musicexplorers, llc. the flute, the drum, and the guitar...

MusicExplorers, LLC. The Flute, the Drum, and the Guitar

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Lesson Plans Rhythm 1. Feel the Beat 2. Construct and Play Your Own Drum 3. Syncopation Name Game Pitch 4. Solfege 5. The Staff 6. Let’s Make a Melody! Harmony, Dynamics 7. An Introduction to Harmony 8. Dynamics! 9. The Great Composition or “Putting it All Together” One of the most important goals of MusicExplorers is to integrate other disciplines that students learn in school within a musical context. While these shows we present to you are entertaining and great for increasing children’s appreciation for music, we also hope that they give students a chance to see the things they are learning within non-music disciplines from a fresh new perspective. By participating in a MusicExplorers performance, students may unlock new insights into science, history, and social studies using their ever-developing musical intelligence. To assist in this goal, we present these lesson plans for brief activities for the benefit of teachers who decide to use MusicExplorers in their classrooms. These additional, curriculum-based lesson plans were designed to help teachers– whether they have music as their emphasis or not– to incorporate basic principles that their students see every day into the music classroom. The activities are designed to be short, sweet, and direct– not necessarily to introduce a new concept, but to reinforce and enrich concepts. In the context of the MusicExplorers shows, these activities can help break up the rehearsals in a way that will benefit students outside the musical realm. One of the best ways to help a student learn is to provide plenty of opportunities to see concepts and ideas put into application. Remember, there is always room for creativity within the classroom! If certain approaches we include do not fit the needs of your own individual classrooms, feel free to adapt and change. As teachers, we strive to teach students, not lessons. The possibilities are as varied as your students!


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Musical Terms to Know Beat: A steady pulse of equal duration in time Rhythm: A pattern of musical movement through time; division of the beat Syncopation: A rhythmic pattern where a note is struck or sung on an off-beat. Pitch: A word used to describe a specific frequency of a tone in music. There are twelve possible pitches in our musical language. Octave: The distance between two notes that are twelve half-steps apart. For example, the distance between two Cs or two Fs, or the distance between low DO and high DO. Octaves on either side of a note are either twice the frequency (lower octave) or half the frequency (higher octave) than that note.

------ OCTAVE ------ Solfege: A series of syllables assigned to different degrees of a diatonic scale. These solfege syllables have accompanying hand signs. Staff: A system of five lines and four spaces. Notes are written on the staff to indicate specific pitches. Treble clef: A symbol at the beginning of a staff that indicates where the G line is. Harmony: The phenomenon that occurs when multiple pitches are being sung at the same time.

Chord: Three pitches that are one third apart played simultaneously. For example, C, E, and G make up a C major chord.


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Dynamics: The volume of a piece of music. Music can be sung at a loud dynamic, a soft dynamic, or somewhere in between. For a list of specific dynamic markings, see Activity 3 below.


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1. Feel the Beat!

In The Flue, the Drum, and the Guitar, Marco discovers a group of Desert Dwellers, who teach him a little about rhythm. One of the basic components of rhythm is the beat, which is a basic foundation of a song. Objective Students will be able to feel and demonstrate beat with their bodies. Grade 3-5 Estimated Time 5 minutes Materials Needed:

• 2 popular song tracks with contrasting steady beats • Open space for dancing • Large grid, fit for display in front of the whole class (see example

below) Directions 1. Invite the students to spread out in the room. 2. Turn on a popular song, and have the students pat the beat on their knees. 3. After 30 seconds or so, move the beat to the feet. 4. After 30 seconds, invite them to tap the beat in other places ie. shoulders, chest, head, elbows, toes, fingers, clapping, etc. 5. Repeat the activity for different songs. As this activity goes on, continue to ask, “Can you feel the beat?” Get the students familiar with this word. Beat is a concept that is difficult to explain in words, but very easy for human beings to feel. Additional Activity Display a grid like the one below on an overhead screen, or create one on the chalk/white board. You can also make individual grids for each student.


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If the beat is in 4/4 time, like most popular songs, each square can be a single beat within the measure. After the students have physically felt the beat by tapping it out to music, they now can start seeing the beat. Say nothing, but point to each square on the beat as the song plays. Invite the students to point with you. After a few times of just pointing, start speaking along with the pointing: “One, two, three, four.” Invite the students to join you.

1 2 3 4

1 2 3 4

Etc.

Introduce the concept of emphasized and de-emphasized beats. On each beat 1 put a star in the box. Have the students pump their fists or pat their laps when the starred beat comes. This beat is known as the downbeat.


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1

2 3 4

1

2 3 4

Etc.


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2. Construct and Play Your Own Drum In The Flute, the Drum, and the Guitar, Marco learns about rhythm from the Desert Dwellers. These mysterious people all played their rhythms on drums. Now it’s our turn to create some drums of our own, and perhaps even use them in our upcoming performance of The Flute, the Drum, and the Guitar! Objective Students will construct a drum and learn about its physical properties. Students will demonstrate their understanding of keeping a steady beat and mimicking rhythmic passages using this drum. Grade 3-5 Estimated Time 20 minutes – 10 for drum preparation, 10 for decoration Materials Needed:

• Large cans – formula containers, coffee cans, or oatmeal tins work well. If there are any sharp edges, make sure they are sanded down and covered with masking tape before the students are able to handle them.

• Parchment or wax paper. For durability, it may be a good idea to preemptively glue two layers of paper together. Cut the paper into circles about two inches larger than the diameter of the cans.

• Duct tape or masking tape. • Rubber bands. Make sure they are large enough to stretch tightly

around the can. • Decoration materials for the outside of the can. Having strips of

construction paper that cover the outside of the can is useful, along with markers and other coloring materials.

Directions 1. Before class:

• Prepare the coffee cans so that there are no sharp edges. Sand them down or apply masking tape to these edges.

• Cut/paste the parchment paper into two-layer circles with diameters about two inches larger than those of the coffee can. ‘


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• Prepare decoration materials. Making construction paper covers that surround the outside of the can is an easy option.

2. When the activity begins, invite the students to take one of the coffee cans and place the sheet of parchment paper over the open top. The wax paper sheet will act as the head of the drum– the part that is struck when the drum is played. The coffee can is the body of the drum.

3. Secure the head onto the body with rubber bands. Make sure that the sheet of wax paper is tight and completely covers the top of the can.

4. Secure this sheet further by taping it to the can. You could cover the rubber bands with tape in this process.

5. Now the basic drum is complete. To give it a finished look, decorate the outside of the can– but not the wax paper head! Give each student a prepared sheet of construction paper that covers the surface area of the can. Have them color designs and shapes and then help them tape this sheet in place over the can.

Remind the students that drums like this are delicate and should be used with respect. They should only play with their hands- no sticks of any kind should be used. These drums can be used in the performance of The Flute, the Drum, and the Guitar!


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Activity 3: Syncopation Name Game Marco learns a lot about rhythm in The Flute, the Drum, and the Guitar. One of the basic rhythmic patterns we will run into is called syncopation. Here’s a chance to learn about syncopation and have some fun exploring the names of our classmates! Objective Students will demonstrate syncopated rhythms. Grade 3-5 Estimated Time 7 to 10 minutes Directions 1. Seat the students in a circle. Have them pat out a moderate beat on their laps. If you would like to ensure that the beat remains steady, you could provide a beat on the metronome. 2.Begin the game by stating the name of a student in the circle on the beat. See below for more examples of this. 3. Play a game where you “toss” the turn from student to student. Have students first say their own name and then “pass” the turn to someone by saying another name in the circle. See if they can do it without any space in between two names. If someone does make a mistake or get thrown off, allow them to recover and try again. 4. If students are getting the hang of this, seed up the tempo! If students are ready for a challenge, create a competition. If you fall off the beat, you’re out! Here are examples using music notation:


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Is there a name that only has three syllables? How would that one sound in a four beat pattern?

Notice how there is a rest ( ) at the end of the measure. During rests, students must remain silent for the duration of that beat. They can still pat on their laps, but they must say nothing during this beat. Is there anyone in your class that has a name with five syllables? This is where things get interesting. There are only four beats in each measure, so in order to accommodate for the extra syllable, some of the syllables must be less than one whole beat. This is where syncopation comes in. Syncopation involves an emphasized off-beat:

The flagged notes (called eighth notes) are worth half of a beat. Therefore, the second syllable (“ri”) lies on the second half of the first beat. It is a syncopated syllable. The following syllable (“ca”) also lies on the second half of a beat (beat 2, in this case), and so it is also syncopated. Some other examples of syncopated five-syllable names:

Not every five-syllable name needs to fit this rhythm. Each name has its own rhythm.


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How about six syllables?

Seven syllables?


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4. Introduction to Solfege In The Flute, the Drum, and the Guitar, Amelia runs into some Elves and Fairies that teach her about melody. Melody is constructed out of tones or pitches. These pitches are easy to learn if you use a system called solfege. Objective Students will learn the solfege hand signs and syllable names and be able to use them in a melody. Grade: 3-5 Estimated Time 10 minutes; it would be beneficial for students to practice these skills for a few additional minutes every day. Materials Needed

• Chalkboard or white board with chalk/markers • A piano, keyboard, or another way to establish a key

Directions 1. Before class begins, write the following syllables on the board (in this exact order) in large letters: DO TI LA SO FA MI RE DO

2. In the Key of C Major, these notes correspond: C B A G F E D C 4. Demonstrate the following hand signs as you do so and invite the students to mimic your movements


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Here are the hand signs:

Notice how you begin and end with DO. This is an octave. The high DO has two times the frequency of the low DO, so they will sound fairly similar. If you begin on a C, you will end on a C as well.

5. Now invite the students to sing the solfege scale with you as they continue to copy your gestures. Repeat this a few times for the students to really internalize these pitches. 6. You can also use the syllables written on the board to assess the students ability to remember the hand signs. Point to a syllable and invite the students to show you the hand sign that corresponds with it. 7. It will take the students some time to get comfortable with these hand signs. But as you practice for a few minutes each day, the gestures will come faster and the students will be able to maintain the pitches with more accuracy.

Additional Activity


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Once the students have become very comfortable with singing the pitches with the appropriate hand signs in order, start mixing them up. You can either use your own hand to direct the students, or you can point to the syllable names on the board and have them sing along with your pointing. If you are going to begin mixing up syllables, start on a simple level. Begin with small skips by a third (DO to MI, MI to SO, etc.) and use the major triad (DO, MI, SO, DO) as your backbone. Spend some time on DO, RE, MI, SO, and LA before you include FA and TI. You can also create melodies and see if students can recognize them.

Simple songs in Solfege: Row, Row, Row Your Boat DO DO DO RE MI MI RE MI FA SO Row Row Row your boat, Gen- tly down the stream DO DO DO SO SO SO M MI MI DO DO DO SO FA MI RE DO Merrily Merrily Merrily Merrily Life is but a dream America, The Beautiful SO SO MI MI SO SO RE RE Oh beau-ti- ful for spa- cious skies MI FA SO LA TI SO For am- ber waves of grain


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5. The Staff Amelia learns a lot about melody in The Flute, the Drum, and the Guitar. The Elves and Fairies teach her about the solfege syllables. Now it’s time to learn how these pitches are written on a staff! Objective Students will identify the lines and spaces on the treble clef. Grade 4-6 Estimated Time 10 minutes Materials Needed:

• A large display of the treble staff. This can be printed on an overhead projector, drawn on a whiteboard, or display it on a poster that can be kept up in the room.

Directions 1. Ask the students to hold up their left hands with their thumb on the bottom. 2. Have the students touch the fingertips on this hand with their right hand. How many times did they point? (Answer: Five fingers, five points.) 3. Now have the students touch the spaces between, where the fingers come together at the hand. How many touches were there this time? (Answer: Four) 4. Now invite the students to do both the fingertips AND the spaces between, alternating between each one, moving up (tip, space, tip, space, etc.). Start with the thumb. Have them say the word “line” when they touch the fingertips and have them say “space” when they touch the spaces in between. 5. Direct the students’ attention to the image of the staff, already prepared. Explain to the students that the lines are just like the fingertips, and the spaces between the lines are like the spaces between the fingers. Invite them to motion on their hands as you motion on the staff model. Continue to have them say “line” and “space” as before. 6. Explain to the students that the hand is like a model of the scale. The fingertips represent lines, and the spaces between each of the fingers represent the spaces between the lines. There are five lines on the staff, just as there are five fingers on the hand. 7. Draw a note on a line, and another on a space. Ask the students to identify which one is on the line and which one is on the space. Then, invite a volunteer to draw a new note on a different space than the one you drew on. Another volunteer can draw a note on a different line. Additional Activity- Naming the Lines and Spaces Now would be a great time for the line/space letter names on the treble staff to be introduced. Before this can happen, the notion of clefs needs to be introduced.


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This clef – evolved from a capital ‘G’ – is used to indicate which line the pitch G is on. To learn more about the treble clef, consult the MusicExplorers pitch supplement.


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6. Let’s Make a Melody! In The Flute, the Drum, and the Guitar, the elves and fairies make up several melodies with Amelia to help her find Marco. Have you ever composed a melody before? It’s easy! Let’s do it together! Objective Students will use solfege to create their own melodies. Grade 5-6 Estimated Time 20 minutes Materials Needed

• Chalkboard or white board, with the solfege syllables clearly presented • A piano, keyboard, or another way to establish a key

Directions 1. Before the activity begins, display the solfege syllables: DO TI LA SO FA MI RE DO 2. In the Key of C Major, these notes correspond: C B A G F E D C

3. After establishing a key (ie. C Major), sing the scale from low DO to high DO and back. Then invite them to sing the triad (DO MI SO MI DO). Then point to various syllables and see if they can sing the notes back. Echo simple patterns. 4. Invite a student volunteer to give a list of five syllables of his/her choosing. Remind them that they have a choice between low DO or high DO. Write the five syllables on the board. Then invite another student to come up with another five-syllable chain. Do this two more times until you have four syllable strings, five syllables each.


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Example: FA SO MI RE (Low) DO (High) DO FA MI LA TI (Low) DO MI (High) DO FA LA LA SO TI SO (High) DO 5. Sing the melody you’ve just created, perhaps using the piano as a guide:

6. Add words:


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7. Introduction to Harmony Marco meets a strange man named the Wanderer in The Flute, the Drum, and the Guitar. He not only helps Marco find his sister, but he also teaches Marco a little bit about musical harmony. Let’s create beautiful harmony together! Objective

• Students will be able to sing a tonic major triad in tune with each other.

• Students will be able to assess their own performance and make proper adjustments based on their assessments.

Grade 4-6 Est. Time 7 minutes Materials Needed

• A piano, keyboard, or other way to establish a key • A recording device, and a means of playback so that the whole

class can hear what has been recorded. Directions 1. Play a C on the piano. Invite the students to hum this pitch with you. 2. Play an E on the piano, the one just above C. Invite the students to hum once again. 3. Now, play the G nearest to E. Do as before. The students have now sung three notes that are part of the C major chord.

4. Divide the class into three groups:

• Group 1 will sing the note C on the syllable “do” • Group 2 will sing the note E on the syllable “mi” • Gorup 3 will sing the note G on the syllable “so”

5. Record the class sustaining these pitches and play it back, discussing the performance. Do this several times. Additional Activity: Major vs. Minor Triads Now is a good time to also introduce the difference between major and minor chords. Play the following two chords one after another and invite


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the students to give some differences between the two. They may say things like, “Minor key is sadder than major key,” or “Major sounds more happy.” These answers are completely acceptable; we do hear a lot of sad songs in a minor key, while happy songs are often in major. The real difference is only one note in each chord. The middle note in the minor chord is a half-step lower than it is in major.

To show that the middle note has been lowered, we add a flat sign, which signifies the lowering of a note by a half step. Below are some keyboard models of these same two chords. Notice the change in the middle note (the third of the chord).* C Major Scale on Keyboard: C E G C Minor Scale on Keyboard: C E-flat G

Before class, have a list of songs compiled that are either major or minor. Below is a list of some common songs that are in major key: Vivaldi’s Four Seasons: Spring “Don’t Stop Believing” by Journey Jingle Bells Beethoven’s Ode to Joy Some examples of songs in minor key: Imperial March from Star Wars Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, first movement The Hall of the Mountain King, from Peer Gynt by Edvard Grieg Carol of the Bells Invite the students to listen to different clips of music for about 30 seconds. Then invite them to answer together: was the song major, or


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was it minor? If they need a reminder of which one is which, play the chords on the piano again.


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8. Dynamics!

Marco and Amelia run into some Ice Men in The Flute, the Drum, and the Guitar and learn how to be musically expressive. One of the most powerful ways to make your music come to life is to use dynamics, or to change the volume of what you are singing or playing. Objective Students will be able to recognize the traditional dynamic markings in a piece of music and demonstrate good singing technique as they sing at different dynamics. Estimated Time 7 minutes Grade 3-6 Directions 1. Before the activity, write the following “dynamic spectrum” on the board. Another option would be to have it on permanent display somewhere in the classroom, but writing them on a chalkboard or whiteboard works just as well.

pp p mp mf f ff 2. Refer to the following definitions: pp Pianissimo: very soft, as soft as possible p Piano: soft mp Mezzo-piano: moderately soft mf Mezzo-forte: moderately loud f Forte: loud ff Fortissimo: very loud 3. Demonstrate the level of each dynamic marking. 4. Have a student point to a dynamic marking. The class then speaks the full name at the appropriate volume level. Have many volunteers. Additional Connections

• Sing well-known songs at chosen dynamic levels • Sing crescendos and decrescendos (gradually louder and softer) • Sing the sforzando-piano effect (a note suddenly forte then immediately piano) • Explore the difference between mezzo forte and mezzo piano


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9. The Great Composition or “Putting it All Together”

One of the most important reasons why we learn music is so that we can use melody, rhythm, harmony, and expression to create our very own compositions. Marco and Amelia make their own music– now it’s our turn to put our music skills to the test and write our very own class composition! Objective Students will collectively write and perform their own composition. Estimated Time: 20-30 minutes Grade 4 – 6, although this activity can be simplified for younger grades (see “Additional Activity”) Materials Needed:

• If the students have made drums, they can be used for this activity • Chalkboard or white board • Paper and writing implements for each student

Directions 1. Before class begins, prepare a space on the chalkboard for four lines of basic instructions: a line for rhythm, a line for solfege syllables, a line for expressive markings, and a line for lyrics. Split the lines into eight distinct sections or measures. This is your blueprint an 8 measure piece of music. 2 Begin by telling the students that the class will compose a piece together. It may not look exactly like what they see in a normal score, but it will be a score nonetheless. Begin with rhythm. It may be a good idea for the instructor to begin the process by putting a simple four-beat rhythm in the first measure, for example, four quarter notes:

3. Invite students to create their own 1-measure (4 beat) rhythms. Draw each of these rhythms on the board. Have the whole class go through each rhythm together. You may end up with something like this:

4. Play this rhythm together as a class, either with voices or with drums. Keep a steady beat as they do so. 5. The next step is to assign some pitches to these rhythmic values. You could write the pitches for the first measure:


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DO RE MI DO

Help the students create a melody that doesn’t simply use solfege, but also use solfege beautifully. This means some solfege syllables may be repeated. You may come up with something like this:

DO RE MI DO FA FA MI SO SO LA SO TI DO

6. Play this melody on a piano/keyboard, or demonstrate it yourself. Invite the students to join you (with hand signs) upon repletion of their melody 7. Add lyrics. Brainstorm and try different options- it can even be a silly song! 8. Add dynamics to the piece. This is a great opportunity for students who still may be struggling for things like notes and rhythms to participate. Have each measure be a different dynamic. Have the students decide what parts of the piece get louder or softer. Perhaps you can add a crescendo or decrescendo in as well!

DO RE MI DO FA FA MI SO SO LA SO TI DO


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A possible lyric set for this melody: Lemon, turtle Chocolate Fries Banana pudding Dirt!

Additional Activity The above activity is designed for students who have had experience and training in musical notation. Of course, younger grades or beginning groups may not have the skills to create rhythm patterns, sing solfege, or identify dynamics. This does not mean, however, that they cannot compose a piece as a class. Many pieces of music don’t have specific notes or rhythms. Often, they are either improvised (where musicians make up music as they go along) or aleatoric (where musicians are given a general structure, but details like when to begin or which note to start are left up to the musicians to choose individually). Instead of creating a structured melody like the one above, you can orchestrate a piece using various sounds that come at designated times. Students can use their drums, voices, and bodies, as well as other instruments you may provide (shakers, whistles, or even found objects around the classroom that make noise). Four to six different sounds is enough. Assign groups of students to each instrument. Create a series of four to six boxes on the board. Each of these boxes will be for a different instrument. Have the students decide who should go first, who should go last, etc. Should all of the instruments play at different times? Should one instrument group join at its turn while the other continues to play? These are the kinds of questions that the students will answer as the composition process progresses. Of course, dynamics can still be added, as well as any other nuances or effects that the students wish to contribute (perhaps there’s a dance to go along with it?).

A sample “score” can be seen below.

DRUMS

WHISTLES

SHAKERS

WHISTLES

DRUMS

VOICES AHHHH

UST

DRUMS

CLAPS

EVERYONE

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