High+School+Women's+Choir+Dynamic+Shaping+Through+Use+of+Text


 * This lesson was created for the Women's Choir at Lexington Christian Academy, which is made up of 40 girls from grades 9-12. To prepare for the upcoming Festival of Gold in New York City, we have been rehearsing three pieces. //Miserere Mei// is the second of the set, and is the slowest, most somber song they are singing. To be able to achieve the emotional and musical intensity, the girls needed to work on improving their breath support and management, as well as to connect with the text. I created this lesson plan to help them improve those aspects of musicality. At this point they have one month until their performance in New York.

Teacher Name** Alicia Conrad

February 23, 2010
 * Date**

High School Women's Choir
 * Subject/Grade**

Airflow, Tall Vowels, Dynamic Shaping, Textual Understanding
 * Concepts**

Sing, Read, Listen, Evaluate, Culture, Movement
 * National Standards**

Provided with sheet music for “Miserere Mei,” students will be able to sing with tall vowels and dynamically shape musical phrases at a refined level. Students will also make connections between text, emotion, and musical elements and use their knowledge to aid in shaping their musical phrases.
 * Learning Objective**

Sightsinging Book Miserere Mei by Antonio Lotti
 * Materials Needed**

1. Students will go through Warm-ups ·  Hmm-ah (My objective is to have 100% participation on hand gestures) ·  Vi-I, e, a    (Students will focus on having TALL vowels!) ·  Mommy Made Me Mash My M&M’s (My objective is to have 90% clear diction) ·  Solfege Exercise (D/DRD) (My objective is to have 100% participation on solfege hand signs) Students will be put in small groups to review each hand sign for 1 minute Class will review signs together Groups will attempt to hold their part/do hand signs in a round ·  Sightsinging (#180-181) (My objective is to help students successfully sight-read in two parts) Students will identify key of exercise Students will take 15 seconds to look over the example Students will establish the key Students will sing through line 1 on solfege, then line 2 Students will Sing the example in 2 parts 2. Students will get in a Circle formation, standing with like vocal parts. ·  This creates a tighter “group” feel and a different listening environment. It also gives space for movement. 3. Students will work on breathing to begin. ·  Practice taking silent, open breaths ·  4, 5, 6, 7, 8 exercise ·  Students will “gage” their breath management using arms. ·  Students will focus on air flow (which is very important in this slow, soft song!) 4. Students will transfer the air flow exercise to flowing air in rhythm of the song. 5. Students will transfer air flow in rhythm to singing, just focusing on moving air to create a supported sound. 6. Once students have a good grasp and constant awareness of air flow, students will add hand gestures to remind them of tall vowels (i.e., students will place their hand vertically in front of their face every time they sing the vowel [E] or students will “pull a straw from their mouth” every time they sing an [u] vowel.     7.  Students will connect breathing basics to dynamic shaping by working on a crescendo/decrescendo airflow exercise.     8.  Students will connect airflow/crescendo-decrescendo/movement to learn to emphasize the musical phrasing. (i.e. students will step inward toward the circle on the word “magnam” at the top of p. 3).     9.  Students will read Psalm 51 on their own.    10.  Students will discuss the text (which begins, “Have mercy on me, oh Lord!”) and how the music reflects the text. (Some examples could be the tension and dissonance at the beginning of the piece which reflect pleading and pain, or the musical shaping on p. 3 connecting to the phrases, “According to thy mercy, blot out my sins!” 11. Students, as a group, will decide which words are most important and which words should be emphasized. 12. Students will rehearse singing toward the emphasized words, using greater air flow. 13. Students will again sing the song from the beginning to end, focusing on connecting textual intensity to musical shaping, while singing with proper vowels.  *Students will be informally assessed on textual understanding and connecting text to music based on class discussion and ending performance.
 * Sequence of Activities**