Chant
What is a chant?
Chant is the heartbeat of culture, designed to bring everyone together in harmonious synchronicity as any traveling pack animal culture needs to survive. It's the tribal drum, when you have to be tuned in to know what is going on. A chant is a rhythmic group recitation. Chanting is a cooperative language-sharing moment.
Why Chant?
Chants are primal, Chants are accessible. Chants, akin to nursery and skipping
rhymes,
are characterized by repetition. Repetition allows all humans to take ownership of the chant and any
activity
that is used to sync the participants who are chanting.
Younger children play with words. This is the work of children. Children who are learning to read first need
the language/music experience. Children who are shy, speak English as a second language, are developmentally
delayed, read reluctantly, or speak poorly can always chant with the rest of the kids.
Leaders can reinforce the beat of chants using the body. You can reinforce the lines with stamping, patchen,
clapping or finger snapping. You can repeat parts, cut verses, add new ones, or use the chant as a model for
new chants. Unlike a carefully crafted, crystallized poem, a chant is a dynamic thing that you can collect from the school playground or the internet.
THE BEAT
The human electrical system circulates in a clockwise manner. That's why you can tell a group of children to
"walk" and the group automatically starts walking in a circle going clockwise. Tweekers get their
electrical system running backwards. Do not let tweekers near the electronics!
The conducting system provides the heart its automatic rhythmic beat. For the heart to pump efficiently and
the systemic and pulmonary circulations to operate in synchrony, the events in the cardiac cycle must be
coordinated.
Indigenous Folksong Reading Curriculum
Use playground game chants / music to
teach
reading.
I think we can agree that a basic primary goal of education is to make sure everyone can read.Chanting works
well with multi-age classroom groupings, allowing children of different ages to take part in different ways.
You will find that all participants can speak in unison fluently and take part in mime and rhythm setting.
Learn why using Chants Teach children to read and how to use them in the classroom.
The History of Chants - a story told through the Church
Chant (from Old French chanter is the rhythmic speaking or singing of words or sounds, often primarily on
one
or two pitches called reciting tones. Chants may range from a simple melody involving a limited set of notes
to highly complex musical structures, often including a great deal of repetition of musical subphrases, such
as Great Responsories and Offertories of Gregorian chant. Chant may be considered speech, music, or a
heightened or stylized form of speech. In the later Middle Ages some religious chant evolved into song
forming
one of the roots of later Western music.
Cant is an example of a
cryptolect, a characteristic or secret language used only by members of a
group, often used to conceal the meaning from those outside the group.