The Hickory Dickory Dock Sound Story
Materials:
Barred instrument(s)
Finger Cymbal or other metal unpitched percussion
Tick-tock block
A way to proceed:
- Present the rhyme to the students using purposeful vocal inflections and extended pauses at the end of each line (you can use the slides at any point within the process)
- Patschen the beat that you wish to use for your bordun
- Speak the rhyme while students patschen the bordun (depending on the ability level of the students, stressing over the steadiness of the bordun maybe effort best spent on other things)
- Discuss how the rhyme will be in 5 sections
- Hickory Dickory Dock – Broken bordun
- The mouse ran up the clock – ascending mallet playing
- The clock struck one – Finger cymbal
- The mouse ran down – descending mallet playing
- Hickory Dickory Dock – Broken bordun
- Practice the entire thing without instruments
- Add instruments
- Use the Tick-tock block to “maintain” your tempo
- Add a coda – unison play after the last word
Click here to download a copy of Patrick’s slides
6 Responses
This looks wonderful. I know this poem as a child. When there are mallet parts like bordun etc., is there a specific set of notes, melody to this poem? I only know this as a poem. Forgive my naivety. Thanks so much for any feedback.
Hans,
There was/is no specific melody. I set this instruments in a way that gives the greatest opportunity for success. In my schedule last year I had three self-contained special ed classes in a row. I was able to set up 2 instruments with just C (bar 1) and G (bar 5) and the other instruments were set in C pentatonic. I was able to leave them set that way for most of the day.
Hope this helps,
Patrick
Do you perform your Patschen along with the rhyme or after each verse ?
Patrick!!! Hello, friend 🙂 Do you have a video of yourself teaching this? I always find videos to be the most informative thing. If you ever want to lead an in-service for music teachers and put it on youtube, it would be epic…. And I would want to be there…. 🙂
Kate Fellin
Kate!!!!
So good to hear from you. I will have to make a video of the next time we do this.
Freamon,
I perform a steady beat alternating patschen along with the “Hickory Dickory Dock” part of the rhyme. During the other parts of the rhyme we perform a patschen that matches what we are doing on the instruments.
-Patrick