You’re an Arranger!
We learned that an arranger is someone who takes music that already exists and creatively changes it to be different in some way. You students can become arrangers with this simple activity.
- Choose a simple song that your kids all know. For example, Happy Birthday, the ABC song, or Row, Row, Row, Your Boat.
- Designate one student as the arranger and another group of students as the chorus.
- The arranger gets to make choices as to how the chorus should perform the piece. They might make choices about things such as:
- The tempo or dynamics – and does everyone sing the same tempo and dynamics?
- The tone of people’s voices – are they singing gently or aggressively?
- Which students sing higher and who sings lower.
- Are the students all singing in unison or will some be stomping a rhythm, repeating the same word over and over in the background, starting on different pitches, etc?
- Have the arranger play around until their arrangement is just right for what they were envisioning!