It's the little things...

I just spent about 15 minutes making a set of diagrams that I hope will solve one of my most annoying general music problems.  All they are is a layout of the bars for my Orff instruments. One has blank bars, one has all the bars labeled for C major, one is labeled for G major, one is labeled for F major, and the last is set up for C major pentatonic.

I don't know about you, but time lost explaining which bars go where is one of the most annoying aspects of my job.  Never mind that we talk about the musical alphabet.  Never mind that the bars are obviously sized to go in order largest to smallest.  Never mind that the layout of the bars is logical and visually obvious.

Asking students to use their powers of observation and problem-solve is sometimes just too much.

And I sigh heavily.

I don't know why it has taken me so long to think of providing a clear visual of each particular Orff bar set up that we use.



Thankfully, they are in my TeacherspayTeachers store now and ready to use.

 

Tada!

My first thought is the obvious - post this on the Interactive Whiteboard when having students change the bar configuration.  No surprise there.  My second thought is to use them to discuss scales and key signatures.  Also no surprise.  Third, these might come in handy for a class that is too big to have everyone on an instrument.  The third grade at my school is definitely the largest, and to get them all on an instrument would be a challenge (except we're almost exclusively doing recorders now). Having kids use their fingers to find the bars on a printout of the instrument is almost as good as playing if it comes to that.

Another thought is to have students fill in the blank bars as an assessment.  Can they remember what every bar is?  Can they label just the bars that are needed in a one-octave C Major scale?  Can they remember what bars to remove to do a C Major Pentatonic scale?  Can they remember what bar changes to make a G or F Major Scale, and what note/bar becomes do?  There are quite a few assessment possibilities here.  I plan on using many of them, particularly with my fourth and fifth grade students.

The most amazing thing about these diagrams?  They're such a little thing - such an insignificant effort - but I think they will make a big difference in my classroom.  At least I hope they will help alleviate one of the most annoying things that happens in my room.

Hopefully you'll find these useful!  Good luck, and we're in the home stretch of the school year!