Music Week

It has been a busy week, with little time to pull my thought together enough to post. Here is the update. Seven students have been working 2 hours each day these week building a stringed instrument. I will have pictures up tomorrow. Picture a 3/4 inch thick piece of plywood, about two and half feet long, and a foot wide, with frets, three strings, and tuning pegs. Today they have been composing on it. The instruments- a simple dulcimer, really- are pentatonic, that is, they play a highly melodic five note scale.
They began with composing a two note melody. Why only two notes? So that each student can clearly focus on the isolated elements of melody: pitch, rhythm, and the space between notes. Three notes allow a student too much freedom; it becomes easy to simply have lots of melodic movement without the structure of a melody. By building the instrument and emphasizing simple melody, we emphasize structure above all else.
Quite a lot of variety and drama can be created with two notes. But for some students, it was a tremendous struggle. But once realized, the huge potential of that additional third note becomes clear. All the students were now thinking musically. We told them: you are communicating "musical ideas" not just running your hands up and down a fretboard, not just showing off or making noise. This is communication.
This is starting to sink in.
Tomorrow they will be composing and teaching the composition to each other. Then pairs of students will be performing a short improvisation together, a melody against a drone or an ostinato.