Division in Music

The second activity in the division lesson is to learn how it applies to music. After playing "Old Joe Clark" to remember the song and game, the kids joined me at the whiteboard.


By listening, they discovered that the song "Old Joe Clark" has 3 big sections. I drew 3 large arcs on the board, and we labeled them ABA by listening to see if the sections were the same or different. "This song is in ABA form," I told them. "We just divided the song into 3 parts!" I divided the students into 3 groups and had each group sing a different section.





Next, the students listened for even smaller sections in the music. With this part of the lesson, the kids can hear it in two measure sections or one measure sections. This class heard it in one measure sections. Underneath the large arcs, I drew smaller arcs for the smaller sections. "We just divided the song into 12 parts," I said. But instead of splitting the class into 12 groups, we did 4 groups and I pointed to each group when it was their turn to sing a small section.

Lastly, I showed the students how some songs have a strong/weak beat (2), strong/weak/weak beat (3), and a strong/weak/weak/weak beat (4). The students and I used our bodies to tap the beat of the song to find out if it was in 2, 3, or 4. Then we sang the entire song while tapping the strong and weak beats on our bodies.

With some extra time, we reviewed "My Country 'Tis of Thee," and applied the same process to this song. We divided it into 2 sections, with 7 smaller sections, and found out that the beat was in 3. We also took the song "Witch's Brew" and did the same process with that song! It was also in ABA form (the kids liked that connection to "Old Joe Clark"), had 12 smaller sections, and they decided it was had 4 beats in a measure. Technically, "Witch's Brew" is in 2, but the eighth notes are so slow that it feels like 4.

It was super fun, the students understood the idea of form, and we used division in music :)