The COVID-19 pandemic greatly impacted student outcomes in all disciplines, but especially in the performing arts. As I began clinical teaching, I found my sixth-grade band students, particularly the students not involved in choir (my “small band”), lacked the music literacy and fluency expected for second-year band students. I designed a one semester rhythm-reading unit to address this issue. The overall objective for the unit follows:
“Students will be able to read, write, perform, and compose rhythms containing whole notes, half notes, dotted-half notes, dotted-quarter notes, quarter notes, paired eighth notes, single eighth notes, paired sixteenth notes, and corresponding rests in simple meters at various tempi.”
The goal of this project is twofold: 1) to improve students’ rhythmic fluency and 2) to identify effective instructional materials and pedagogy for rhythmic fluency
