Roots of American Music residencies provide a rich, engaging musical experience for students to help them recognize the relationship between the past and present. ROAM programs are aligned with Ohio Department of Education Standards in areas such as math, social studies, English and the arts.
ROAM artists connect specific periods of American history and social change with folk, jazz, blues, gospel, bluegrass and old-time country music. Students gain an enhanced awareness of American history, increased understanding of racial, cultural and ethnic differences and a sense of pride for the contributions made by their own culture. Also dedicated to the sheer joy of music, ROAM artists provide students with the opportunity to sing and play music, create musical instruments and write their own songs, creating a memorable lesson that is fun and engaging. Residencies conclude with a final performance by students of songs they have written for an all-school assembly. Professional CD or DVD recordings of student performances are available.
Rhythm Journeys, celebrates the rhythmic human spirit. Told as a multicultural, interactive story using various cultural hand drums and percussion, this program invites children to journey with an African rhythm as it travels from Africa to Cuba, Brazil, the Dominican Republic and the United States. The imagination of students will ignite as rhythms change form, patterns and sound during their travels. Students participate by singing in several languages, playing body percussion and dancing. This uplifting story of travelling rhythms celebrates the African roots of much of today’s music (Recommended for grades K-2)
The Great Community Mystery, encourages inner-city youth to celebrate their community, its people and its history while they develop skills in map reading, geography, multimedia technology and music performance and appreciation. The project concludes with student recording sessions and an all-school assembly, reinforcing the meaning of community and instilling pride in the students’ neighborhood (Recommended for grade 3)
OHIO (Only Happened in Ohio), includes activities that focus on Ohio’s waterways. Students learn about the importance of rivers and canals, the Great Lakes and the historical significance of these bodies of water. Through the use of maps and timelines, students discover how Native Americans and pioneers used Ohio’s waterways. This residency culminates in a "Saturday Night Square Dance" and performance of student-composed songs (Recommended for grades 4-6)
U.S. Regions, traces our social, cultural and musical heritage across three U.S. regions emphasizing the influences of areas such as the Deep South, Appalachia, Southwest, and New Orleans. ROAM artist/teachers perform on traditional instruments to cover blues, jazz, gospel and country music. Students are given basic lessons on instruments including the autoharp, slide guitar and harmonica ((Recommended for grades 4-6)
Unchained: From Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement, teaches about the turbulent time in US history beginning with Slavery, through the Reconstruction and up to the Civil Rights Movement. Highlights of the individual classroom activities will be shared on our website and on a complementary CD to be taken home by each individual student. Students experience live music, learn songs and stories, write original lyrics to traditional music forms, and perform (Recommended for grades 6-8)
The Science of Sound, for 7th and 8th grade science classes, leads the students through a series of hands-on activities and experiments that illustrate the scientific properties of sound.
Through lesson plans that are directly tied to ODE and district science standards, students learn about concepts including the scientific method, the physics of sound (frequency, amplitude, etc.) sound producers (chordophones, aerophone, idiophone, membranophone, electrophone), and electronic/computer music such as MIDI, WAV, analog, digital, MP3 and sampling (Recommended for grades 7-8)
American Heroes, teaches students to define heroism and recognize it in members of their community. The first lessons focus on people who risk their lives for others, such as police and firefighters. Next, students learn about significant American heroes including John Henry, Roberto Clemente, Sacagawea and Rosa Parks. Finally, students identify heroes from their school and neighborhood. Students write or learn songs based on information from each segment, and perform them for their peers. (Approximately five weeks at two lessons a week.) (Recommended for grades K-6)
American Heroes (secondary school version) shows students how to use inquiry, research and facts to produce a work of art. Students study a specific historical era, e.g. the Great Depression, the Civil Rights Movement, and discover the significant events and figures from that time. They use the results of their research to create an artistic presentation, such as a song, a poem or a drama, which they will perform for their class or school. (Recommended for grades 7-12)
