feature stories

Kids get the blues — musically speaking

by Natalie Bell

Apr 27, 2006 12:19 PM

Lincoln Center Institute teaching artist helps kindergartners feel the rhythm

Long before she arrived one day last month for the first in a series of visits at PS 333/Manhattan School for Children, the teaching artist from the Lincoln Center Institute for Arts in Education (LCI) had met and brainstormed at length with teachers about the lessons she would present.

The teaching artist — singer and actor Sonya Robinson — would lead kindergarten students in actively exploring the rhythmic patterns underlying the blues music of Guy Davis, acclaimed for his string of albums that revitalized interest in Mississippi Delta-style blues in the 1990s.

Before her first visit, Robinson also had collaborated with Nicole Reppert, whose kindergarten class she would teach. Together, the teaching artist and teacher had designed a curriculum of 12 lessons based on Davis’ music, half of which would be led by Reppert, who by now was devoting one period a week to the subject, and half by Robinson.

“Let me hear you say ‘the blues,’” Robinson begins, reminding students of the music their teacher has been discussing. “The blues,” the young children readily answer back, following Robinson’s lead, expressing low and heavy emphasis on “blues.”

In a corner of the large classroom, the children sit on a large floor mat made up of squares, looking eagerly at the very animated Robinson standing before them.

To get students to begin to physically engage with the music, to feel it in their bodies, before she even starts the tape she brought with her, Robinson tells them to stand up from the mat and to step from square to square while moving parts of their bodies:

“Move those hips, boys and girls! Move your belly. Move those toes, your fingers,” she calls out.

She then starts the tape. Davis’ howling “traveling blues,” as the artist himself distinguishes it, bellow into the classroom over his acoustic guitar picking and accordion playing, sounding reminiscent of Muddy Waters, deep and moving.

“I want you to get this music inside your body,” Robinson tells students. “That means I want you to pick a part of your body that you want to use to respond to this music.”

The kids start to move more deliberately, as they step and step to the syncopated 4/4 beats, shaking their arms and hips.

The 4/4 rhythm line is standard for blues, but is distinguished by flatted thirds and sevenths in a 12-bar structure and the lyrics form a three-line stanza in which the second line repeats the first.

Pausing the tape, Robinson asks the kids, “What did you feel in the music?”

A little girl with a squeaky voice, Alana, answers matter-of-factly, “It’s such a rainy day.” Robinson gets everyone to repeat the phrase, while clapping their hands to the beat.

The children are absorbed in the exercise.

The teaching artist then draws symbols on a large tablet to represent the different beats in the song, so that the students can see the rhythmic patterns with their eyes.

“That’s what happens in the blues,” she concludes. “It always goes back to the beginning.”

The students’ teacher had already experienced what they just had. Because Manhattan School for Children has a long-term partnership with LCI, the educational component at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, every teacher and student in the school is involved in learning about and through the arts. Reppert and other teachers at the school were able to participate in an annual 10-day summer workshop at LCI, free of charge.

“They put you through a lot of the same exercises they do with the children,” said Reppert, adding that she enjoyed the experience and input from Robinson and other teaching artists at the workshop.

LCI calls its approach to teaching and learning “aesthetic education,” which draws on first-hand experience and lasting engagement with the arts. Its programs aim to expand learners’ perception and observation skills beyond the work of art under study.

Aesthetic education extends beyond a specific art form, and actually encourages learners to “make connections” with other subject areas and disciplines, said Alice Cohen, LCI program manager of long-term partnership, or “focus,” schools. After Reppert’s students have mastered the 4/4 rhythmic patterns in blues music, Cohen said, their teacher can then cultivate those skills to help them learn math or science.

“We don’t expect the teaching artist to do the carryover,” explained Diane Ramos, assistant focus schools director. “But we do expect teachers to be the experts in how aesthetic education can carry over into other parts of the curriculum.”

Reppert said she planned to use the 4/4 rhythm concept to teach fractions later in the semester. She said her kindergarten students were enjoying the aesthetic approach to learning thus far, and at least one of them had spoken on his own about Picasso and the Mississippi Delta blues.

Future lesson plans on Guy Davis’ traveling blues will guide students in writing their own blues song — all in preparation to see the musician and storyteller perform live at Lincoln Center.

Davis’ music was selected by a core committee of teachers and administrators at Manhattan School for Children for students in all grades and classes to study during the winter semester, including special education children in inclusion classes at the K-5 school.

Davis, the son of actors Ruby Dee and the late Ossie Davis, is among a cadre of innovative performers in LCI’s 2005-06 repertory.

In a corner of the large classroom, the children sit on a large floor mat made up of squares, looking eagerly at the very animated Robinson standing before them.

To get students to begin to physically engage with the music, to feel it in their bodies, before she even starts the tape she brought with her, Robinson tells them to stand up from the mat and to step from square to square while moving parts of their bodies:

“Move those hips, boys and girls! Move your belly. Move those toes, your fingers,” she calls out.

She then starts the tape. Davis’ howling “traveling blues,” as the artist himself distinguishes it, bellow into the classroom over his acoustic guitar picking and accordion playing, sounding reminiscent of Muddy Waters, deep and moving.

“I want you to get this music inside your body,” Robinson tells students. “That means I want you to pick a part of your body that you want to use to respond to this music.”

The kids start to move more deliberately, as they step and step to the syncopated 4/4 beats, shaking their arms and hips.

The 4/4 rhythm line is standard for blues, but is distinguished by flatted thirds and sevenths in a 12-bar structure and the lyrics form a three-line stanza in which the second line repeats the first.

Pausing the tape, Robinson asks the kids, “What did you feel in the music?”

A little girl with a squeaky voice, Alana, answers matter-of-factly, “It’s such a rainy day.” Robinson gets everyone to repeat the phrase, while clapping their hands to the beat.

The children are absorbed in the exercise.

The teaching artist then draws symbols on a large tablet to represent the different beats in the song, so that the students can see the rhythmic patterns with their eyes.

“That’s what happens in the blues,” she concludes. “It always goes back to the beginning.”

The students’ teacher had already experienced what they just had. Because Manhattan School for Children has a long-term partnership with LCI, the educational component at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, every teacher and student in the school is involved in learning about and through the arts. Reppert and other teachers at the school were able to participate in an annual 10-day summer workshop at LCI, free of charge.

“They put you through a lot of the same exercises they do with the children,” said Reppert, adding that she enjoyed the experience and input from Robinson and other teaching artists at the workshop.

LCI calls its approach to teaching and learning “aesthetic education,” which draws on first-hand experience and lasting engagement with the arts. Its programs aim to expand learners’ perception and observation skills beyond the work of art under study.

Aesthetic education extends beyond a specific art form, and actually encourages learners to “make connections” with other subject areas and disciplines, said Alice Cohen, LCI program manager of long-term partnership, or “focus,” schools. After Reppert’s students have mastered the 4/4 rhythmic patterns in blues music, Cohen said, their teacher can then cultivate those skills to help them learn math or science.

“We don’t expect the teaching artist to do the carryover,” explained Diane Ramos, assistant focus schools director. “But we do expect teachers to be the experts in how aesthetic education can carry over into other parts of the curriculum.”

Reppert said she planned to use the 4/4 rhythm concept to teach fractions later in the semester. She said her kindergarten students were enjoying the aesthetic approach to learning thus far, and at least one of them had spoken on his own about Picasso and the Mississippi Delta blues.

Future lesson plans on Guy Davis’ traveling blues will guide students in writing their own blues song — all in preparation to see the musician and storyteller perform live at Lincoln Center.

Davis’ music was selected by a core committee of teachers and administrators at Manhattan School for Children for students in all grades and classes to study during the winter semester, including special education children in inclusion classes at the K-5 school.

Davis, the son of actors Ruby Dee and the late Ossie Davis, is among a cadre of innovative performers in LCI’s 2005-06 repertory.