Learn about visual and performing artists. They often use their creativity to raise their voices and share lessons, stories, and important ideas with the world. In this episode of The Creative Corner, two artists from Richmond, Virginia help us explore how art sparks crucial conversations. Public artist Hamilton Glass shares how (and why) he gathered a group of artists to paint murals with a message all across the city after some challenging current events, and musician Victor Haskins talks about storytelling as human nature — and why sound and performance tell stories so well. Then you’re invited to share your own voice through a poster project!

Join Lauren Paullin as she conducts a scavenger hunt around her house to find all kinds of things that can be used to make pictures, prints, paints, and even musical instruments! Learn how to make a mixed media collage and print it with fruits and vegetables. Learn from New Orleans-based musician, artist, and cultural diplomat Charles Burchell how to turn ordinary objects like glasses, wood, plastic, and even paper into musical instruments. Developed for grades 4 through adults. 

Students use their singing voices to take turns improvising and creating melodic phrases on a given theme.

Students will use a folk song to explore improvisation using a variety of singing, body percussion, and musical instruments.

This plan will outline the process and resources needed to introduce and improve improvisation in an instrumental classroom. Improvisation is important for encouraging creativity and expression while providing a supportive environment that is free of judgment and criticism. 

Students will learn basic acting and improvisation skills through different activities. Students will be able to identify and use learned acting techniques during improvisation games through imaginative play.

Students will compose short melodic phrases using commonly found household items, such as a rock to create “Melodies that Rock.” Students will explore music contour in relationship to high and low notes, and melodic patterns and motion.

Using the S.C.A.M.P.E.R. strategy (substitute, combine, adapt, modify, put to another use, eliminate, and reverse), students will be able to take a well-known song and create a variation by isolating one element of music literacy. It is a technique that is adaptable to English learners, learners with special needs, advanced academic students, and the general population.

In this plan, students will use the melody from the jazz standard “St. James Infirmary” as a springboard to improvisation. The students will utilize a call and response technique to learn the melody. Then students will learn several ways they can utilize the content within the melody of a song to improvise.

In this video (4:43), a Virginia music educator demonstrates how to compose and improvise music by creating a variation of a musical phrase using the S.C.A.M.P.E.R. technique.