Class Composition - Day 6

Day 6 - As I anticipated, this was our most difficult day so far. I handed out copies of the text that we made last week, then we separated in 3 groups and tackled three segments of the text to try to come up with melodies. My poor first class always has to deal with me learning how to do this.  We didn't talk about style or key today. I just wanted to get them making sounds and experimenting. 

I found that it was best to have them start by reading the words aloud to find the important words. Once they had the important words, say the text together with that emphasis. The hardest part - especially for my 7/8 choirs - was getting to the next step: being willing to venture a melody. Each group was eventually able to find something that they were able to sing together. I used Audacity and recorded their segments so we could keep them as a record of today's progress. Some of the ideas may end up in the final piece, some will end up on the cutting room floor, but we at least got some starting points. 

Difficult things today: I had a couple rough personality conflicts which made progress slow. I had one group just sing their text to the tune of "Up on the Housetop," so...that's probably not going to work. I had to move quickly from group to group to keep them on task, so I didn't have much time to guide them, though I was able to help a bit. Trying to stay out of the way and let them create is tough sometimes. :) 

We're going to do this again on Thursday this week, so we'll see if we learn anything.