Sing, Say, Dance, and Play! Every day an exciting adventure awaits my students when they enter my music classroom, a.k.a. Ms. K.'s House of Music. We sing, say, dance, and play to experience music at its fullest!
I teach music to K-6th grade students in a low-income public school in Ferguson, Missouri.
Most are at poverty level, and many also experience violence in their neighborhoods on a daily basis. Sometimes, music is the only solace to their day.
In spite of their tumultuous lives outside of school, my students are eager to express themselves through music. Every day they enter the music room with excitement and an eagerness to learn.
My Project
I am starting a "Science and Music" club after-school beginning in April. Students from grades 3-5 will participate. My musical scientists already have discovered how sound is produced during music class. In our after-school club we will explore how sound is produced on a synthesizer. Our experiments will correlate with the Missouri Science Standard PS4, "Waves and Their Applications in Technologies for Information Transfer," as well as the Missouri Grade Level Expectations in Music, "Interdisciplinary Connections."
We will begin using the requested synthesizer, along with an oscilloscope app (Audacity), to discover how frequencies (how many times the wave vibrates in one second) and amplitude (volume) play important roles in sound production.
We will explore how one instrument can sound different from another when playing the exact same musical note. Sine, square, saw tooth, and triangular waves will be explored. Next, we will develop our own models of waves to describe patterns in terms of amplitude or wavelength using wire or string to illustrate wavelength and amplitude of waves. At this stage we will also discuss and compare cross disciplinary ways of how the science of sound relates to electronic music. Finally, they will combine the waves to makes complex sounds, and my students will not only discover how traditional instruments are replicated on the synthesizer, but they will also create their very own sounds! We will record our music and display it with our sound wave models at our Fine Arts Night in May.
Through experimentation with the MicroBrute Synthesizer, my students will discover that synthesizers can basically reproduce the sound of any instrument. They will learn how that can happen through experimenting with the many different oscillators and discover how each can produce a different wave, or shape. Learning science through music rocks!
Nearly all students from low‑income households
Data about students' economic need comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, via our partners at MDR Education. Learn more
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