Music 344 Seashore Creative Lesson

Goal:

• To begin to use instruments after a summer break.
• To work together as a team/ensemble to overcome challenges.
• To learn how to blend in an ensemble setting.
• To create an idea or visual image and learn to express the idea musically.

Objectives:

• The students will be provided a visual image from a seashore setting.
• The students will compose and play expressively the visual image on their instruments.
• The students will create a song using their composed ideas of a beach scene at the seashore.

Materials:

• The teacher will need one index card listing the visual image ideas for the students.
• Students will only need their instruments.

Prerequisite Knowledge:

• The students need to understand how to play concert tuning notes A and Bb.
• The students need to understand how to facilitate their instrument enough to provide basic beginner sounds. Therefore they need to understand how to put the instrument together, understand basic fingerings, and how to produce sounds.

Procedures:

• Warm up the students by playing tuning notes. Teacher will play the concert tuning notes A and Bb. The students will be allowed a minute to tune. Listen for intonation. If need be, tune individual instruments.
• Explain to students that they are going to compose a musical piece about the seashore. Tell students they can facilitate their instrument any way to produce the sound. Remind students that they can use any techniques of dynamics and articulation. Split students up in groups and provide a visual image to each group. Students will be formed in three instrumental groups of flutes, oboe and saxophone, and violin and clarinets. Provide images such as wind, waves, seagulls, boats, and fish swimming as visual images. Offer extra examples if there is confusion.
• Students will be allowed up to three or four minutes to compose and perform the visual image. The teacher will spend some time with each group making sure they understand what they need to do.
• Each group will perform the visual image for the entire ensemble.
• Students will then play their sounds together as an ensemble creating a song. The teacher will direct when the students should enter with their sound and fade away. Repeat process if need be.
• The students will then be asked to compose/play a different sound and again be directed by the teacher to create another song. Again repeat process if need be.
• Ask students if they feel together as an ensemble they performed expressively a scene at the seashore. Discuss with students what worked, what didn’t, what could have been better, and provide suggestions of improvement of expression.

Assessment Strategies:

• The students understood a visual image from a seashore setting because they associated with the situation.
• The students were able to compose and play expressively the visual image on their instruments.
• The students created a song using their composed ideas to paint a scene of a beach at the seashore expressively with their instruments.