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Music and fractions


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Dear creative math teachers,

I am looking for resources (ideally, open-and-go) connecting music and fractions for a 4th grader.  I would like to breathe some life into fractions. My daughter is at grade level in math and a passionate musician (a strong player and a fairly advanced violin student), but I am not sure that she sees and appreciates the connection between her math and music studies.  Many thanks in advance!

 

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The most obvious connection is note length-whole note, half note, quarter note, eighth note, 16th notes, 1/32nd notes. Triplets too (1/3 of a quarter), and you're all set. Maybe do some clapping. To be honest, my kids either got this intuitively or struggled terribly. Those that struggled found more concrete representations (toast, fruit, etc. more meaningful). I have an 11 year old, who is great with math and a lovely musician, and ask her to relate an eighth note to a quarter, and she's done. TiTi Ta she gets. 

 

The string ratios are also fun and somewhat easy to do on a violin. Spend some time playing with harmonics (the first is at the middle of the string, the second is at the 3/4 point, the harmonics at a 5th are also in fractional positions two-thirds, I think, but I can't remember exactly). You can also figure out most of the notes by dividing strings (though this gets more deeply into ratios, which may not be where you want to go). 

 

Enjoy!

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