This lesson explores the possibilities created by the new technology of cassettes …
This lesson explores the possibilities created by the new technology of cassettes and how people made use of them. In many ways, the digital future and its interactive possibilities were prefigured by the cassette era. By viewing and discussing clips from Soundbreaking Episode Eight, students learn how the Grateful Dead allowed their fans to tape their concerts and freely trade cassettes of their recordings, a move that helped establish the group as innovators in how bands cultivate relationships with their fanbase. Students will also consider how the cassette allowed individuals to express themselves through the selection, sequencing and re-packaging of commercially released music. In the last part of the lesson, they will look at the Sony Walkman and related devices, the first portable cassette players that led toward the current age of iPods, Mp3 players, and other forms of personal digital listening devices, exploring a period in which the boundaries between "consumer" and "producer," and "fan" and "participant" began to erode, allowing even the casual music fan a degree of access to the creative process.
In this lesson, Gospel music is used as a way to introduce …
In this lesson, Gospel music is used as a way to introduce students to the rhythmic concepts of beat, meter, backbeat, subdivision, and syncopation. By clapping and counting along to videos of Mahalia Jackson, Sam Cooke, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, The Staple Singers, and Beyonce, students practice hearing and identifying these various aspects of rhythm. Students will also use an interactive TechTool to gain a deeper understanding of the syncopated rhythms that allows Gospel, as well a popular music in general, inspire us to move.
In this lesson, students investigate these questions by analyzing videos of dancing …
In this lesson, students investigate these questions by analyzing videos of dancing through the decades. With the help of a worksheet, student groups watch footage of the Charleston and Lindy Hop, the Mambo, "Love-in" dancing, Disco, and Break Dancing. Based on their informed observation of these styles, they then debate whether dance has "evolved" in American culture, or remained mostly the same.
Taking Sam Phillips as a case study, this lesson explores the role …
Taking Sam Phillips as a case study, this lesson explores the role of the producer in the recording studio as one defined by an ability to guide the recording process but also to affect the wider cultural context. After investigating what a producer does and why an artist might benefit from a producer's services, this lesson looks at the way Sam Phillips' approach in some ways reflects the trend of urbanization in the American South. Like Phillips, many of his artists came from rural backgrounds and were seeking the benefits of urban life. That move toward the urban, and the racial mixing it fostered, was almost encoded in the music, as the lesson activities will illuminate. Finally, the lesson looks at Phillip's guidance of a young Elvis Presley and suggests how the music they produced created an opening for African-American music to "crossover" into mainstream American popular music.
Phil Spector and George Martin both created defining sounds of the 1960s, …
Phil Spector and George Martin both created defining sounds of the 1960s, but, inevitably, as music and culture changed, so too did some musicians' ideas about allowing producers to exert control over their music. Some of the Singer-Songwriters of the early 1970s, such as Joni Mitchell, accepted little or no input from producers, focusing on the clarity and directness of the lyrics with sometimes minimal musical accompaniment. In the latter part of this lesson, students use a handout with information about both Betty Friedan's seminal The Feminine Mystique and events in 1960s Second-Wave Feminism as a backdrop by which to consider Joni Mitchell's decision to "self-produce"in the early 1970s.
To many, the sense of limitless possibility The Beatles arrived at while …
To many, the sense of limitless possibility The Beatles arrived at while working inside Abbey Road Studios was part of a broader pattern of change connected to the 1960s countercultural movement. Political and social events, including student protests against the Vietnam War, a popular interest in the study of Eastern religions, and the publication of books such as 1964's The Psychedelic Experience, helped to inform The Beatles' musical decisions as much as the music the group invented fueled the rise of a new youth culture. The Beatles provided the soundtrack to a new experience. As popular icons that challenged social norms and encouraged creative thinking, recording artists like The Beatles began using multitracking technology to make music in the studio that could not be reproduced on the concert stage and that expanded our understanding of what popular music could be and what it could do. The studio was no longer a predictable space for recording live performances; it became a laboratory for constructing sophisticated musical imaginings. As such, it was a perfect reflection of the new youth culture's spirit.
Make connections across genres and across cultures to engage students in the …
Make connections across genres and across cultures to engage students in the study of literary voice and themes. Comprehension skills and vocabulary also come into play, especially for English language learners, as students read a novel and related poems, then write and perform original poems related to the novel.
Social distancing can be tough, and we are all in need of …
Social distancing can be tough, and we are all in need of a little positivity! This week’s virtual Read & Seed will help us transform our neighborhood into that of something beautiful. We will read Maybe Something Beautiful: How Art Transformed a Neighborhood by F. Isabel Campoy, Theresa Howell, and Rafael López and create our own positivity posters with nature as our inspiration. We will also participate in a Movement/Music/Finger Play activity by singing The More We Get Together. This lesson is aimed at connecting young learners to their natural world and promote school readiness skills. This Read & Seed activity is presented by The Gardens on Spring Creek by the City of Fort Collins. https://youtu.be/qaKv_ozqklo
Social distancing can be tough, and we are all in need of …
Social distancing can be tough, and we are all in need of a little positivity! This week’s virtual Read & Seed will help us transform our neighborhood into that of something beautiful. We will read Maybe Something Beautiful: How Art Transformed a Neighborhood by F. Isabel Campoy, Theresa Howell, and Rafael López and create our own positivity posters with nature as our inspiration. We will also participate in a Movement/Music/Finger Play activity by singing The More We Get Together. This lesson is aimed at connecting young learners to their natural world and promote school readiness skills. This Read & Seed activity is presented by The Gardens on Spring Creek by the City of Fort Collins. https://www.fcgov.com/gardens/files/read-seed-website-positivity-posters.pdf?1588101864
How can we explore meter and duration by composing measures of rhythm …
How can we explore meter and duration by composing measures of rhythm with our bodies? Students perform and create rhythmic patterns using their bodies.
Children's music writer Teresa Jennings (from Plank Road Publishing / MusicK8.com) has …
Children's music writer Teresa Jennings (from Plank Road Publishing / MusicK8.com) has created a catchy musical concept song that focuses on the oh-so-important quarter note. Bill Belongia's animation features an imaginative mouse who finds many unusual uses for the versatile note. Kids will love the video, and they're certain to retain what they learn when they view it.
Water is always moving in a continuous cycle from liquid to solid …
Water is always moving in a continuous cycle from liquid to solid to gas and back again. Students study this never-ending cycle through shared readings, center activities, and experiments.
This Reflection Toolkit, compiled by the faculty inquiry group (FIG), includes classroom …
This Reflection Toolkit, compiled by the faculty inquiry group (FIG), includes classroom strategies for integrating reflection into one's existing syllabi. The lesson plans highlight how to encourage effective student reflections.The toolkit includes best practices to facilitate reflection in classes across the disciplines in the context of a variety of student-centered activities (including group-work, online learning, and interactive modules).
Welcome to Resonances: Engaging Music in Its Cultural Context! Although this book …
Welcome to Resonances: Engaging Music in Its Cultural Context! Although this book is intended primarily for use in the college music appreciation classroom, it was designed with consideration for independent learners, advanced high school students, and experienced musicians. That is to say, it includes enough detail that expert guidance is not required and is written using broadly-accessible language. At the same time, it addresses advanced topics and positions music as a serious object of study.
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