Sharps and flats

I have introduced the concept of sharps and flats to my fifth graders and pushed it farther with my sixth graders, and they are giving these kiddoes fits. Fits, I tell you.

Part of it was to give them work a sub could have them do because I decided to take the day off last Friday--had to, in order to take the wee munchkin to the doctor. And I guess the worksheets were not really all that self-explanatory. I worked so hard to make them so.

All the kids came rushing to me saying breathlessly, "Miss, I didn't get it!" Or, saying disgustedly, "Miss, we didn't get this. At all." One lil' gal even wrote on her paper, "I tried hard hones I did."

Of course you did, dearie.

So I was having to redo the assignment with them. In the fifth grade, if they would sit still long enough, they would see how easy it is to write the sharp sign in front of the note, or the flat sign. It does take some concentration, a characteristic these darlings do not have in spades, unfortunately.

I didn't even tell them that when the sharp or flat is on the staff it's in front of the note and when you write the note name under the staff, it goes behind. That would have caused them to just lay their little selves down on the floor, arms spread wide in helpless surrender.

Sharps and flats are the building blocks of key signatures. Do you remember that scene in O Brother Where Art Thou? where they are in the public gathering at the end of the movie, and the guys are on stage with their long fake beards playing their songs to entertain the crowd? And the character played by John Turturo says, "Jailhouse Now, neighborhood o' B?" (Of course you do.) Well, he was communicating to the musicians in the band that they were to play the song in the key of B. Or thereabouts.

You can play Happy Birthday in approximately thirty different keys, including the minor ones. Musicians wouldn't know which end was up if the key signature didn't indicate what sharps or flats to play. I tell my nephew that sharps and flats are (generally) akin to playing the black keys of the piano.

And for a trumpet player who blows a C that comes out sounding like a B-flat while the flute player right next to him playing the same melody is able to play a C that is actually a C, somebody is forced to play a key signature with sharps or flats. And since trumpets and clarinets, both B-flat instruments, trump flutes in size, number, and sheer ego, it is up to the flute, trombone (and oboe, speaking as one myself) players to suffer the additional flats so their pitches match with the rest of the band.

It's a cruel world.

In the sixth grade class, they are getting a lesson in the order of sharps and flats so they can actually learn about key signatures. That they have names. And no, the names are not Sarah and Billy and Fred, but names that sound an awful lot like pitch names, which adds an additional level of confusion.

The most fun part of the sixth grade class the last two days is watching them triumph over a set of randomly (ah, but are they???) ordered letters. "FCGDAEB--!!!" they rattle off as they squeeze out the door to lunch. Ten minutes later the stragglers and I are chanting, "F-C-G-D-A-E-B" over and over. The order of sharps and flats is finite and does not change. It is a law of the musical universe, of which there are many. And the sooner they learn them, the better off they'll be.