It is a cool Autumn morning. The first lesson of the day is with a Year 4 class who are very excited because I have told them we will be playing ukuleles, for the first time, today. We begin in time-honoured fashion with me singing ‘Hello Everyone’. It’s a Year 4 class so we are using the pitches do, mi, so and la (C, E, G and A). I am keeping it in C major today because these four notes are the open string tones of a ukulele.
The class respond by singing back the pitches that I have sung using the solfa names and the hand-signs they are familiar with. This is such a well-known routine and they are now so able that I will soon be singing them longer phrases i.e. more than 4 beats, extending to 8 beats to start with.
I finish with the four pitches of G – C – E E – A (He-llo-every-one). This relates directly to the open strings on a ukulele as they are plucked one after the other. I point to these four notes on the stave. We sing the notes using the note names G – C – E – A. We did this last week as well. This week though things are going to be much more hands on. I pick up my ukulele and hold it to my chest, explaining how the inside of my right arm helps to push it into my body and keep it in place. I pluck each string (G – C – E – A) and then ask which finger I used. Someone tells me that I used my thumb. This isn’t proper ukulele technique but I find that with the other fingers to anchor the right hand the thumb works well for the very basic work we are doing. I talk up the vocabulary of ‘open strings’ and the new verb ‘pluck’. These words are written on the board.
The ukuleles are handed out. I remind everyone that no one is to play any notes at all until we are all ready. This seems almost cruel – considering most people’s first instinct when holding an instrument – but as every music teacher will tell you, it is essential class discipline. I then play the four strings again and everyone plays them back. We have done so much call-and-response of this sort with our singing over the years that it just happens naturally. I then point to the four notes on the stave and the class play these back. This is easy enough when I do so in the order of the strings but I soon make it more complicated. It’s a very good exercise this because everyone has to look up at the board to see where I am pointing and this means we are getting into the good practise of not looking down at our hands the whole time. The children are feeling their way over the strings instead of relying on looking down at their hands. I hadn’t realised how useful, from this point of view, the exercise is until I did it and noticed that everyone was looking up. I make a mental note to always do this when starting out on the ukuleles. I tell the class that as musicians we need to be looking up, perhaps at some written music, maybe at our fellow musicians or out into the audience. Next I ask a volunteer to do this simple ‘sight-reading’ on their own. Asking for volunteers helps to focus attention on the task at hand and gives nearly everyone a breather (win win). I pick out the notes of a well-known song (Mrs White) and the volunteer plucks slowly through the melody. It’s very slow so it is hard to identify. We do it again a little quicker and some people realise it is Mrs White. I then do the same exercise, pointing at notes on the stave with a volunteer playing them, for another well know song called Apple Tree. With help from the class I write out this song on the stave in C major. At this point in the lesson some children are quite lost and others have raced ahead. For example, one boy has already realised that he can easily play the song Apple Tree on his ukulele and he is very excited about that. Another boy plays us all ‘Bells in the Steeple’ in a very focused way. I am very impressed that these two can play the tunes with great accuracy straight away. They have never touched a ukulele before. The truth is that their whole musical education has been leading up to this point.
I will be supporting the less able in the coming weeks. What’s more, the class is divided into Mixed Ability Pairs and this means there is a lot of peer-to-peer support going on. There is even one boy who is new in the class today. He is the recipient of lots of help from other children.
Next we turn to composing our own 8-beat melody. Of course, we are only going to be using our four notes. We have done this in the last two lessons using xylophones. I remind the class that we can write down two rows of 4-beat rhythms using only ta (a crotchet) and ti-ti (a pair of quavers). And I remind them that they should leave a space below the first line of rhythm. This is so they can write in the note names underneath each rhythm stick. Having demonstrated this on a small whiteboard I hold it up and ask for a volunteer to play it on their ukulele. It is played fairly accurately. I emphasise the rhythm and ask him to play it again.
As this process is something they are familiar with we then distribute the whiteboards and pens (again making use of the Mixed Ability Pairs). Each pair writes out a melody in this way. It doesn’t take long. There is much excitement here. This is something they have done and there is a sense that playing their melody on the ukulele is something that they can do; especially after they have seen another person in the class already do it by playing my demonstration melody. I am setting them up to succeed. This is how you teach.
“Listen to my complicated one” says one boy. A boy who had made a great show of being upset earlier in the lesson (due to a very trivial concern) is now very engaged and really enjoying this work with his partner. Children live in the moment and it’s important to remember this as a teacher. In some cases a child might go from the depths of despair to enormous elation in a single lesson. The room is now full of pairs practising what they have written. It is literally impossible for me to fully support all of the work that is going on. After a few minutes I shake a tambourine and it is time for some pairs or individuals to demonstrate the tune that they have written by playing it on the ukulele. Quite often the performance, as short and basic as it is, will be met with a spontaneous round of applause.
I ask the class if they could write out what they have written onto the stave. There is silence. These are uncharted waters. Some of the more confident ones nod as if to suggest that they think they could. Others glance at the board where the song Apple Tree is written out on the stave. This is not beyond them by any means but it has to be approached in a very slow and methodical way by me. I need to give them more chances to practise what we did today (writing rhythm sticks with note names underneath) while also modelling how I can transfer this onto the stave. They are so familiar with the pitches and how to read simple rhythms that this is something they will be doing confidently in a few months’ time. It’s been a slow build to get the class to this point. And it will continue to be a slow build. I think real teaching always is.
We finish with a funny song about the ancient Egyptians. It’s by Suzy Davies and it’s a good one. It’s called Amazing Egyptians. It has the right balance of fun and melody and atmosphere. The children take to it at once. We will soon be adding instruments to it.
And then, after a short break, I do the whole lesson again with the other Year 4 class!