Kaleidoscopic Rhythms: A Collaboration with Children
My name is Mikhail Ally and I am an afterschool teacher with Kaleidoscope at the Atlanta International School. (www.aischool.org)
My goal through this musical project is to teach kids to how to understand the structure of music and how to playfully experiment with it's structure.
To stray from anything but a 3/4 or 4/4 time signature in music is uncommon and is sometimes considered to be "experimental," "progressive" or "avant garde." It doesn't have to be intimidating or difficult, ecspecially for kids who are learning to COUNT. Rarely exceeding the number ten, these kids are well qualified to be rhythmic musicians!
This is my first time teaching and collaborating with kids in a musical project. The children involved ranged from ages 4 to 6 years old. I brought along a small drum, a maraca, bells, a metronome and a computer. Any other sounds involved are coming from the children, such as clapping, whistling, laughing and any other sounds naturally erupting from kids having fun playing music.
For every group involving 4 to 6 children we picked a time signature, also between 4 and 6. Every child was to accent a different beat, which was kept through the metronome (80bpm.) Keeping each group's recording at the same tempo allowed me to piece it together into a fluent rhythmic track and later to go over it with a sequencing program, which created the vibraphone and music box tones that you hear.
I plan to keep working with children on this project, and in the future perhaps have each child verbally counting. In the next few weeks, I plan to play sequences and melodies while the children are verbally counting. This will help the kids better grasp the structure of the song.
Any suggestions or comments are more than welcome! Feel free to e-mail me at mally@aischool.org.
The "6" in "6/4" means that we are counting to 6, and the "4" stands for quarter notes, which is every beat accented.
0 seconds. 4 bars of a 6/4
18 seconds. 6 bars of 5/4 (notice the whistle, primarily on the second beat)
40 seconds. 5 bars of 4/4
55 seconds. 4 bars of 5/4 (notice the pattern of the 8th notes on drum slowly evolving into a swing pattern which evolves into a pre-delayed sounding quarter note...)
1.10 - freeform outtro
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