Music and Mathematics
The reason for this second part is to embrace those students who love music but dislike math. Two thirds of the students on each of my classes are musicians or at least play an instrument. I am able to create music from scratch. I am a musician as well as a math teacher.
If I am able to create a lesson where my students can relate to music and learn the mathematical concepts, their engagement in math lessons will happen.
As background, I have to mention that I have a band and that I compose songs. Therefore, there are musicians available to help me out to complete the project. At the same time, a lot of my students like dancing which is a topic that I will address on the last part of this unit. They read and write music too. My plan is to compose an original song, or use one that I have already created, and write down the notes in a musical staff, also called a pentagram. The staff has 5 lines and 4 spaces between the lines. Sometimes is necessary to add lines at the top or at the bottom of the pentagram to include high or low sounds. The pentagram (staff) is the frame (as x–y axes) that allows the writing of symbols called notes that represent sounds. The set of individual notes create a melody. The melody might be played by several instruments and each sound for each instrument must be represented as a symbol in the pentagram.
After the notes are written, I will reflect them over the third line of the pentagram, obtaining a new set of notes. The third line is chosen because is in the center of the pentagram, similar to an "x–axis." The question that I will pose to my students is: Is the "new" melody pleasant to the ears or not? Is it the same melody? Is the new song a translation of sounds in a period of time, in other words, a delay? (This means that it does not start at the same time than the original song). We would need to repeat the experiment a few times to come up with a conclusion.
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