Some schools call it bell work, some call it do-now, and there are other names for work that happens at the beginning of class, but the idea behind this work is simple: get students engaged with a routine from the beginning of every class. Ideally, bell work or do-now activities are easy and quick methods of hooking students into the class content. For general music teachers who see students as little as once a week or manage classrooms with upwards of fifty students, bell work can make the most of limited learning time.
Bell Work for Music Class
There are several great articles for bell work available on the web that can be modified to fit any subject. In music class, some quick ideas for bell work might include composition, puzzles, or even activities that enhance literacy through music such as critical or reflective listening, writing, or art-making.
Music Composition
General music teachers need to review skills in a very short amount of time. Assigning students to compose a short rhythm as bell work is a great way to get students reviewing music notation concepts. As students become more advanced, the teacher might ask students to compose one or two measures in a specific time-signature. Performance of these brief student compositions can serve both as a review and as a motivational tool.
Music Notation
Staff notation in treble and bass clef can be tricky for students to remember. Besides telling students to memorize “FACE” or the infamous “Every Good Boy Does Fine” to learn the names of lines and spaces, there are not a lot of ways to quickly remind students how to read staff notation or to assess their memory of these tasks. Frequent review can take place in the form of bell work: the teacher can place one or two measures of treble, bass, or grand staff notation on the board for students to “solve” by writing the letter names and/or note values beneath. Students can be rewarded for speed, accuracy, or thorough completion, depending on what the teacher is trying to accomplish in a particular class.
Listening Skills
Music teachers can help students learn to respond to different kinds of music by instructing students to actively listen to a piece of music and respond to the music through journaling or artwork. This kind of bell work can provide a great starting point for student discussion about emotive qualities and formal elements of music, or can be used to identify student understanding of more formal aspects of a musical work such as instrumentation, melodic contour, or harmonic motion.
Meeting Music Standards
All of these kinds of bell work can meet the needs of a busy teacher who is looking for ways to incorporate more review of critical skills into her classroom. Composition, reading music notation, and listening comprehension are all included in the national standards for music education, and are important parts of a comprehensive music education program.
 |
 |
