Best+lesson+-+Major+vs+minor+ear+training

In a new piece that we were working on, my students were having a lot of troubles with intervals, as there were many accidentals that were showing major and minor moments throughout the piece. To help the students develop the aural skills to perform these modal shifts with more accuracy, I taught a lesson focused on ear training to prepare them for the rehearsal work. This was used with a prep level show choir during a school day rehearsal.

**Concepts/Skills:** Distinguishing between major and minor, ear training, evaluating

**National Standards:** 1. Sing  5. Read/notate  6. Listen  7. Evaluate

**Behavioral Learning Objective:** Given an exercise focused on singing in major and minor modes, students will be able to sing a specific section of closer correctly.

**Materials**: Students will need music, and I need a white board with staff lines.

**Estimated Lesson Time**: Approximately 10-12 minutes

__**Lesson**__ -Start with simple vocalise's to get the voice warmed up, ascending and descending to warm up the full range of the voice.  -Start with some sirens in head voice to get the vocal chords moving.  -Sing down the scale from "sol" down to "do" on a lip trill to get the air flowing. Proceed up the scale every time to warm up the high range.  -Go up and down the scale from "do" up to "sol" and back down to "do," changing vowels every two notes. The vowel progression should be "ee, eh, ah, oh, oo." Go down the scale with this one. -After the voices are warmed up, start work on major scales. -Sing a major scale from "do" up to "sol" and then back down to "do" on solfege. Review what solfege syllables were being sung, what scale degrees were sung, and what intervals we sang. After they have a grasp on what they sang, perform that same scale again so they can hear it one more time. -Now perform a minor scale up and down on solfege, using "meh" now for the third scale degree. Discuss the difference between the two scales (solfege and intervals). Ask the students what scale degree made the difference between the two, and what was changed about it to make that difference. Perform the minor scale again so they hear it one more time. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">-Alternate back and forth between major and minor to get experience. This can be done by performing those same five note scales or M3/m3 until they can get a firm grasp on the aural difference between the two. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">-Connect concepts from warm ups with the piece of music. Sing through the end portion of the piece that involves the shifts between major and minor sounds. After they have heard and performed it once, ask them to point out where the piece is in major and where it is in minor. Have them mark their music to show a difference between the two so they are mentally aware of the difference. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">-Work on the separate sections to be sure they are accurate on pitches. When each section is solid, connect them together to practice shifting between major and minor. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">-End the rehearsal with a run through of the ending section of the piece to assess if they have improved on distinguishing between major and minor.


 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">*Informally assess if the students retained concepts from warm up exercise and utilized new skills in final run through.*[[file:Best lesson.docx]] **