Videos: Tonal Activities


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Tonal Activities

Lesson time activities center around tonic and dominant in major and minor tonalities. Chord roots are used for accurate hearing. (Exception to chord roots is the dominant sound where students like to use 'TI' or 'SI' in place of 'SO' and 'MI.') After students hear the tonic-dominant changes, the harmonic vocabulary increases and students begin to improvise accompaniments. A variety of accompaniment patterns are presented in the Student Books. Listening and singing are fundamental for tonal audiation.

5 YO who is drawing spontaneously sings the patterns we are singing. 7 YO sings the tonic and dominant patterns on a neutral syllable. 10 YO students sings the patterns using solfege. 7 YO performs the patterns using F DO. Students know that the tonic dominant patterns they sing can be performed on any piano key. Young students, especially, are excited to learn that any piano key can be DO.
The Boogies and Blues book provides music that lets student hear chord changes from tonic to dominant and subdominant. After playing a piece using keyboard/hands notation and looking at the keyboard location picture, they can transfer the music they are playing to the music notation on the right page.
Changing a minor song to major tonality prepares for changing to other tonalities later. Using single tones for folk song harmonization allows students to clearly hear and control chord changes. For dominant, students choose either So or Ti. After chord changes are easily made, students apply their growing technical skills to create more elaborate accompaniments.
Students use function fingers to show chord changes for a song.
Labeling tonic major and dominant major.
Singing patterns and labeling them
Students move using Laban effort movements.
Learning a ‘Song to Sing’ with three students ages 6, 7, and 8.

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