INFANT THROUGH SCHOOL AGEToday we learned all about crescendos (a musical dynamic term that tells us to increase the volume of a piece of music, for example, piano to forte) and descrescendos (decreasing the volume).
I've put a short piece of music below to illustrate how a crescendo is used:
To utilize the crescendo, we sang a song today called "Chicka Hanka"!
After playing and singing the initial melody to the left on xylophone, I had students follow with the rhythm sticks and this chant, meant to emulate the sound of an impending train:
"CHICKA-HANKA, CHICKA-HANKA"
We began "piano" and ended "forte". Then we learned that this technique is referred to as a "crescendo", and when done in a backward order, "decrescendo".
They did a great job with controlling the rhythm stick clicks to illustrate the train coming and going in the distance. Check out the mp3 of our three year old class doing just that today!
The school agers also performed Chicka Hanka and worked with their own crescendo compositions, marking them down on staff paper and experimenting with drawing the crescendo and decrescendo symbols.
MOM AND DAD CONNECT
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Check out this neat link on the crescendo!