Pitch-er Perfect, by John W. Healy

This simple art activity helps teach children about relative pitch and reading music

Tsinyee and her daughter, Julianna, experiment with angklungs, ancient Asian musical instruments made from bamboo.

When children learn that they can create, read and perform music on their own, a door is opened to learning and enjoyment. Combining music and art in this lesson can foster the development of the creative mind – and introduce children to the concepts of differing pitches and reading music.

Jungle sounds
When Bob Cassara, a music teacher at the school where I teach, told me that he enjoys sharing his love of music and art with his four-year-old daughter, Julianna, I invited myself to his home to see what he meant. What I saw was purposeful play combining music and art.

The range of musical pitches, from very low, deep notes to very high notes, is comparable to tones and shades in a work of art that establish the range of a composition from light to dark. Feelings and moods can be expressed by manipulating and organizing these elements.

For introducing the elements of pitch to children, Bob suggests telling a story about animals who live in a jungle. He starts by saying there is a large elephant in the jungle. Even though you may not see the elephant, you can hear him coming from a great distance. Bob then uses the low notes on a piano to interpret the sound an elephant makes as he walks through the jungle. Then the elephant passes a monkey, and Bob does his interpretation of the sounds a monkey makes, using mid-range pitches on the piano. Lastly, Bob says the elephant looks up because he hears exotic birds in the trees. Bob uses high pitches on the piano to represent the sound of the birds.

Musical bamboo
When I visited Bob and Julianna, I was also introduced to the ancient instrument known as the angklung, which is played in southeast Asia, Malaysia and Indonesia. Julianna's mother, Tsinyee (pronounced cin ye), is from Malaysia, where she played this instrument in elementary school.

An instrument of the percussion family, the angklung is made of bamboo tubes loosely attached to a bar. The instrument is played by shaking it, which causes the bamboo tubes to strike each other, producing a tone.

Angklungs can play only one note. Tsinyee demonstrated variations in pitch using angklungs of different sizes. The larger the angklung, the deeper the pitch it produces. Angklung music is similar to handbell music, in that you need one angklung per musician and at least two or three musicians playing together to create harmony.

A young composer
Julianna was then given a piece of paper and a pencil. She was asked to divide the paper in half with one horizontal line, which Bob called the base line. Julianna then inked her favorite rubber stamp and made a succession of eight or 10 impressions above, below and on the base line, moving gradually from left to right.

Bob asked Julianna what sound each stamped impression might make, in relation to the base line. Would the pitch be very low, very high or somewhere in the middle? Bob hummed each pitch, and Julianna imitated him. Julianna was given an angklung and a xylophone so she could experiment with reading the "music" she had just composed.

Julianna "composes music" with a rubber stamp. She'll play her music with the angklungs in the rack at top left.

Taking it to the classroom
It's very easy to recreate this lesson in your own classroom. You may want to introduce the activity by telling the class Bob's story about the range of pitches demonstrated by the various jungle animals. If you want to add a visual element to this part of the lesson, colorful images of the animals can be displayed on your bulletin board.

On a large white piece of drawing paper, draw a base line. The line should be horizontal and divide the paper in half. Provide rubber stamps for the students and allow them to choose a stamp and a color of ink to represent themselves. Invite each student to create six to eight stamped impressions on the paper. The stamps can be above, below or on the base line, but students must move from left to right as they stamp.

Have the students share a classroom instrument such as a piano or xylophone. Allow students to take turns playing the class's original composition, by "reading" the artistic piece of music they created. Each student will, no doubt, interpret the relative pitches in his or her own way. Students may want to title their songs or even make up words so they can sing along. Enjoy the resulting rubber-stamped symphony!

Dr. John W. Healy teaches art at Woodland Middle School, East Meadow, NY.