The ability to improvise and think on his feet are essential skills for Sean Rosenberry, who teaches kindergarten and 1st grade general music classes and directs the 4th– and 5th–grade band at Horace Mann School Lower Division in the Bronx.
“I really enjoy when a student comes up with an idea in class that gives me a spark of inspiration, and I can just take that idea and run with it, sometimes abandoning my lesson plan and making something up on the spot,” he says.
To keep young students engaged, dance and movement are a huge part of Rosenberry’s curriculum. “I am a firm believer that dance and music are intimately and irrevocably intertwined — you cannot have one without the other,” says Rosenberry. “Additionally, there are so many skills — musical and otherwise — that can be taught through dance. I always ensure that every class my students are able to get up and move to music.”
The focus on movement and dance comes from Rosenberry’s training in Orff Schulwerk and Dalcroze pedagogical approaches. “Whether it’s a general music class, small group instrumental lesson or a full band rehearsal, I always let my classroom be a space where kids feel safe exploring and being playful, which is central to the Schulwerk,” and adds that “in my opinion, there is nothing that helps students truly embody and integrate music better than Dalcroze.”
One of Rosenberry’s favorite 1st-grade lessons that he developed this year starts with a folk tale and a song he wrote about how the constellation Lepus came to be in the sky and how Lepus uses different constellations as building bricks — “this helps students improvise melodies on barred instruments.”
Another unique way Rosenberry engages students is through traditional Irish music. “I’m classically trained and studied violin in college, but the reason I began playing music in the first place was because I wanted to play Irish fiddle tunes,” he explains with a smile. “I play at Irish sessions around town at least once a week, and regularly perform stage shows both solo and with other musicians. It’s absolutely my bread-and-butter as a musician. Irish music is a style of music that I get an immense amount of joy from, and I love sharing that joy with my students.”
He incorporates traditional Irish tunes and instruments into his classroom in many ways. “I use recordings for beat-keeping activities and to accompany folk dances, play different instruments (fiddle, bodhran, tenor banjo, whistle) for various lessons throughout the year. Around St. Pat’s, I often will pop into the older grades’ music classes and teach them how to play the bodhran, a traditional Irish drum, or teach a basic dance step, which the kids always find to be a lot of fun.”
Rosenberry has expanded instrumentation in the Horace Mann elementary band, adding low brass and percussion to the list of options available to students. When it comes to assigning kids to instruments, “my number one priority is to make sure kids are excited to play the instrument. A balanced instrumentation is nice, but I’d happily take a band with 12 saxophones and 3 clarinets if it meant that every child in the room was amped to play,” he says.
