Fun with Music
Sixth Grade
Sixth Grade "Fun with Music" was the general music exploratory class at Stewart Middle School. Students used drumming, singing, playing Orff
instruments, listening, using audio visual materials, composing,
improvising and playing the recorder to learn about music. Highlights of the
classes included: making a set of pentatonic bamboo pan pipes,
composing and recording an original class composition for Orff
Ensemble and improvising real jazz music as the sixth grade Stewart
Orff Jazz Band.
The final project for all sixth grade classes was to compose original
pieces for Orff Ensemble. The students applied their knowledge of
music theory, instruments, melody, pitch, and rhythm to the task
of composing a melody. An Orff accompaniment is added and the
students learn to play the songs as Orff Ensemble pieces. The
compositions were recorded and printed so each student could have
a copy.
Listen to two compositions written by 6th graders.
Then he brought them in and gave them to us. We
first sanded the pieces of bamboo. We had to sand them top to
bottom with rough sand paper. That means that the seventh and
eighth period classes had to sand each and every piece of bamboo.
After that we had to sand it with the fine grain sand paper to
smooth it out, still going top to bottom.
Then we had to polish them with an old rag. We
then moved to the next step after Mr. Holl made sure they were
soft. They had to be very soft!
Then we used yarn to tie them together. We did
that by putting the cross-pieces across the bamboo popes and winding
the string around the bamboo pipes and cross-pieces. We did that
by repeating the same steps which were: "Around, behind,
to the top, and down." Then you did the same thing to the
bottom. Then you play them and make a song.
Some of the kids in the class finished early so Mr. Holl let us help make some real bamboo flutes. You make them the same way as the Pan Pipes but you only work on one long bamboo tube. Mr. Holl drilled the holes and tuned them. They were raffled off to class members who worked on them at the end of the six weeks.
