CYMBALS!
We had fun with cymbals this week! My apologies for a little bit of a scatterbrained January; my impending maternity leave combined with some crazy snow days/school closings has really done a number on music class the past few weeks! However, we enjoyed getting back to a bit of a rhythm for my last class with the children (Miss Holly will continue classes for February) and learning about cymbals this week!
How do cymbals work? We learned that by hitting them together or with a mallet, the metal vibrates, and a sound rings out! Larger cymbals make lower sounds, while smaller cymbals have a higher pitch! And, in the case of our cymbals, our small finger cymbals have the longest decay--meaning that the sound lasts for a long time, even when it is continuing to ring almost inaudibly. We tested this by carefully holding a ringing finger cymbal next to our ears!
The children got a chance to try out the hand cymbals at different volumes, and they practiced "muting" the cymbal by pressing it against their body to immediately quiet the vibration!
We also read "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" in younger classes and enjoyed "Jack and Jill", my funny bird puppets!
I found this neat video on making a cymbal "sizzle" below if you'd like to share an extra bit of learning with your children this week!
QUESTIONS TO ASK YOUR CHILD!
1.) How do cymbals create sound? Through vibration!
2.) How can you mute a cymbal? By touching it, which silences it. We did this by putting the cymbal against our body!