Artistry - Level 8 Catching butterflies

Composition Title: Catching Butterflies

Composer:

Ding Shande

Level:

8

Explanation of how the title is reflected in the music

Imagining butterflies flying in the blossom when listening to this piece can help children better understand the hands movement, because triads represent the movements of butterflies flapping their wings. A fast tempo represents rapid game, like butterflies are flying away and a child is chasing behind them. 

The dynamics contrast is illustrated in the movement between butterflies and catching. A weak demonstration shows the flying butterfly, while an accented illustrates the the child’s quick respond. From m.23 – 30 paints the child slowly moves towards the butterfly and tries to catch it. This part is like a vivid picture of the game. 

Connections between the title and your students’ personal experience

Catching butterflies is a fun game that almost all the Chinese children play. As most of my students or their parents are born and raised in China, they must have experienced how to catch butterflies or dragonflies. When playing the game, Chinese children always prepare a net and use a long stick to set up. While butterflies stay on the branches or flowers, children often quickly wave the net and cover them. 

Since my students have Chinese background, letting them know the background of Chinese vernacular music and the composer, Ding Shande, is essential. Since I graduated from Shanghai Conservatory, where professor Ding has been working here for decades, showing the pictures that I took while telling them the history of the school may inspire them to have a visual connection between this piece and how Chinese folk songs do the storytelling. 

One activity away from the piano to deepen your students’ understanding of this piece

I would create a flyswatter game. I am going to put fly stickers everywhere and let children find them and use their swatters to ‘kill’ the flies. The reason I create this game is to let children know the rhythm of this piece, and a swatting movement can inspire children to use their wrists, which is important to demonstrate the triads in this piece. A hard swatting represents the accented notes, which can imagine the catching movement. Teacher can also tell them in the end that the butterflies are flying away, which is related to the decrescendo ending of this piece. 

Letting children play the game of flyswatter can be a method for children to understand this music, because going outside during class time to catch a real butterfly could be hard to achieve. If it is a multi-student’s classroom and the room is big enough, teacher can also ask them to do the role play, one kid playing butterfly and another the catcher. The pulse when they do the activity can be videotaped and show it to them, to let them better understand the rhythm of this piece. Besides, flyswatters can serve as percussion. Teacher can encourage student to use flyswatters as drum sticks to demonstrate the LH and RH chords, because I found that some children used so much time on figuring out the pulse of both hands.