After gaining familiarity with the lives and music of Copland and Ellington, students write each a formal letter expressing how culture is reflected in music. Students create a bio-poem about the composer’s life and music.
Learning about this nation’s twelfth president is fun when we combine music, writing, and performing to your lessons. Mix together a little Aaron Copland’s Lincoln Portrait, with historical facts and opinions, books, videos and even the Gettysburg Address. Your students will astound you as they create a class performance piece using their words, accompanied by Mr. Copland’s composition.
Copland, an American maverick, becomes a storyteller as he writes about life in the early years of America. His Appalachian Spring helps students understand how people, places and things change over time, while his musical sketch reinforces the six traits of writing.
It’s a Fanfare! Almost every student has heard the fanfare at the beginning of an MGM production. Students will understand the basic elements of a fanfare, and the significant role fanfares have played in history as a means of communicating information and emotion
Why do two composers from the same period of history compose different music? Students will gain an understanding of how culture and history influences music as they analyze and compare the music of Aaron Copland and Duke Ellington, and learn how these composers used special sounds to enhance their music.
Can we hear the sounds of music? Students will predict how well they think they can detect the dynamics of music by well known composers. Through scientific inquiry, students will create an entry for the science fair which compares predictions with data collected by a Quacker Tracker while their musical selection is played.
Through this lesson students have the opportunity to research a classical composer of their choosing. This lesson involves the use of different skills such as: reading, translation, writing, and speaking in Spanish. Furthermore, students will be able to analyze their composer's life, and present feedback and insight on what they have learned.
Students will listen to selections from musical compositions by Aaron Copland and Charles Ives. They will take their pulse after each piece and record the data in an Excel spreadsheet. Students will use a graphic organizer to record reactions to each piece. This will be used to illustrate the concept of consonance and dissonance. They will then use Excel to create one graph showing their pulse for each piece and another graph comparing their pulse to the class average for each piece.
Students will learn to appreciate the beauty of the instruments in an orchestra, differentiate the sounds created by the instruments and relate the music to artwork Los Tres Musicos by Pablo Picasso, and the following exhibits at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum: The Guitar: Art, Artists and Artisans; The Power of Music - Photographic Portraits of Americans and their Musical Instruments 1860-1915.
Students will learn to recognize a five-tone scale. Students will sing or perform known American folksongs together in class. Advanced students will be able to identify all five pitches and even discern the actual pentatonic scale being used.
Franklin Roosevelt introduced The New Deal to boost the economy that was shattered by the Wall Street Crash. Students will research the acts and agencies that were to help restore prosperity through expansive government intervention in the economy. Music integration will be in the following components: classical music for the video, poster of the biography of the composer and why he wrote the piece; and analysis of why students choose the classical piece for their video.