Music - Linking with other KLAs

This week in music we discussed how to link music with other KLAs. When talking about this with other people, I found that most of us had some vague ideas about how to link music with other subjects, but since we didn't know either the Creative Arts syllabus, or most of the other syllabuses, well enough, we weren't sure if the ideas we had fitted in with the syllabus content, or if there were appropriate outcomes for the appropriate stages for our ideas.

My favourite idea for linking music with other KLAs was creating a musical instrument in science and my goal for this journal entry will be to work out how I can fit this in with the Science and Creative Arts syllabus content.

My first thought is that there might be something in stage 3 science about how the size of a sound wave effects the pitch of the sound created. So I'm going to start by looking in that part of the syllabus.

I decide to look in the Draft NSW K-10 Science syllabus, as that is the syllabus that I will need to use when I am teaching in schools.

Unfortunately, I can't find anything in Stage 3 science  related to sound. I also can't find anything in Stage 2 related to sound. But in Stage 1, under the Physical World outcome I find:

Science Understanding

• Light and sound are produced by a range of sources and can be sensed.

Students:
- use their sense of touch to feel vibrations from familiar objects and infer that sound is made when an object vibrates such as vocal chords, a stringed instrument, rubber bands
- produce different sounds from familiar objects using actions such as striking, blowing, scraping and shaking
- compare the loudness and pitch of sounds made by musical instruments and the actions used to make the sound

These all link quite clearly with music and have potential for a joint science/music lesson!

Next I need to go to Stage 1 Music in the creative arts syllabus and see which outcomes or indicators might link best to these science indicators. The following indicators seem appropriate:

MUS1.2
- explores ways of making different sounds on instruments or sound souces.
MUS1.4
- identifies simple musical features of music eg. pitch, tone colour etc.

Using the science and music indicators I could possibly plan lessons around:

• Rubber band orchestra.
  Students can, as a class, pluck rubber bands to perform a piece of music together and then can write up a procedure about how to get the best sort of sound from a rubber band (this would show the students' understanding of how vibrations create sound).
  
  
• Music storeroom exploration.
  Students need to pick three instruments from the music storeroom and play with the instruments, working out two different ways to play each of the instruments. This can be followed by a class discussion about what made a strong sound, what made a weak sound, and what exactly it is that happens to the instruments when a sound is made.
  
  
• Sort the instruments.
  Students are grouped, and each group is given a number of pitched musical instruments. The students must then sort the instruments by pitch, either into groups (high, medium, low) or along a scale, depending on ability.
  
  
• Make a recycled instrument.
  Students are given jars, sticks, rice, string, rubber bands and other recycled equipment. They are to design and make their own musical instrument, then are to present their instrument to the class, using appropriate language (pitch, timbre etc.) to describe the sound their instrument produces and how it works.