1st Grade: Joshua Fit The Battle and Chord Roots

Post date: May 1, 2015 12:34:21 PM

Recently, 1st graders have learned to label two different tonalities: major tonality and minor tonality. Along with switching familiar songs to the opposite tonality, we have also been practicing singing chord roots that go along with songs in each tonality. One of those songs we learned is called "Joshua Fit The Battle", and this song is in minor tonality. We learned how to sing the chord roots and the song as a whole class, and then we practiced having half of the class sing one part while the other half sang the second part, creating two-part harmony. Afterward, I asked for volunteers to try it as a duet. I caught a couple of those duets on tape. You'll notice that the student singing the chord roots (La and Mi) is using hand signs (1 and 5). Later on in third grade, they will learn that the reason they use these hand signs is to label tonic (1) and dominant (5) chords in minor tonality.