You're listening to that music podcast with Bryson Tarbet, the curriculum designer and educational consultant behind that music teacher at the elementary music summit each week, Bryson and his guests will dive into the reality of being an elementary music teacher, and how music can truly be transformative in the lives of the students you serve. Show Notes and resources mentioned in this episode can be found at that music teacher.com.
Hello, and welcome back to that music podcast. I am so glad that you decided to share some time with me. I'm really excited for this conversation because I had my ukuleles for a while now. And I want to talk about how that's gone in my classroom. So first, a little bit of backstory. I asked for the first time for ukuleles at the end of my first year of teaching, and they got denied. And then I asked again and they got approved. And then COVID happened and everything blew up. So obviously no budgets happened and we waited and nothing happened so I didn't get any ukuleles. This past year I finally got my ukuleles. I got 30 ukuleles at my fifth and sixth grade school and it has been absolutely wonderful. So I wanted to dive into some things that I've learned some things that I'm glad I did. And some things I wish I would have done differently. When I got the ukuleles and how I kind of have implemented into my curriculum so far. One thing I'm really glad I did is I had the students helped me with the constant tuning ugly leaves when I first got them and I want to be very clear, it's not taught my students how to use the how to tune the ukuleles yet I hope to get there at some point. All right now what I mean when I said I have them helped me is essentially the first week or so that we had the ukuleles, I just left them out kind of against the wall. And at the beginning of every class, everyone would grab a ukulele and bring it up to me, I'd really tune it. And that would be that. So we did that, like I saw when I was able to tune them essentially like four times a day because I have four periods of four classes at that school every day. So obviously, it takes a while when you have a new string instrument to get them to keep their tune. So it took a while. But instead of me going around from one mic, picking it up tuning it, putting it down, picking it up tuning it, and so on. Having the students bring it up to me, has allowed me to focus more on tuning and we were able to get all the tuning done in about five minutes, which definitely would not have taken or would have taken a lot longer had. I had to take them out of cases and things like that. So that's one thing that I'm really glad I did. And that's something I do whenever. Now I don't have to do them every single time. Because there's they're holding the two more, but whenever I turn them, I have the students take them out of the cases and bring them up to me so that I only have to tune them. So that's something I'm really glad that I did. One thing that I wish I would have done is like I labeled the ukuleles, I gave them all numbers, which I think was a good idea on my part. But then I didn't do anything with those numbers, I wish that I would have come up with a way to ensure that I knew which student has the ukulele, because we've had a lot of like assigned essentially given them assign number. Because we've had a lot of issues with the students messing with the tuning pegs and making them really, really tight to the point where I'm worried that eventually a string might break. So I've had a lot of conversations about not doing that. But nothing seems to have worked. So far, I've actually getting the students to not do that. So when we bring them back out after winter break, we'll likely be getting assigned numbers. So at least I can kind of track down the number or kind of track down the student if I need to. Again, I want to allow my students to tune them, I just we're not quite there yet. So I don't want them to mess around until what to do. And I say that as someone who learned a stringed instrument in school and was really interested in the tuning pegs and broke many, many strings. One thing that I have really noticed about the ukulele and including my classroom is I was able to allow students that really didn't click with the style of music education that typically goes on in my classroom to allow them to be engaged in my class in the ukuleles. So I follow a traditional codec sequence. We do a lot of singing. In fifth and sixth grade. That's not everyone's jam, I totally get it. That's one reason why I wanted to get the ukuleles is so that I could get another type of music making or at least a way that we could, we could basically have a different a different option. So that it wasn't just folk songs and singing all day, which obviously I'm kind of simplifying but having instruments like ukulele was allowed a lot of my students that weren't really big into singing, especially singing with others or singing in front of people. Not that I had people sing in front of people but the opportunities to be musical. So that's something that I that's kind of the biggest reason that I wanted the ukuleles and I am so glad that I've been able to see that. I had a hunch it was kind of a little bit have a hypothesis that these some of these students would really latch on to it. And thankfully, I was correct. And a lot of the students that didn't really like music class before, or at least show that they liked it Have I been able to see them show a little bit of a different story. Before we continue, I wanted to let you know that today's episode is brought to you by the study beat Survival Guide. In this free ebook, we'll dive into my top 20 songs chants and activities for steady beat, so that you can truly build the strong foundation of musical understanding that is just so incredibly important when we're talking about the concepts. So core, like steady beat, to grab your free copy of this ebook, head on over to that music teacher.com/steady Beat, or you can check up the description wherever you're listening. Now, let's dive back into the episode. One thing that I liked that I included was a lot of play alongs. From the beginning, I found a lot of play alongs on YouTube of songs that the kids would know that were school appropriate that they let me even if they had two chords, we could play just by learning one chord, we could play on the chords we knew and then not play on the other chord, which allowed us to scaffold that up and got them playing a song they knew from day one, which I think was important because learning a new instrument can be hard. And I think it's really important for us to give them a positive experience on day one, so that they can see what this work will be about and why why? Why it's worth it. Honestly, on the flip side of that, I definitely was not the most in depth when it came to my plans, when I first started implementing the ukulele, we kind of just went with it a little bit more than I probably should have. Which was great, because I got to be really responsive to the students that were in front of me, not so great, because the sequence of things there, I didn't really think about the sequence of teaching things until I was kind of realizing, Oh, I probably should have done this first. So again, try definitely experimenting. So some things I would have to do, it's kind of spend a little bit more in the planning stages of the ukulele rather than just kind of the amount of time that I spent making the lessons currently. But we'll get there and kind of looking forward to the rest of the year. Obviously, I don't do ukulele every time. We definitely were a little ukulele heavy at the beginning of the year, just because it was new. And all the kids are really excited about these instruments that shut up. And so it's high, obviously. But now we're kind of weaving weaving in some other things as well. And as we go into the you know, when we get back from winter break, I would love to include more instrument centers, so that I'm able to work more one on one or small group with students that might be struggling or might be wanting to take learn a new chord, that might be a little bit more advanced. But also just giving them the opportunity to experiment a little bit more, rather than just only playing what we're doing as a class, which I think could be good. I don't know how that's gonna work looked at TPT, or you see if I can make anything myself yet. But I know there's stuff out there. And I know that I really think that having some sort of center or anything like that might also make it easier for us to integrate it into my code I curriculum. Which again, like I said, is something I want to do a little bit more of. Now as for the actual you could tell, I really love the ukuleles that I ordered. So I got the calla Waterman ukuleles from West music. Those are the ones that I have requested ever since I first started asking for ukuleles, which is really funny because the first proposal that I have talks about how they're plastic and they'll be really easy to wipe down in flu season. Which is right like before COVID happened, which I think is just hilarious, in retrospect, but I do I love that there plasto if we have a big, you know, a lot of bugs going around the school we can you know, wipe them down a little bit easier, the woods not gonna get weird, they don't tend to go super weird with changes in temperature, which I knew is important because my room is all over the place at that school. The control in that room at that my room at that school can be a little bit up and down. So I wanted to make sure that they'd be okay with that. They're keeping their tune really well once I got through that initial like stretching out the strings part, which was rough, but we got through it like we talked about. I'm really I really liked the ukuleles that we chose. I like I think that they were really good value. I think that they they're hoping they're keeping their tune. And they're also we've had a couple of drops, you know, kids, we've had a couple of drops and things like that. And some of them them like oh, that's the end of it. And I haven't noticed any cracks or anything like that so far. So obviously, they're still relatively new. So I'm sure we'll start getting some things breaking or things like that as as the year and the years go on. But I'm really impressed with how they've, how they've held up how they are doing exactly what I wanted them to do in my classroom. And I'm really enjoyed them. I have to say, I've been playing the ukulele since college and I've absolutely loved it. I use it with my preschoolers in their lessons I use it sometimes in in kindergarten, but but being able to bring it into the the middle school setting and allowing the kids to experience that with me, I think is really cool. I got a lot of students like hey, can you send me some links just ukuleles that you use we would suggest and I definitely sent goes out, I was like, hey, yeah, if you if you want some CDs, something stupid or whatever. And I've had a couple of students that I have that are receiving ukuleles for Christmas, which I think is awesome. And they're able to bring what we're working on in the music classroom and bring it home and bring it and make it theirs. Because
I mean, who doesn't want that who doesn't want the music happening in our classroom to make its way home and make its way out of our classroom. That's, that's kind of the whole point, we do this sometimes. So I've really been loving the ukulele, I definitely have some things to learn about how to make it more engaging, how to make it more sequenced and more integrated, rather than kind of Alright, we're going to stop doing this Kota stuff for a minute, and we're going to do some ukulele. So I definitely want to do things like that, which is, quite frankly, why I'm really excited for the masterclass tap, top my agenda for this month in the in that music teacher community, because it's all about that it's all about including elementary or including Dalian in the music classroom, in a sequenced and kind of important and thought through way. And I'm really excited about that, because that's definitely something I'm missing. I hope to find some some development opportunities at OMA when I go this year. But overall, this this episode was supposed to be a little bit like a little bit of a check in on the ukulele since we've had them for about half a year. And it's been great. The students have really, really latched on to it. They've engaged with it a lot. I'm enjoying it. They're enjoying it. And I think I think we've got a winner here. I'm really excited to see what to do over the next few years, as we're able to, as I'm able to grow as an educator that has ukuleles and knows how to teach ukuleles. But also as just education changes and the student population I serve changes and see how that all translates into the music that's happening in my classroom. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode. I hope you enjoyed it. And if you did, I would mean the world to me. If you would leave a review wherever you're listening now, those reviews really help us get in front of new people, but also help us understand what types of episodes you're really looking forward to and what what you want to see more of. If I haven't, if you haven't joined us inside that music, unity, I would love to formally invite you. We have lots of growing we have lots of PD in there. It's a growing library of professional development specifically for elementary music teachers. You can check out more in the description below. As well as by heading over to that music teacher.com We would love to have you there. If you have any questions, feel free to let us know. With that being said thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for being awesome. And if in case nobody has told you they thank you so much for making a difference in the lives of things that you teach.
