7th Grade Band Rhythmic Activity
For the 7th grade band, I have been rehearsing the piece, Shosholoza, by Anne McGinty. It is in call and response form and contains several syncopated rhythms, so I designed a rhythmic sheet through Finale for the whole band that we used in rehearsals. They could all play the patterns together with the paper and recognize who actually had that specific part in the music.
| shosholozarhythms1.mus |
Using the rhythm sheet did not always go as I had hoped, but it did improve their knowledge of each others' parts. One particular section of the music that they played incorrectly, but were able to fix with the sheet, was the last three measures, Rhythm F. When just playing the rhythm on the worksheet, the whole band counted and played it correctly. Once we moved to that part in the music, though, which the whole band plays, the played beat 2 in the second to last measure as two eighth notes, instead of a quarter note. We went back to the sheet, played the rhythm, then moved to the music again. This time they were able to apply it to the music, and played correctly.
