Reed Chinese Music Course:

Turning Stories Into Music

By Eliza Hallabeck

At the start of the Chinese music class’s rotation, teacher and Newtown Public Schools Director of Music Michelle Hiscavitch said she had students listen to both Eastern and Western music.

The students then explored the different sounds they heard in Chinese music, according to Ms Hiscavitch. YouTube was used to watch clips from Chinese musical performances.

Then instruments were studied. “They are starting to get to know what they sound like, what they look like, how they are played, and are comparing them to the instruments they all play here in band, orchestra, and global music,” said Ms Hiscavitch during a class last week.

On Tuesday, October 18, students were working on individual compositions created based on Chinese-themed stories.

“We have three story lines right now that they are working on. They can choose which story line [to base their compositions on] and their music has to depict that story line,” said Ms Hiscavitch. “They have an emperor’s battle, a dragon, and a flower fantasy garden.”

Ms Hiscavitch said students compose music in other music courses at Reed, but not to the extent it is done in the Chinese music course.

The Chinese music class is a unit in the district’s global music curriculum, according to Ms Hiscavitch. The course was added this school year.

Sitting together on the side of the room, Sara Seqeira, Mackenzie Maude, and Emily Maher were working on one computer to compose their individual projects.

Emily based her composition on the Chinese fantasy garden theme.

“I’m more comfortable around higher notes,” said Emily, “and before I chose mine I just started randomly playing. When I was randomly playing I found that it sounded more like the Chinese fantasy garden than any other one.”

Sarah said she also chose the Chinese fantasy garden theme, because she found it to be more of a calm story than the other two options. Mackenzie chose one of the other two options.

“I chose the dragon dance,” said Mackenzie, “because I felt I could really do something with a nice heavy beat.”

Visiting the classroom, Reed Principal Sharon Epple said she was impressed with the students’ ability to focus on their own compositions while others played songs around the room.

Both Dr Epple and Ms Hiscavitch said students will be surveyed anonymously at the end of the 18 class rotation for ideas and more regarding the class.

Audio recordings of examples of student music can be heard with this story at www.newtownbee.com.