Elements: Duration: Beat

 You've now learned a little bit about the six elements, and are now ready to dive in. Do you want to teach about each element in depth first, or get right to the music? A lot will depend on what type of music teacher you are, and what type of students you have. Do they have a lot of previous experience with theory? Do you, or them, just want to make and experience music? Do you like to do seasonal songs through the year, observe heritage month focuses, or whatever catches your attention?

If your aim is to spend most of the time making music, you'll have to more sneaky and intentional about the elements. Like hiding broccoli in mac n cheese, you have to make sure the songs and activities you do meet the goals of music education. 

This doesn't mean if a song doesn't have the rhythm groups in it that they're supposed to learn that year, that you shouldn't do it. It just means you'll have to make sure that everything gets covered at some point within those songs, and you'll have to make an effort to bring your class's attention to it somehow. This might also mean one day they learn a rhythm; the next class might be a new dynamic, then a few weeks later, another rhythm. They might not see connections between aspects of one element with big gaps between when they experience them.

For this reason, most teachers like to at least skim through the elements at the start of the year, with just learning what the six elements are, and a few examples. I found though that these students lacked a deeper understanding when trying to communicate about particular features of music. I would read things like:

• it has a staccato dynamic
• the crescendo made the music faster
• the beat is good
• it has fast rhythms

These came from students who could perform music quite well, but could not communicate about it.

I decided to change things up and treat each element like a unit. This did not mean we only learned about duration in the first 6 weeks though. We also listened to music, created music, and composed music. Some classes were more heavy in the actual theory behind rhythms though. 

The first unit is duration. When we have our exploratory lesson on the elements, no one ever gets the first element as duration. They think too specifically. We've got to start general though! 

Duration includes beat, rhythm, and tempo

Listen to a song, any song. Can you tap your toes to a steady pulse? That's the beat. Like a heart beat, tick tock of a clock, swish swish of windshield wipers, the beat of a song is a steady pulse

The beat should not be described (ever!) as "good". You'll hear this all the time--"I like this song because it has a good beat."  What makes a beat good?  Or bad? If it's steady, and you can feel it, it's doing its job. 

There are lots of activities out there to help teach beat. Most are geared for primary students, but we shouldn't assume students in grade 4 or higher are solid with feeling the beat. Think of the last social gathering you went to with adults dancing. Were there some that just were awkward? They struggle to find the beat!

Stand everyone in a circle. Start clapping a steady beat (rhythm sticks also work well), at around 60 BPM--the same tempo as a clock! You can use a metronome too, if there's no clock. Just enter "metronome" into Google, and one pops up! Start clapping on the clicks. Count 7 clicks, then stomp on #8, and repeat, counting to 7, and stomp on #8. Don't let them rush the stomp! 

Once they've got that, keep it going but model saying "I can keep a steady beat-stomp". Each syllable is on a beat; there's 7 syllables and the 8th beat is a stomp still. At this point, it's fun to take it around the circle, student by student. Now, have all the students clap and say the 7 syllables, and one by one students take turns doing a stomp on beat 8. You can vary the metronome too, to make sure they're listening and reacting. When you change the tempo, it will take a few beats to get back in sync, so don't worry!

Once they get that going, transfer the beat from claps, to tapping your toes on one foot and still saying "I can keep a steady beat" as a class. Stomping on beat 8 is now hard to do, so make beat 8 silent! This will often make them rush into beat 1, but make sure they don't! 

Slowly speed up the metronome. They should be able to get to 80 BPM fairly easily. 

Now, instead of silence on beat 8, you go around the circle saying the 7 syllables and clapping, and one by one the students say their name on beat 8. Some might really have to say it quickly if they have a lot of syllables! Others that have one syllable will just be sounding beat 8. 

Students will naturally try to rush this. Discuss how awkward it feels that every syllable is getting the same amount of time. How can you make it more natural?

Practice clapping the beat like before, but now beat 1 gets "I can", beat 2 is "keep a", beat 3 is "stead-y" and beat 4 is "beat". They may want to add something after beat, which is fine as long as they come back on beat 1 with "I can". Encourage them to tap the 4 beats with their toes. You can even march in place (have everyone start on left; each beat is the other foot). We typically express the beat through gross motor skills (foot tapping, marching, swaying, etc) and rhythm with fine motor skills (clapping, tapping, snapping).

Now you've added rhythm to your beat! See how fast, and how slow, you can do it consistently. Often, it is much harder to do it slow!!

Beat on its own isn't all that exciting. Play the metronome at different tempos. There's not really emotion, though some might infer that slow tempos are slow and fast tempos are exciting. That's more of a personal connection. The clicks themselves have no emotion, no musicality. They're just click; just the beat. Not a good beat, not a bad beat. 

If you're interested in this beat activity, but need more examples or images, check out my new resource available at Teachers Pay Teachers: Elements: Duration: Beat. This is a PDF with a teacher resource, lesson ideas, and extensions. Included is also a Google Slideshow to help direct your lessons, with videos and YouTube links. I will be creating similar resources for each of the elements of music in the Ontario Music Curriculum.