weakness for me, and, as a result, I feel the need to add
purposeful improvisation activities to my lessons. I have decided that I’ll
spend the next couple of blog posts discussing different improvisation areas,
and today I’ll be going over rhythm improvisation.
When doing rhythm improvisation activities in my classroom,
I tend to start with four-beat rhythm patterns. Before I hold my students
accountable for any patterns, I always go through the following process:
- I tap and say many four-beat patterns and the students tap and say the patterns back.
- We have a discussion about each of our known rhythms and the amount of beats each rhythm takes up.
- I tell the students to think of their own pattern. Then, I give them a little think time.
- The students say their patterns at the same time as the rest of their classmates. This “babble” time gives them an opportunity to practice and revise.
- I ask for some students to volunteer on our improvisation activity.