While gaining exposure to a wide range of music – from classical to contemporary - students will understand that music and literature share a common language. Students will understand that hearing the language of music helps us to understand the language of literature.
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.
Students can use music to read each other’s minds! As students learn to differentiate tempo and dynamics to interpret the mood of the music, they will express it through physical movement that allows their classmates to guess what is on their mind.
Students discover how music can create a visual image in one’s mind as they listen to Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony – Pastoral. As the image takes shape, the students create a visual representation of their image to include the aspects of nature which Beethoven included in this wonderful composition.
With a little help by Stravinsky, students understand music evokes mood, emotion and feeling. In the process, students develop critical listening and thinking skills, and illustrate through cartooning what they believe is expressed in selections of The Rite of Spring.
Throughout history, the night sky has been the object of much speculation, investigation and imagination by scientists and mathematicians, as well as the subject for creations and compositions by musicians and visual artists. Mozart’s (12) “Variations on ‘Ah Vous Dirai-je Maman” and “The Starry Night” by Vincent Van Gogh will stimulate students’ interest in the art of the evening sky.
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 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 listen to Vivaldi's The Four Seasons, Autumn, and describe emotion, tempo, and dynamics. Students engage kinesthetically as they move to the music and learn about the composer. Students learn the scientific reasons for fall leaves changing color. Students sing the poem "Little Leaves" to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle and the tune of Row, Row, Row Your Boat. Students do a choral reading of "Colors of Fall." Students will collect real autumn leaves, then draw and paint them as their interpretation of Vivaldi's Autumn.
Students will listen to Music for the Royal Fireworks by George Frideric Handel (commissioned to celebrate the signed Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1749) and design a virtual fireworks display to accompany the music. Students will learn that the specific colors in a firework display are created when atoms of a particular element or a combination of elements are energized by the firework's heat. They will learn that the shape of the firework display is determined by the shape and structure of one particular component inside the firework shell.
This lesson integrates language arts with visual and performing arts. Students immerse themselves in the world of the Russian folktale, The Firebird, and then explore other avenues of appreciating the tale through listening and dancing to Stravinsky's Firebird Suite, as well as engaging in theater and visual arts activities.