The use case for each writing option will depend on the function the activity needs to serve in the overall learning process. Not all of these examples use a paper and pencil, but they do link a sonic event with a visual representation. Are we interested in doing an extended composition activity across multiple lessons, where students will share their work with another group? Writing with a paper and pencil is a great way to preserve a musical thought and save it for another day. Are we asking students to aurally identify the solfege to a known song? If so, we might ask them to drag icons on the board to show the melodic contour. Instead, it will likely come down to the purpose of the activity.ĭo we need a quick, tactile way to reinforce a visual representation of long and short sounds? Using our fingers to trace long and short lines in the air can be a great way to accomplish this.

Since there are many legitimate ways to notate music, the question of which one to use may not be dependent on which one is the best. Showing stems up or down with a fist and palmįive-line staff worksheet with pencil or other manipulatives (erasers, bingo chips, etc.)įinger in the air to write rhythms or show long and short soundsĭrag iconic notation over steady beat strips Stick notation with solfege letters underneath Melodic Writing:įinger in the air to paint melodic contourĭraw the melodic contour shape on the boardĭrag icons on the board to show the melodic contourīody solfege signs and solfege hand signs Standard Western notation on a piece of paper is one out of many valuable pathways of visual expression. Let’s look at other ways of showing a visual representation of an aural event, specifically with melodic and rhythmic phrases. That is certainly a form of writing students will use in an active music class! Extending this idea, however, we have many opportunities to show how musicians depict aural sounds through visual media. Most of the time in music, we are familiar with writing in the context of using a paper and pencil to notate a musical expression through standardized Western notation. For our purposes today, I define writing as using a visual symbolic representation of an aural event that can have a shared meaning between musicians.

Music class depth of knowledge chart