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.