Amy M. Burns

Elementary Music Technology and Integration

Amy M. Burns has taught PreK-grade 4 general music for over 25 years at Far Hills Country Day School (FH) (https://www.fhcds.org/). She also teaches grade 5 instrument class, directs the FH Philharmonic, is the Performing Arts Department Manager, and teaches privately in the after-school conservatory after being the director for over 20 years. She has authored four books and numerous articles on how to integrate tech into the elementary music classroom. She has presented many sessions on the topic, including four keynote addresses in TX, IN, St. Maarten, and AU. She is the recipient of the 2005 Technology in Music Education (TI:ME) Teacher of the Year, the 2016 New Jersey Music Educators Association (NJMEA) Master Music Teacher, the 2016 Governor’s Leader in Arts Education, and the 2017 NJ Nonpublic School Teacher of the Year Awards. Her most recent publication, Using Technology with Elementary Music Approaches (2020), published by Oxford University Press (OUP) is available from OUP and Amazon. Burns is also the Community Coordinator for Midnight Music (MMC) at https://midnightmusic.com/, the General Music Chair for NJMEA Board of Directors, and the Elementary Music Consultant for MusicFirst (https://www.musicfirst.com/), a company built by music educators for music educators, dedicated to helping music teachers and their students make the most of technology in the classroom.

Arranging Yankee Doodle

January 31, 2022  /  Amy M. Burns

The fourth graders study the American Revolutionary War during the winter trimester of the school year. To correlate with their study, we study the music of the Revolutionary War. The students learn that many patriotic melodies were originally British melodies. They also study the purposes of the drum and fife players during battles.

Finally, they study the melody of Yankee Doodle. They learn how to read and perform the melody on their recorders. In addition, I place them in small groups and access their Noteflight accounts (noteflight.com). They open the "Copy of Yankee Doodle" file and read through the melody and drum lines. The file has some of the melody and some drum patterns. The students can copy and paste these patterns into the empty measures and perform their new arrangement.

Once finished, we export this new arrangement directly into Soundtrap (soundtrap.com). They are assigned a musical style and come up with an updated version of Yankee Doodle. This is in the style of Tour the States, a youtube sensation where the students sing and rap the states and their capitals. Below is an example of one of the fourth grade group's creations. They hope you enjoy it!

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