The Music Based Approach

Objectives:

Students will analyze five qualities of a song with their teacher, including its instrumentation, genre, tempo, tonality and time signature.
Students will evaluate a song of their choice, categorizing the specific qualities of the song inside of an organizational chart.

Common Core Standards:

Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.

Materials:

Journal Timed Freewrite:

If time permits these timed freewrites can start each class, and create a rhythm to the beginning of each session, along with developing the craft of journaling as an integral process of generating, fostering, and capturing inspired thoughts and ideas.
Prompt: Consult the “Ecology Facts and Journal Prompts” handout to chose a topic for this class.

Vocabulary:

Genre: A category or style of musical composition.
Tempo: The speed of a song.
Tonality: The character of a piece of music, determined by the key (Major or minor) it is played in.
Time Signature: An indication of rhythm, written at the beginning of a piece of music, that resembles a fraction. The top number denotes the quantity of beats per measure and the bottom number reveals which note gets the beat.

Activities:

Teacher will distribute a Music Evaluation Worksheet. As a practice example, the teacher will evaluate the first song with the class, listening to an instrumental or karaoke version of a song titled “Roar” by Katy Perry. After listening to the selection together, the teacher will guide the class through the process of evaluating five aspects of the song on the worksheet.
Next students will work in small groups and listen to a song of their choosing. This can be a popular song, instrumental provided by this program, original music, etc. The goal is to have students assess and dissect the song in hopes of identifying the following key factors:

List all of the instruments (instrumentation) they can hear in the recording.
Identify the style (genre) of music that their song most closely resembles.
Use a metronome (www.metronomeonline.com or download a free metronome app to smart phones) in order to determine the speed (tempo) of each song.
Briefly describe the mood and tonality of the songs (As a general rule of thumb, happier sounding music uses a Major key while sad, more serious songs use minor keys).
Determine the how many beats are in each bar of music (time signature) to their songs, choosing from one of the provided options.

For additional support on time signature, please have students complete the Time Signature Worksheet and also visit the following links:

Teachers may make copies of the Music Evaluation Worksheets to distribute to the students and the collaborating artists at a future time.

Homework/Extension:

Have students listen to the tracks at home, and write 2-3 rhyming couplets which respond to the mood of the song.