Music Education 1 - Don't Be Scared!

In August of 2007, I made a presentation at an early childhood conference here in Houston, intending to offer regular classroom teachers a quick set of tools with which they could add music to their curricula without necessarily just plugging a CD into a player. The whole idea was to help them think outside the box of what they conceived as musical experiences, and easily augment whatever they were already doing by working from a basic knowledge of what music is...and to do this without fear of being without "musical talent".

Admittedly, being a novice at this sort of thing, I mis-judged the type of audience I might have.
I started by trying to give a brief explanation of what are considered the "5 Basic Musical Elements" - Pitch, Rhythm, Form, Dynamics, and Timbre. I immediately encountered the "deer in the headlights" reaction from a number in the class - way too analytical an approach it seemed, but I was somewhat committed to going that direction at that point. (More about another direction to take later...)

So here is the basic idea:

Pitch = the high-ness or low-ness of a note; the sounds that make up a melody.
Rhythm = the way the background beats are organized; whether something is fast or slow
Form = the way the melodies are organized (whether they repeat, or change, or return) into a whole
Dynamics = the loudness or softness of the sound; how easily you can actually hear it.
Timbre = the differences in the kinds of sounds; whether it is vocal or instrumental, a violin or a guitar, or even an acoustic vs. an electric guitar

A "truly musical" piece should have some of all of the above.
In the classroom however, you could conceivably have an activity that incorporates any or all of the above elements, and still be having a musical experience for your students.

There it is at the most basic. For specifics on how to accomplish this, and why...
Stay Tuned!