Blues+in+General+Music

This mini unit on chords and jazz can be applied starting from fourth grade through fifth grade, depending on the curriculum you have designed. The lesson is constructed according to the Kodaly idea of breaking down a concept into three stages of learning; prepare, present, practice. Therefore, the instructor will only use parts of the lesson at a time. I tried this unit on the fifth grades, and it was a great success. Not only are the students able to outline the chords, but also do they have a great time improvising and playing the instruments. If time permits, the instructor can also use band in a box and create a simple blues as a play along, or use any famous recorded blues progression (I used Elvis Presley). One half of the class can play an ostinato, while the other half, divided between metallophones and xylophones, determines a leading group to do a question (playing a phrase that ends with a higher note at the end than at the beginning) while the other group responds with an answer (playing a phrase that ends with a lower note) Example: If the metallophones start playing the question, the xylophones should answer.

There are endless ways of modifying this lesson to cater to the specific needs of your program. It worked well for me, I hope it will work for you.

Teacher Name: Gabriela Praetzel

Subject/Grade: 5th Grade General Music

Concept/Skills/Values: Exploration, Imitation, Improvisation, Ear training, American Music

National Standards: Sing, Play, Improvise, Compose/Arr., Listen, Evaluate, History/Culture

Behavioral Learning Objectives: The students will be able to recognize I, IV, and V chords in root position. Provided with Orff instruments, the students will be able to construct I,IV, and V chords in C and F and improvise to the outlined chords. Provided with at least ten to fifteen minutes per class period, the students will be able to outline I, IV, and V chords in C and F correctly 3 out of 5 times in ways of singing, playing the outlines on instruments, and showing correct hand signs.

Materials: On a CD: Elvis Presley All shook up, Amazing Grace, Lil Liza Jane, Orff instruments

Sequence of Activities and Assessment:

- scat a question to a student as students come in (question should be eight counts long) - students will figure out to respond to the scat (make sure they do so in eight counts) - ask class what you and that student were doing (question and answering) - partner up students and have them scat answers and responses in eight counts (2-3 turns) - gather students together by singing Lil Liza Jane (should be a familiar song at this point) –accompany on piano using I and V7 chords where appropriate - play song again, using only I chord. Ask students to jump up if they think a different “sound” (chord) should be played (they should hear it immediately) - students go to Orff instruments to play call and response using the pentatonic to Lil Liza Jane (I used the key of F) - encourage students to sing the end of each phrase (because the notes at the end are going up it still sounds like a question, and same for the response phrase) - while the students play questions and answers, keep accompanying the song with the I and V7 chord - At the end, ask students if they were playing unison or harmony on the instruments (they played unison) - Ask students if a chord would be unison or harmony (harmony)
 * First day: Defining chords: Introducing the I and V chords, introducing call and response**

- What do these songs have in common? (Play short soundbites from Amazing Grace, All shook up) On board, write roman numerals I, IV, and V, point at them as the songs are playing - if time permits, have them jump up again every time they hear a chord change (this is a great way of assessing whether all of them hear the change or not) - During the songs, ask students to listen to the accompaniment and to identify the instruments playing accompaniment - Ask if the accompaniment is playing unison or harmony (are they playing chords?) - If students’ answer is chords, ask them what the definition of a chord would be (two notes or more played at a time) - Tell them that the chords we will discover look like a snowman (when you stack the chord) - Divide students into three groups, have first group sing “do” next group “mi” and last one “sol” (this way they can feel and hear the consonant sound) - Ask them how big the leaps where in between (thirds- no need to go into major or minor thirds) - Check students’ understanding by playing a chord in root position, one chord which sounds “ugly” (I just played a cluster in the lower register) and lastly one note. Ask students to raise their hand showing which of the three examples was a chord (most of them will say the one in root position) - Lead them to understand that a chord can be any two or more notes played together at the same time - Play I,IV, and V chords (double the root in the left hand one octave lower) and ask students if they can sing the lowest note - Lead them to find out that they are singing the roots of the chords (have students sing on solfege) - Lead them to find out which chords they are singing and ask what the roman numerals on the board mean (have them count which number do is =I fa=IV and sol=V) - Ask students to label the chord sound (happy-stable-longing-restless—there is no wrong answer, encourage students to find their own way of describing the different chords)
 * Day two: Reviewing I and V chord, introducing IV chord, introducing the blues**

- Before students enter room, put up chord progressions of a 12 bar blues - As students come in, play recording of a very old blues recording (I used a Johnny Hodges recording -saxophonist), then the Elvis Presley one (ask students to compare recordings and find similarities- which will be the blues pattern) - //Briefly//, talk about the history of the blues and its origin (point out that this is still a popular genre in today’s society, ask students if they have heard a blues before) - On the piano, play I, IV, and V chords (double root in the left hand) in C or F - Have students sing roots on solfege, then on roman numerals (showing hand signs) - Teacher sing chord outlines, have students echo (this way they are singing the notes they are supposed to use once they play the instruments) - Teacher play chords on piano again, having students outline the chords again - Choose students to play Orff instruments, improvising over these chords (using only the notes of the chords) - Have a visual on the board (I used a self- made poster) which reminds them which notes they may play on which chords - Have a few students play only the roots of the chords on lower Orff instruments while selected students improvise over the chord changes-teacher plays roots on the piano with students (if the students are successful, have them do call and response- every student plays two measures, reminding them to end on a high note if a question is asked and to end lower when answering) If time allows, play Elvis Presley’s All shook up and have all students play roots to the song on the Orff instruments
 * Day three: Reviewing chords, playing the blues with call and response**

Assessment can be done on several levels. Each day, you can apply a performance assessment based on how much of the lesson you were able to teach. On a seating chart, mark a plus or minus next to the students name based on their ability to be able to apply the concept or not. At the very end, you can also come up with a scoring system or rubric of your choice, including performance, correct chord outline, correct singing, pitch accuracy, correct hand signs, correct mallet technique etc. You could also include a paper based quiz reviewing information you might have covered on jazz, chord construction, the blues, big band instruments, songs you chose to use as examples, true/false questions.
 * Assessment:**

//Gabi, I really like the approach taken to get something like this familiar to the kids. It's a little foreign to think about music in harmonies (chords) rather than one line at a time (melodies), and for some kids it's probably **really** foreign to think of doing that improv thing :-) The first thing that jumps out at me is the second day -- that has to be really difficult to keep their focus the entire time. It's necessary, for sure, to do all that stuff in the same lesson, but it's good to keep in mind that a lot of new information is being presented to the kids at one time. Positive reinforcement and direct focus on the teacher's part will make that lesson go a lot smoother. The only big thing that I see that needs adjustment is the inclusion of improvisation. It's really only prominent on the bookends of the lesson. Maybe one way to keep students active is doing the "questioning and answering" (I really like this, by the way) exercises throughout the entire lesson. There doesn't have to have a huge explanation attached to it...after introducing each new song or chord you can have them improvising on them. Something like that, at least. This lesson is easily malleable to many classes and settings, and is very open to creativity. Hope my comments helped! ~Doug Bo//