An Experiment!

I initially started teaching ukulele to my third grade music class. After a couple of successful years with the instrument, lots of music literacy skills developed, and many enthusiastic students, I decided to bring it to the younger grades.

With the second graders, I took things quite a bit slower. We spent the majority of our time on the open strings; playing accompaniments while singing songs they already knew, composing with just those four strings, and really solidifying their knowledge of those notes on the treble staff. A year ago I decided to test the water with my first grade classes. We spent about six weeks learning songs using just the G and C strings, and it stuck with them!

Now in second grade, those kids have a terrific understanding of how to identify those two notes, how to differentiate between a space note and line note, and how to find G and C on their own ukulele without looking down at their fingers.

We added notes using the second fret, and most caught on right away, but I noticed that a handful of kids struggled with keeping the string number and fret number straight. This year with my new batch of first graders I decided to try things a little different. I guess you could call it a pedagogy experiment. We jumped into all 4 strings, but I just referred to them by their string number names instead of their pitch. The kids echoed back a lot of patterns based on the string numbers that I sang out, they composed using proper rhythm notations with string numbers written below their notes, and they sang songs they already knew while playing open string accompaniments.

A couple of weeks in I noticed they had a real solid grasp of high and low pitch, their ear skills improved, they were confident in finding the different strings (sometimes with their eyes closed!), and they knew without a doubt that the first string was closest to their toes and the fourth string was closest to their chin. I also noticed that by simplifying the decoding and processing for these young students, they were able to more quickly develop the skill of singing while accompanying themselves with a complementary rhythm. Simply put, they got to the step of making it sound musical with their voice and ukulele a lot faster.

Next up with these first graders, we are going to learn the corresponding absolute pitch names and how to read the notes on the staff. I’m curious to see if this different approach pays big dividends next year when they jump into playing some of the fretted notes, and if their ability to sing and play at the same time will carry forward!