Session Proposals

Adrianne DeKlotz has taught elementary music in the rural town of Chandler, Oklahoma for the last 16 years. She has mostly worked with Pre-K – 2nd grade in the classroom and codirects an afterschool choir with older elementary students. She accompanies for the Chandler music department and loves getting to watch and be a part of students’ musical journeys all the way through! She received her National Kodάly Certification from the University of Oklahoma in 2011, and has loved the structure and musicianship that Kodάly has brought to her music classroom. A native of Idaho, Adrianne holds a Bachelors in Music Education from Idaho State University and a Masters in Music Education with emphasis in Piano Pedagogy from The University of Oklahoma.

When encouraging young students to create their own music, we often neglect their most natural music maker – the voice! Through encouraging solo singing, improvising within known folk songs and creating a blues writing project, come explore ways that students can truly make music their own! By incorporating short 3–5 minute activities that include student choice and creation in our regular teaching of folk songs, I plan to show how doing consistent, short use of improvisation can really grow a young student’s independence and ownership in making their own music. We will explore playing with lyrics within know echo and simple songs, encouraging arioso (vocal improvising) ideas, using folks songs that naturally call for wordplay and singer input, and how to structure a bigger song writing project through learning how to write a blues song. I plan to use a lot of traditional songs taught by many Kodaly educators as well as some
less known gems from Bessie Smith’s, Ella Jenkins’, and Ruth Crawford Seeger’s collections.

I have presented this workshop already (at least in parts) at the Oklahoma Kodaly Educators’ Chapter Share in 2023 and the OAKE Southern Division Mini-Conference in 2025.

• Lower Elementary (Grades PreK-2)