Students love creating their own maps. However, students need the scaffolding of the prior experiences with musical mapping that you can provide in your classroom. The experience of student-created maps provides fertile ground for students to experience multiple perspectives within an expressively shared listening experience.
This process cannot be rushed. Allow plenty of time for students to experience, explore, share, and find ways to creatively represent their musical ideas. Make sure you try to make your own map - it will help you understand how to select music that is conducive to mapping (clear melodic contour, form, texture) and will also help you realize how time intensive yet engaging this process is.
ALWAYS take the time to allow students to share their maps by pointing to them as the music is heard once again. It is a time to celebrate their musical knowings and for you and their peers to gain a window into their musical ideas.
The process that I have found to be successful:
Students have considerable experience with musical maps through other previous listening experiences and through working with puzzle cards. The have experience with a wide variety of ways to represent musical sound.
First, students learn that they are about to work on their own maps from scratch. Take a look at a new “complete” map as a model. For this I used a map I made of an excerpt from Ravel’s “Love for Two Cats” (excerpt 0:00 - 0:40). Students would listen and trace it in the air to see if they could “figure out” my map. Students would take turns tracing it on the paper (as they would later do for their own maps) and discuss what they hear in the music.
This process cannot be rushed. Allow plenty of time for students to experience, explore, share, and find ways to creatively represent their musical ideas. Make sure you try to make your own map - it will help you understand how to select music that is conducive to mapping (clear melodic contour, form, texture) and will also help you realize how time intensive yet engaging this process is.
ALWAYS take the time to allow students to share their maps by pointing to them as the music is heard once again. It is a time to celebrate their musical knowings and for you and their peers to gain a window into their musical ideas.
The process that I have found to be successful:
Students have considerable experience with musical maps through other previous listening experiences and through working with puzzle cards. The have experience with a wide variety of ways to represent musical sound.
First, students learn that they are about to work on their own maps from scratch. Take a look at a new “complete” map as a model. For this I used a map I made of an excerpt from Ravel’s “Love for Two Cats” (excerpt 0:00 - 0:40). Students would listen and trace it in the air to see if they could “figure out” my map. Students would take turns tracing it on the paper (as they would later do for their own maps) and discuss what they hear in the music.
Next, students work on one or two Incomplete Musical maps.
Students listen to the music they will be working on for their own maps. For 5th graders, they all used the same music. For older students, you might allow them to choose their own music from selected appropriate examples.
For my younger students, they created maps for Mussourgsky’s “Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks.”
There are many examples on YouTube. LISTEN
To foster a holistic understanding of the music, we first listened to the music in its entirety and figured out the Form of the piece. Because I have learned (as a teacher-researcher) how much my students valued the use of gesture,
I encouraged several more listenings, encouraging them to “draw” the music in the air with an imaginary pencil. We did this until they were able to hum the music while “drawing.” At this point, they were ready to begin to transfer imaginary drawings to paper. (HINT: do not skip this step with gesture/drawing in the air. It is a key to student success!)
Students worked with a partner or in groups of 3-4 students to make a “rough draft” of their map. Because some students were overwhelmed with that prospect, they were only required to complete the “A” section (we had already determined what the sections were). Most students, however, completed both the A and B sections. Please note that students are listening to the music continually throughout this entire process and at this point, you may want to offer smaller excerpts.
Later, the students would transfer their rough copies onto long sheets of paper and could add color with markers (start with pencils!). Again, the music is listened to continually.
The final step is for students to share their maps with their peers by pointing to them as the music is heard.
Here are some examples of maps created by 5th graders while listening to “Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks.” See videos below.
Students listen to the music they will be working on for their own maps. For 5th graders, they all used the same music. For older students, you might allow them to choose their own music from selected appropriate examples.
For my younger students, they created maps for Mussourgsky’s “Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks.”
There are many examples on YouTube. LISTEN
To foster a holistic understanding of the music, we first listened to the music in its entirety and figured out the Form of the piece. Because I have learned (as a teacher-researcher) how much my students valued the use of gesture,
I encouraged several more listenings, encouraging them to “draw” the music in the air with an imaginary pencil. We did this until they were able to hum the music while “drawing.” At this point, they were ready to begin to transfer imaginary drawings to paper. (HINT: do not skip this step with gesture/drawing in the air. It is a key to student success!)
Students worked with a partner or in groups of 3-4 students to make a “rough draft” of their map. Because some students were overwhelmed with that prospect, they were only required to complete the “A” section (we had already determined what the sections were). Most students, however, completed both the A and B sections. Please note that students are listening to the music continually throughout this entire process and at this point, you may want to offer smaller excerpts.
Later, the students would transfer their rough copies onto long sheets of paper and could add color with markers (start with pencils!). Again, the music is listened to continually.
The final step is for students to share their maps with their peers by pointing to them as the music is heard.
Here are some examples of maps created by 5th graders while listening to “Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks.” See videos below.
Here's another one.
And one more.
VIDEOS of 5th graders tracing their own musical maps (Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks)
VIDEOS of secondary students tracing their maps (student selected musical examples).