by Brent Hugh brent [at] brenthugh.com

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Cultures around the world rarely use music for abstract listening. Almost always, music serves some social function. For instance, there may be songs you sing when you wake up and other songs when it is time to go to bed (these we call "lullabies"). You might sing certain songs before meals, other songs while you are working in the field, yet other songs when preparing a meal. You might sing certain songs while you are waiting for something and others while you are walking or marching. Certain songs may be used to get in a spiritual mood, others to get in a mood for fighting, others to celebrate a marriage, birth, or birthday, and yet others to mourn the passing of a loved one.

In other words, music is not just there being beautiful, it is doing something. It is performing a social function.

You will find that music works better in your classroom, is accepted better by your students, and does more for you, if you let it perform a function for you.

Using music in a socially functional way in your classroom

• is easy (especially if you start with young children)
• is natural and fun
• doesn't require any special training or equipment (if you play CDs/tapes you will need a player and few CDs/tapes, which can be checked out from a library)
• takes very little time out of the school day
• helps you get more done in a day (because it helps keep students on task and working together and gives natural breaks during the day)

• Associate certain songs (whether songs you sing or recordings you play) with certain times of day or certain activities. To avoid boredom and burnout, you can change the music periodically--introduce new songs or switch to a different CD for listening.

Welcome to school	Time for recess	Walking down the hall together	Just before eating
Clean-up time	End of the school day	Play time	Nap time/rest time
Before, during, or after "work time" when students are working individually on assignments	Lining up at the door to go somewhere	When starting/ending any activity such as math time, reading time, story time . . .	Before library time
When it's time to quiet down and listen	When it's time to pay attention to the teacher	Whenever you're waiting for something

• You can have a class song, a song for each grade, and/or a school song. You can sing songs for different times of day, different days of the week, different months of the year, different seasons of the year. Songs about the weather or current events can be fun.

• You can use music as a boundary activity or a background activity. In most classrooms it would be appropriate to use some boundary music and some background music.
• As a boundary activity, music is used to signal when an activity is starting or ending. For instance, you sing a particular song at the start of reading time or math time, or at the end of rest time.

Using music as a boundary marker helps you in these ways

• It helps get the whole class thinking and acting together
• It helps focus attention of ALL class members on the new activity
• It helps give young students understand the daily schedule and know what to expect at different times of day
• It gives students and teachers a short mental break between activities
• It can help students shift mental/emotional gears. For instance, if you are changing from an active, moving activity to an activity that requires quiet sitting, try singing a song that starts with fast activity and ends slower and calmer. (One of the most ancient uses of music is to help in the control of emotions.)

• As a background activity, music is used throughout an activity. For instance, you could play a CD (softly) throughout the entire reading period, or sing a song for the entire cleanup time.

• It helps keep students on task. Everyone knows to clean up, and keep cleaning up as long as the song is going.
• It can help concentration. Students learn to associate a certain mental state with certain music; hearing the music helps them regain that mental state, whether it is resting, thinking, reading, being creative, etc. (One of the most ancient uses of music is to help achieve and regain various mental states.)
• It helps the class think and work as a group. Everyone hears the same music and learns to associate it with the same activities.

• If you choose to play CDs/tapes, you can choose a student "music monitor" to be in charge of music. That student chooses the particular CD tracks to play for particular activities. You can make a list of when you want music. The "music monitor" for that week can decide which CD track goes with which activity, then be in charge of starting the CD on the right track at the right time (and right level of loudness . . . ). For instance:

Quiet time after recess	Track 3
Cleanup time	Track 7
Music listening time	Track 9
Lining up for lunch	Track 13
Cleanup desks at end of day	Track 2

• CDs are wonderful for this because you can instantly start with any track on the CD. If you use tapes, you might have a different tape for each activity, as opposed to a particular song from the tape. When it's cleanup time, you just pop in tape #1 and hit play; at music listening time, pop in tape #2 and hit play. This saves the frustration of the fast-forward/rewind "hunt" for a particular song.
• A great way to sing songs with young people (especially new songs) is "call and response". The teacher sings a verse alone, the class repeats the verse all together. Then the teacher sings the next verse alone and the class repeats the second verse.
• Functional songs need not be long. If, for instance, you sing a song to get everyone's attention, you can repeat a short phrase as many times as necessary until everyone is singing, then stop. This may take around 30 seconds. Now everyone is--quite literally--in tune with each other and on the same wavelength.
• Music need not be loud. For instance, you might find that singing or chanting a "whisper song" or "soft song" as your class files down the hall makes a certain amount of noise, but less than if the class were not occupied with making their very soft music. Have a "contest" to see how soft they can make it.

• There are three basic sources of songs

1. Folk songs
2. Folk song melodies with your own words
3. New songs that you or someone else makes (I have written some songs that can be used as functional music; several can be downloaded for free at http://mp3.com/musiciq)

• The easiest way to make songs for a particular function is to adapt folk songs. You can change the songs slightly or make completely new words. Example (to the tune of "Jingle bells"):

• Don't worry about rhymes unless you want to. Music has rhythm and meter and that is all that is necessary. Making rhymes is completely optional.
• You can re-use melodies. For instance, you might have only 4 or 5 different melodies that you use. But you might have a dozen different sets of words that you use with each melody.

• Teach students a song, then assign them to write new words to the song about "Subject X". This is a fun creative project that can help musical and verbal skills and increase the class's song repertoire.
• Have songs that are pre-written except for a few words where you "fill in the blank". Then ask students to "fill in the blank". For instance, this song can be sung about any month (to the tune of "Mary had a little lamb"):

Of course, these song examples are not "great art". They are simple; they work for you; they involve students; they help the class work and think together as a group. They serve the function that music has always served--a function that we, with our technology and sophisticated theories of art, seem to have largely forgotten.

Sing well together and you will work well together.