Sage Student on Blue Man Group Invent an Instrument website!

In January and February of this year, middle schoolers were busy creating their own unique instruments.  Some students entered these instruments into Blue Man Group's Invent an Instrument competition for 5-8th graders.  Winners have not been announced, but there are clips of instrument submissions on the Blue Man Group website...including our own 6th grader, Ansh J.!

Click here to see.  His is the drum-set like instrument in the second to last clip.

To see more instruments, stay tuned.  Miss Hogan is working on a video/picture compilation to be posted soon.

Middle School Instrument Classifications

It is not always easy for a fifth-grader to hear the subtleties that can occur when you hit a triangle in the middle or on the side, or with the tip of the striker or with the middle or the back.   However, differentiating between listening subtleties is an important part of music and music class. 

When the “instruments” are taken away, and students are forced to find exactly the right sound they are looking for from “found sounds” (any old materials at hand that are “found”), it’s a lot of fun to watch.  

Over the past few months, middle schoolers have been busily at work making music through their own created instruments.  This has culminated over the past week with one final invented instrument and composition created out of materials they were provided with or brought in themselves.  The room became part music classroom, part woodshop, and we all got to hear compositions with timbres that were new and unusual.

Middle schoolers classified instruments using the Hornbostel-Sachs method, which uses method of sound production as the classifying factor. 

Here are some older performances for Chordophones and class discussions about classifying Chordophones (mostly pizza boxes with strings):

http://www.vimeo.com/19312954

Here are some older performances for Aerophones (mostly glass bottles):

http://www.vimeo.com/18301509

The invented instruments that were created in the music room over the past few weeks are combinations of chordophones, aerophones, idiophones, membranophones, and other unclassifyableophones.   Stay tuned for a video of some of those instruments, to be coming soon.

Middle School Instrument Unit is Nearing Time for Culminating Projects

Since the middle of October, music-making activities for middle schoolers have been framed through the lens of different instruments, how they are made, and how we can create and classify "instruments" from every day things.

We've used the Hornbostel-Sachs method of classifying our glass bottle flutes, pizza box guitars, and plastic Boomwhackers. This method classifies instruments by the method of sound production. For each type of instrument we've looked at, we've composed, arranged, or performed a piece of music.

Students have had some inspiration along the way.
This is a clip of a man we've dubbed as "bottle guy":



Miss Hogan's favorite clip of inspiration is of the Viennese Vegetable Orchestra:


Later to come:
Some clips of our instrument making endeavors, including the upcoming final projects, where students will create an instrument that does not already exist out of every day materials. I'm very much looking forward to seeing the kettle drums made from gumballs, and the PVC trombones, and everything else Sage students dream up!
Stay tuned.