Bing Bang Boom

A novel way of discovering music without instruments, in a Grade 7 classroom. In 1969, Toronto innovator and composer R. Murray Shafer was teacher for a day at Tecumseh Senior Public School. His purpose is to show children that music is more than painfully learned notes and scales. He has the class listen to every sound around them and then harmonize and orchestrate what they hear--their voices, hands, feet--into a rhythmic musical pattern. The result is a hit, and a convincing illustration that children learn best when it's from the inside out.