Elijah+Rock+Ostinato+Lesson

This lesson plan was created for the High School Choir at Lexington Christian Academy. The choir is made up of 52 students grades 9-12. Though it is non-auditioned, this is the group that represents the school (as it is a small, private Christian school and the choir program is in the building process). The group is preparing for the Festival of Gold competition in New York City, and Elijah Rock is the closing number for their performance. To acheive the crisp, emphasized sound of the piece, I am trying to work more on accents with the students, as well as to give the text meaning from its originating story, in order to urge them to sing with conviction and knowledge. This lesson helped me to do that, as well as include a fun activity encouraging the kids to create and "compose" their own ostinato.

Alicia Conrad
 * Teacher Name**

March 5, 2010
 * Date**

High School Choir
 * Subject/Grade**

Text Intent, Accents, Ostinato
 * Concepts**

Sing, Compose, Read, Listen, Evaluate, History, Movement
 * National Standards**

Provided with sheet music for “Elijah Rock,” students will be able to sing the song with emphatic accents, given the knowledge of what the text means and from where it originates. Students will also discuss ostinatos and create their own ostinato, given a new text.
 * Learning Objectives**

Sightsinging Book “Elijah Rock” by Moses Hogan Bible—book of 1 Kings
 * Materials Needed**

Bible—book of Romans (ch. 8)

1. Students will go through Warm-ups · Bubbles (My objective is air flow concentration) · Zinga-Zu (Students will focus on having resonance and vibration, as well as crisp consonants) · Na Na Na (My objective is to have all students watching, so they know how to sing the exercise—legato vs. staccato) · Solfege Exercise (3rds) Students will review exercise as large group Students will sing in a round divided by section Speed of exercise will increase · Sightsinging (#204) Students will identify key of exercise Students will take 15 seconds to look over the example Students will establish the key Students will Sing the example 2. Students will read the story of Elijah, which is found in 1 Kings 3. Students will be put in groups and discuss with each other different ways the song is representative of the story of Elijah, and Elijah’s life (an answer, for example, could include how Elijah was taken up to heaven in a Chariot of fire, and Moses Hogan illustrates that on p. 11 with the text “I’m Comin’ up Lord!” That section sounds like a wave of fire). They will also come up with ideas of how to musically implement that text painting. 4. Students will share with the rest of the group the examples they came up with, and one class list will be compiled. 5. Students will sing “Elijah Rock,” focusing on one “text illustration” at a time. 6. Once students have done this, they will move on to focusing on accents. Whenever students have an accent, they will stomp in order to “physicalize” the emphasis. 7. After several repetitions of stomping, students will take away the stomp and emulate the emphasis using their voice and consonants. 8. Students will discuss the meaning of the word “ostinato” and sing the ostinato on p. 7-9 repeatedly, focusing on accents and then on text painting. 9. Students will be given a new text (Romans 8) and divided into groups. Each group will come up with a phrase from the text. 10. Groups will be given rhythmic parameters, and will fit their phrase into the parameters. 11. Students will practice their phrases, then build each section part on top of the other in a new rhythmic ostinato.
 * Sequence of Activities**

*Students will be assessed on their group written responses to the story of Elijah in 1 Kings. They will be informally assessed on their understanding of ostinato based on their composition using a new text, and they will be informally assessed on their performance of accents when they sing through “Elijah Rock.”