Making each class an orchestra

Making music together and the inclusive education curriculum

by MAURIZIO VITALI
    School sections
    • Lower secondary school
    Educational subjects
    • Instrumental practice
    • Music, Rhythm and movement
    • Aural skills (Ear training)
    • Vocalism

Making each class an orchestra

For several years, a significant part of the syllabus developed for the three lower secondary school years has been summed up by the slogan: “Making each class an orchestra”. 
 
From the very first days at school, the students ask me what instrument they are going to learn to play. I had long pondered this question which expressed the feeling of growing up between primary and secondary school coupled with an expectation of being able to immerse themselves in a world where playing music was something beautiful and meaningful. 
 
The answer I came up with was to foster a meaningful experience of making music together. 
 
Just as a class can become a sports team, a theatre group, or the cast of a film, I thought that, over the course of three years, a group of motivated, dynamic, pre-adolescents could easily become a small orchestra, with the unique quality and unrepeatability that this experience would be able to offer. 
 
The result was that over the years a process came together which was able to develop collective musical identities while bringing a sense of belonging to a shared artistic experience, creating unique, memorable stories that will be remembered for years to come. 

Work tools

Educational purposes

The skills, goals and training objectives selected by the teacher for this experience are shown below.

Competences
    Listening
    • Sound perception
    • Interpretation
    • Analysis
    • Comprehension
    Production
    • Execution
    • Improvisation
    • Composition
    Reading and Writing
    • Use of unconventional analogic music notation
    • Use of conventional analogic music notation
GOALS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMPETENCES [...]
    Lower secondary school
    Listening
    • Understands and evaluates events, materials, and musical works recognising their meanings, also in relation to his/her own musical experience and the different historical/sociological context.
    Production
    • Actively participating in music experiences through the execution and the interpretation of vocal and instrumental music pieces belonging to different genres and cultures.
    • Capacity to conceive and create music and multimedia messages, also though improvisation or collective elaboration processes, using also IT tools, in critical confrontation with models belonging to the musical heritage
    Reading and Writing
    • Using different notation systems functional to reading, analysis and reproduction of pieces of music
Educational targets
  • Able to reproduce and sing songs correctly.
  • Able to reproduce and play music correctly on the flute, keyboards, and other instruments.
  • Able to reproduce and play rhythms and polyrhythmic sequences correctly.
  • Able to respect their own role in the activity of making music together. 

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