Living Musical Sculpture

Objective

As we practiced with "statue of me," music and movement can help us express who we are. Now let's take it a step further by improvising and adding music to our movement. In this activity, we're going to share a little bit more about ourselves and contemplate our connection to the Earth, all while exploring musical creativity.

Example Sequence

1. Find a place in the space to call your own.

2. Take a look around, identify your neighbors, and orient yourself to the spot. Greet your neighbors with a friendly wave, "hello," gesture, or some other kind way to welcome each other.

3. Take three deep, cleansing breaths. Bring in fresh energy with each breath, and let out what you no longer need.

4. Start playing some music and let your body wake up and move naturally. You don't have to be fancy or try to be creative.

5. What if we could add sound to some of our movements? They don't all have to be musical or use your singing voice. But considering the elements of music might help you create sound: dynamics, rhythm, tempo, pitch, timbre, etc. How do your movements correspond to these elements?

6. How can we use these postures, movements, and sounds to show the group something important about ourselves? Maybe is there a favorite hobby you want to share? Or something about your personality, or something you would like to do with your new friends? Or maybe it is just a feeling you like to have or a vibe you want your classroom to feel like?

7. You can try on multiple poses, movements, and sounds. Aim to settle on one to share as part of the ensemble musical sculpture.

8. Once everyone has their individual musical sculpture, take a moment to settle and go around the room to introduce each one individually, layering in the sound person by person. Keep it going for as long as you would like, allowing your creation to organically change over time.

9. In the end, take a moment to honor each person's contribution. Maybe the class can mirror and echo each individual's creation, or the class can just provide an individual gesture of gratitude.

National Core Arts Standards

MU:Cr1.1.5a: Improvise rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic ideas, and explain the connection to specific purpose and context (such as social, cultural, and historical).

MU:Cr2.1.5a: Demonstrate selected and developed musical ideas for improvisations, arrangements, or compositions to express intent, and explain the connection to purpose and context.

MU:Cr3.1.5a: Evaluate, refine, and document revisions to personal music, applying teacher-provided and collaboratively-developed criteria and feedback, and explain the rationale for changes.

MU:Pr5.1.5b: Rehearse to refine technical accuracy and expressive qualities to address challenges, and show improvement over time.

MU:Re7.1.5a: Demonstrate and explain, citing evidence, how selected music connects to and is influenced by specific interests, experiences, purposes, or contexts.

MU:Cn10.0.5a: Demonstrate how interests, knowledge, and skills relate to personal choices and intent when creating, performing, and responding.

MU:Cn11.0.5a: Demonstrate understanding of relationships between music and the other arts, other disciplines, varied contexts, and daily life.

CASEL Core Competencies

Self-awareness, relationship skills, social awareness