Music From Around the World Unit Lesson Plan 1 Unit: Music From Around the World - Africa Reading Standard: Some questions are answered, others are not. Content Standard: The students will have the opportunity to discover rhythms they ve never heard before while having an opportunity to invent their own instrument to perform their own rhythms for the class. Time: 40 50 Minutes Materials: Music in West Africa by Ruth M. Stone The chalk board/white board to write rhythms Recording of different tribal rhythms Intro: Have the students all repeat some basic rhythms after me in a call and response style. Let them know that they will have the opportunity to teach new rhythms to their classmate. Procedure: I Do: 1. Read Chapter 5: Time and Polyrhythm from the book 2. Initiate class discussion on the many mnemonic devises the tribes in Africa use to sing to. a. Listen to track 14 on the CD provided with the book. i. Help explain the duration of the music and language to how they coexist in the same piece. b. Read through the rest of the readings on this topic. It helps facilitate different rhythmic patterns created through speaking different words.
c. Play track 14 again with the students thinking how they can form their own mnemonic device to rhythm We Do 3. We clap the rhythm together that we hear from track 14 a. Some students may have difficulty with this. It may take several tries. Slow it down for all to understand properly. 4. Then we add the vocal part to the clapping 5. If we have some advanced students in the class we can add the basic down beat in the right or left foot which will also be a positive challenge for some You Do: 6. As we got started earlier, the students now will create their own rhythm and beats to perform for the class. They can work together if they would like or work individually. a. What needs to be heard when they perform is a clapping of the rhythm they are speaking as well as the sentence they decided to come up with. Some sentences can be as simple as I took my dog on a walk today.
Lesson Plan 2 Unit: Music From Around the World - India Reading Standard: The more we learn, the more we wonder. Content Standard: The students will wonder and ponder new questions they have regarding what other culture s music sounds like and how it is composed. They will then invent their own musical composition using the new scales they have learned. Time: 40 60 Minutes Materials: Music in South India by T. Viswanathan Recording or video of different Indian scales Black board/white board Intro: Inform the students that they will be listening to music from a different part of the globe that they more than likely have never heard of before. With them knowing this information they may take some of the music they hear in a different perspective due to its complexity to ones ear. The students will be asked to compose their own scales in relation to the Raga and Tala scales constructed in the Indian culture. Procedure: I Do: 1. Read with the class or to them Chapter 4: Contextualizing South Indian Performance, Socially and Historically from the T. Viswanathan book. a. Within this chapter I need to focus on page 85 where it teaches the students about what a Raga and Tala is. b. Ask the students what they have learned that defines a Raga and Tala. They should be able to come up with answers relatively similar to these:
i. A raga can be summarized as a collection of notes pitches. ii. A tala can be summarized as a rhythmic cycle. c. Demonstrate a raga with your voice by singing a raga scale d. Demonstrate a tala with your hand on your knee e. Add both together to create music of India f. Show on the board how to write a raga starting on one particular note i. Do the same for a tala with a certain rhythm that will be easy to learn We Do: 2. Ask the class questions regarding what they see on the page versus what they hear that they already know about music. a. Some may have absolutely no idea and some more advanced students may be able to start forming ideas about how they differ or are similar. b. We will then work together on the board to create visually different ragas and talas 3. We will listen to the CD that was provided with the book to listen to examples of ragas and talas a. We will sit in a circle and come up with different talas together with our hands b. We will sit in the same circle and add a raga to the tala we have created You Do: 4. Assign the students into groups of no more than four per group. a. Select someone in the group who will lead the raga and tala first i. This student will demonstrate and have the rest of the students repeat them, this is called antiphony which is a form of music associated with every culture across the globe ii. After this student gets two to three minutes to try the raga and tala call and response, switch out students to lead. 5. Take this home to your parents and teach them how to read and write a raga and tala
Lesson Plan 3 Unit: Music From Around the World Americas, India and Africa Reading Standard: Making Connections Content Standards: Students will be able to make musical connections between composers and different styles of music from around the world. Students will be able to interpret and teach fellow friends and musicians some of the differences of music from around the world. Time: 50 60 Minutes Materials: Recordings of pieces written by American composers, Indian composers and African composers written for their ethnic group. Recordings of pieces written by American composers, Indian composers and African composers written for a different ethnic group. Manuscript Paper/College Ruled Paper Pen/Pencil/Colored Pencils World Music: A Very Short Introduction by Philip V. Bohlman Intro: Let the students know that we will be connecting what they have learned from the first two lessons and put them together. Let them know they will hear music performed by many different orchestras from across the globe. Procedure: I Do: 1. Read from Chapter 5: Music of the nations a. This chapter helps facilitate the understanding and connection making of how music is all intertwined in a web of networks. b. Discuss with the class how ragas and talas connect with music of the western civilization (the Americas), African music as well as any other music across the planet.
c. Play several band pieces by American composers that represent different cultures music: i. Michael Colgrass Bali (China) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpchhetho9g ii. Michael Williams Mbira Connections (Africa) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bddqnqugke We Do: 2. Write out on the board what we all hear in the music from the pieces that have been played. a. Some topics should be: i. Instruments we hear ii. Scales we hear iii. Dynamics iv. What country does it sound like it s from? You Do 3. Have the students listen one final time and while at their seats have them write down what the different music from the different parts of the globe means to them. a. They can: i. Write in sentences ii. Draw a picture of what they hear iii. Draw a picture of what they see iv. Write on staff paper what they hear 4. They will then have their pieces posted in the classroom as a reminder of how close music is to all of us all across the globe.