Understanding that musical themes are the same even if they are played in different styles can help students understand that numbers maintain their same value even if they appear in different forms.
This integrated lesson, focusing on United States History, incorporates learning about the Wild West and the western outlaw Billy the Kid through the music of Aaron Copland. The lesson provides musical reflection and each movement of Copland’s ballet Billy the Kid work and opportunity to experience deep listening for the elements of Dynamics, Articulation, Rhythm and Tempo (DART).
This lesson will contrast Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring (classical) and Stephane Furic's Crossing Brooklyn Ferry (jazz), and the role the poems Crossing Brooklyn Ferry by Walt Whitman and The Bridge by Hart Crane, bring to the music.
Students will listen to and analyze music of Afghanistan's "national instruments" the Rubab and Tabla. Student will also play rhythmic and melodic patterns while improvising in the Yeman mode. Students become acquainted with the geography of Central Asia and the political Climate of Central Asia, and gain an understanding of censorship of music.
Students will learn about Italian artist Giuseppe Arcimboldo, his mannerist style, and his four paintings named after the four seasons. Students will learn about the food groups and the four seasons. Students will learn about Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi and his compositions named after the four seasons.
Students will recognize that American music is diverse as it relates to culture, history and style. Students
may also work with digital media to accompany their performance piece.
Students will learn about Middle Eastern music, its transformations in the United States, and basic forms of belly dance movement. This lesson examines belly dance music, performed by Lebanese-American musician George Abdo, an example of music in Arab American communities during the 1970s.
Students learn about Caribbean peoples, languages, geographies, and values by singing and playing instruments to Caribbean music. Theres is a particular focus on Puerto Rico, Cuba, Haiti, and St. Lucia.
With a little help by Stravinsky, students understand music evokes mood, emotion
and feeling. In the process, students develop critical listening and thinking skills, and illustrate through
cartooning what they believe is expressed in selections of Rite of Spring.
Students will travel to the island of Trinidad to explore the feel of Calypso music and participate in a Trinidadian popular dance, the Limbo. Students will be able to perform a Calypso rhythmic pattern on classroom instruments and will accompany their own Limbo dance on Orff instruments while exploring the social and cultural context of Calypso music.
Through active listening, discussions of cultural context, and re-creating ostinati and pentatonic melodies, students will experience two contrasting examples of the music of the Khmer people of Cambodia.
Students will explore the lives of various jazz musicians. They will become familiar with the social and historical events that were present during the lives of these individuals. They will listen to the music of the artists and become knowledgeable about their styles. This activity will culminate in the production of a news/talk show created and performed by the students highlighting the lives of these musical figures.
Students will create five artistic representations illustrating the five movements by Grofe's symphonic composition The Grand Canyon Suite. Students will be able to analyze and form generalizations about the interdependence of the art elements such as: color, texture, form, line, and space. Students will enhance their own emotional and cognitive development as a result of the classical music by translating this experience through creative expression.
Students are introduced to two contrasting dance traditions from
Argentina: the Chacarera and the Tango. Elements of the music used to accompany both types
of traditional dance will be explored.
Students use found objects from nature to explore the elements of art and express the unique quality of a season. In like manner, students learn that musical composers can use the elements of music to express the contrasting moods of each season. Students use such visual aids to enhance the work of Vivaldi's Four Seasons with technology such as I-movie or DVD Maker.
Students will experience the music of the Bedouin culture of Egypt. In the listening example,
they will hear two ancient traditional instruments; the rababa- a fretless stringed instrument,
and the darabuka- a conical percussion instrument. They will view examples of Egyptian scales
and rhythms and approximate the improvised sound of one of the scales and one of the
rhythms on western instruments. An extended activity will include the use of Egyptian Bedouin
music and student-improvised music within the structure of the ancient Egyptian art form,
Shadow Puppet Theatre.
Students will be introduced to Turkish style song and dance through listening to,
recreating the sounds of, and dancing Bacon is in the Larder.
Students will contrast styles of southern and northern Italy through attentive listening, moving, instrument playing and singing. This unit is a survey of regional differences in Italian folk music.
This not-for-profit multi-media organization encourages and celebrates the development of youth through classical music. Students can listen to the archived radio programs and read biographies and interviews of the young musicians. The site includes MENC lesson plans for middle and high school classes and a teacher’s guide. Activities which encourage critical thinking and listening, role modeling, exploration of multiple representations of music, and interviewing techniques can be downloaded using Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Students will learn about the ancient Greek god of music, Apollo, through two pieces of classical music. The students will discuss the role of music in ancient Greece. The students will analyze two musical compositions, Apollo by Igor Stravinsky and Apollo et Hyachinthus by Wolfgang A. Mozart.