Bill's music lesson plan

EMT694 Introduction to Arts Education MUSIC
My Musical Story	Everyone has a musical story. Write down some of your own experiences with music over your life that may have contributed to your musical story – to how you view music today. Complete the sheet provided for this purpose. You may like to blog your story or post it in the Music discussion board.
Making music in a group - Music Name Game:	1.       Video: My name’s... 2.       Use the link to the audio ‘My name’s...’ and have a go at this task yourself. Listen to, practice and play along with. This is intended as a circle activity, where students sit in a circle and take turns saying their names one after the other, to the words/chant ‘My name’s X, what’s yours?’. The accompanying track allows you to practice this but you don’t really need it for students. If you listen carefully to the track you will hear instruments keeping a steady, repeated beat. This is called an ‘ostinato’ (refer to Glossary) and is very common in music education – we shall be using all the time. This is a simple four beat/count pattern that repeats. As you listen to it you will notice that there are a number of repetitions of the ostinato after the initial names are used where no one says anything – this is intended for others to say their names in the circle the ostinato keeps going. Try joining in. Did you notice that not everyone’s name sounds the same – John for example is simple it is a one syllable name. Gabi however has two syllables. Evrapides has four syllables. No matter what the name is - the underlying pulse/beat of the ostinato stays the same. The challenge is for people to add their names into that one beat/pulse. This is different – this is duration and rhythm (see Glossary). The duration of the ‘notes’ chanted is different but the underlying beat/pulse remains the same. So John is simple it is one syllable on one beat. Gabi is a little more complex it is two syllables on one beat – so the name will be said quicker to fit it into the one beat. Evrapides is three syllables on one beat – so the name will be said quicker to fit it into the one beat. Practice this with and without the CD accompaniment, until you’re comfortable with it and then try it out with others. Now try making up an ‘ostinato’ of your own as you say the chant. It needs to have four beats or pulses (done twice) for each repetition of the chant. Once you have worked out an ostinato – this could simply be clapping on each beat – practice getting it going and then adding words. So you could try: Chant My name’s John silence silence What’s yours? silence Ostinato clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap Count 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 Or: Chant My name’s John silence silence What’s yours? silence Ostinato Slap slap clap clap Slap slap clap clap Count 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 Now, try any ostinato you can think of. You can change the chant too if you want. The learning embedded in this activity could be summarised as: keeping a steady beat, creating an ostinato, saying a simple chant, listening to others. Well done you’ve started to listen, create and perform music!
Music – concepts and processes:	1.       Music is ‘a unique way of organising and making sense of sound... Music involves expressing ideas and forms in natural, acoustic and digital environments. Through learning to make sense of sound, humans appreciate and value the aesthetic qualities of music and express feelings, ideas and identities’ , and encompassing ‘a wide range of sounds, from natural and found sounds through to those generated by conventional musical instruments and electronic technologies. We organise these sounds by manipulating pitch, rhythm, dynamics, harmony, timbre, texture and form to develop musical ideas and create musical works’, and as ‘a fundamental form of both personal and cultural expression. As social and historical texts, musical works use a range of traditional and alternative signs and symbols, both heard and seen’ (Department of Education, Tasmania, 2007, p. 119). Music is unique as expression, communication and meaning-making through SOUND. 2.       Music is the intentional organisation of sound and silence. Music includes an understanding of the three main musical processes – listening to music, creating music and performing music. These are the ways we ‘do’ music. Music also has certain aspects or concepts that make it unique, these are musical ‘concepts’. There are eight of these: pitch, rhythm, dynamics, harmony, texture, tempo, timbre and form. Think about these and try to identify some of them. The first activity we did was based around beat (keeping a steady beat with our hands), rhythm (fitting the syllables of our name in with the beat) and tempo (speed). The next activity we do may actually include all of these concepts!! 3.       The three processes of music are: listening, creating and performing – these are the way we ‘Do’ music. Musical Concepts Definitions See Department of Education, Tasmania. (2007). The Tasmanian Curriculum. Arts Curriculum Area. Author. (pp. 146-149). Downloaded from: http://resources.education.tas.gov.au/item/edres/1e956148-5841-2dba-ef9d-1e03185e9025/1/syl-Arts-all.pdf Pitch The frequency of vibration of a sound. Faster vibrations produce higher sounds, slower vibrations produce lower sounds. Rhythm A sequence of sounds and silences of varying duration controlled by an underlying regular beat. Dynamics The volume (loudness / softness) of sounds. Harmony A combination of two or more sounds of different pitch. Texture The density of sound, controlled by the number and volume of parts at any particular time. Tempo The speed of the music. Timbre The characteristic sound of an instrument. Form The structure or overall plan of a piece of music. Musical Processes Listen, Create and Perform
Soundscapes - Video and Activity:	Watch these two videos. 1.       Hearing or Listening? Find a sound of your own - start. 2.       Find a sound of your own - scaffolding learning and language. Making a soundscape. 1.       The concept of a soundscape is derived from the visual arts use of the word landscape – in music a “soundscape” is a “picture” in sound. The soundscapes in the video use various found “sound sources”. 2.       Find and experiment with a sound of your own, experiment with how you make the sound: length, volume, repetition, high/low. See Tasmanian DoE Glossary link. 3.       If you have others to work with extend your soundscape by including other people. If you are on your own collect and use a series of different sounds and put them together to form your soundscape. If you have others to work with you will need to discuss the role of the “conductor” – and the use of different agreed gestures to indicate the duration or length of sounds and other concepts such as dynamics or volume (see Glossary). 4.       Perform and if you can record your soundscape – you can use any recording device at all – mobile phone, a laptop or an MP3 device, or even just a plain old tape recorder. Listen to recording and discuss or reflect upon it.
Soundscapes - Extension Activity:	Can you make a soundscape that is based on the idea of a ‘machine’? This might include repetitive, metallic sounds or sounds like ‘air’ or ‘steam’ or ‘bells’ – the possibilities are endless. You can use saucepans, bottles, pencils, pencil cases, zippers, your voice - any sound sources that you want! 1.       You can approach this activity in two ways: you can work on your own completing what you can, or you can work with friends or family to help your learning. Either way you can engage in this task. 2.       Try recording the soundscape on paper. Write down pictures to represent the sounds you have selected. This form of notation usually takes a pictorial form – students use pictures to represent sounds, for example if they are including a ‘rain’ sound they may draw a cloud with lines descending from it. This form of notation is called ‘graphic’ notation and we shall be looking at two types of this notation in more detail in Week 4. The focus of this activity is the exploration of sounds and the subsequent representation of those sounds. 3.       Your task in this learning activity is to work in your educational context or with your support group/person to create and perform a soundscape, notate this soundscape somehow (graphically). The soundscape should seek to represent a ‘machine’, so it may include repetitive sounds, hard sounds, sharp sound, noisy and loud sounds, starting and stopping sounds. Once again you don’t NEED to use instruments for this activity – any sound is fine. If you want a big metallic sound why not use a frying pan and a ladle? 4.       This task is also about engaging with the musical concepts of “layering” sounds on top of one another to make a combined sound, “repetition” of sounds, “duration” of sounds, dynamics (volume) of sounds and the musical concept of “instrumentation” – selecting and using sound sources (see Glossary for these terms). 5.       Discuss/reflect on different ways to “notate” the sequence of your sounds – in a sense this is also another musical concept – structure – how sounds are put together. 6.       Listen to the soundscape and refine it as you think best, and finally perform the soundscape. Refer to the notation you have made for it. 7.       Notice how already you are using the three key musical processes of listening, creating, and performing and working with some of the musical concepts – your language for music is evolving! 8.       Can you identify which of the eight concepts you may have used?: pitch, rhythm, dynamics, harmony, texture, tempo, timbre and form. This will vary of course depending on your soundscape. 9.       You actually used ALL of the processes – you were listening to each sound you found or experimented with, you created – by making the sounds and you performed when you played your soundscape through. How great is that!
Rhythm, notation and movement – Video and Activity:	1.       Watch the Video ‘Potions in the pot’ 2.       “Potions in the Pot”. In MyLO this week you will find a copy of the music for the piece entitled ‘Potions in the Pot’. Watch the video and complete the activity with Bill. Learn the rhyme and the actions for “Potions in the Pot”. Do this sitting with and without body percussion. Move in a circle using footsteps as the beat. This week’s four videos are all about learning a rhyme in different ways: echo chanting, ostinati, movement and beat. As the video is going – join in with the action – do it yourself. Stirring, Stirring Potions in the Pot. In the PowerPoint presentation see how I have used the notion of what students already know and can do to translate into music notation. Once you have viewed the presentation and have joined in with the activity look at the handout for this week and see if you can make the connection between what you have done and what can be notated from that. Note the process – ‘sound before sight’ 3.       Rhythmic Notation. Using the rhyme as a starting point write the words of the whole rhyme on paper. Add syllable lengths to these – longs and shorts (l) and (s). Make up other symbols for these lengths of sound, e.g. ê = long and  c = short. Add French time names to these – Ta for long, Ti for short, Ti-Ti for short-short. 4.       If you don’t ‘get’ it – this is no biggie. Just think about it and try to get that there is a link to what you have done as embodied learning by doing and one way of writing this down.
Three Musical Processes - Activity	The Four Seasons – listen then create and then perform ‘The Seasons’: tracks 16, 17, 18, 19; 1.       What is the difference between ‘listening’ and ‘hearing’? How important is ‘intention’ to the process of listening? How can we ‘learn’ to listen better to our world and to the music we listen to? 2.       When we listen what happens? (response – emotional, mental, physical?). Genuine listening activities should enable students to respond to music in these ways. If music is a means of communication and expression – then what is the place of the listener in this experience? 3.       Concepts once again are the window into listening, hence their importance as the first of the three musical processes of listen, create, perform. The 8 musical concepts provide a common language for listening and discussing what we hear. 4.       Campbell on listening, provides an approach to scaffold listening activities, three phases of critical listening. Note that the final phase (N-Act) of the process is a true TMU phase including all three musical processes 5.       Today we will use the set of tracks under the ‘Seasons’ theme to undertake an N-Act phased listening activity. ‘The Seasons’ are excerpts from the music of Antonio Vivaldi ‘The Four Seasons’ representing each season in music and offer a wonderful way into listening. 6.       Just because a composer intends the music to be ‘representative’ of something doesn’t mean that people ‘hear’ this intention. How important then is the title to an art work – musical or visual? Each piece of music has a description. 7.       Brainstorm ideas about each season and write down descriptive words for each. 8.       Listen to each of the excerpts and locate these from the text – track 16 = Summer storm; track 17 = Spring; Track 18 = Winter; and. Track 19 = Winter too (how is this different)! 9.       Listen, create and perform using ‘seasons’ theme. In small groups (you and maybe family members or friends) students may now select one season and create a piece of music representative of this season to them. This task is dependent on numerous variables. You may want to stipulate certain criteria, such as: you need to include a melody and an ostinato, it must have a beginning, middle and end, or you must conventionally notate the melody and ostinato and graphically represent the whole piece. These parameters are all dependent upon time and age and skill base. 10.    The MOST IMPORTANT part of this activity can often be the discussion that then ensues. Why do you think that? Why did you choose to use that instrument in that way? How different was it to the pieces of music about seasons that we have already listened to?
Summary:	1.       In this week you have learnt about, experimented with and constructed music and sound using the activities designed. 2.       The intention of these activities is for you to be able to DO music yourself, to experiment for yourself, and to think about the musical concepts and processes. 3.       You should be thinking about ways to apply these into your classroom now. 4.       What does this look like for you?
Refer to:	1.       Music Glossary. Tasmanian Department of Education. (2008). The Tasmanian Curriculum Arts Curriculum Area K–10 syllabus and support materials. Hobart: Author (pp. 146-152). 2.       My Musical Story 3.       Potions in the Pot