Overview and Background: Unit: Music Maestros

Theresa Walker : Cheney USD 268

Art, Drama, Music. : Art, Drama, Music. : Art, Drama, Music.

Cheney : Grades 4 - 4 : Aug. - Jun.

Title:	Music Maestros
Topics:	Music, Music Composition
Time Frame:
Start Date:	-
Status:	Draft
Date Revised:

Other Designers:

Summary:
Students will learn the elements of musical composition and create their own compositions.

Print Materials Needed:

Resources:

Resource Attachments:

Internet Resource Links:

Stage 1: Identify Desired Results

State:	National Standard
Title:	MENC
Standard(s):	1. Singing with others. 2. Performing on instruments, alone and with others. 4. Composing and arranging music within specified guidelines. 6. Listening to, analyzing, and describing music. 7. Evaluating music and music performances. 8. Understanding relationships between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts. 9. Understanding music in relation to history and culture.

Understandings:
user	Music is a culmination of sounds grouped together. When they listen to a musical performance, they will be able to hear specific instruments, sounds, and concepts in music and make conclusions from those inferences.

Essential Questions:
User	What do you hear when you listen? What is noise? What is music?

Knowledge and Skills:

K
*The definition of music.
* Information about the composer Fredrick Chopin.

S
The letters and numbers behind each of these are the MENC standards broken down under each one.
*Sing in groups (1e).
*Perform on instruments in a group (2e).
*Create and arrange music to accompany readings or dramatizations (4a).
*Use a variety of sound sources when composing (4c).
*Identify simple music forms when presented aurally (6a).
*Demonstrate perceptual skills by moving, by answering questions about, and by describing aural examples of music (6b).
*Use appropriate terminology in explaining music, music instruments and voices, and music performances (6c).
*Identify the sounds of a variety of instruments, including many orchestra and band instruments (6d).
*Respond through purposeful movement to selected or specific music while listening to music (6e).
*Devise criteria for evaluating performances/compositions (7a).
*Explain, using appropriate music terminology, their personal preferences for specific musical works and styles (7b).
*Identify similarities and differences in the meanings of common terms used in the various arts (8a).
*Identify ways in which the principles and subject matter of other disciplines taught in the school are interrelated with those of music (8b).
*Identify various uses of music in their daily experiences and describe characteristics that make certain music suitable for each use (9c).
*Identify and describe roles of musicians in various music settings (9d).
*Demonstrate audience behavior appropriate for the context and style of music performed (9e).

Stage 2: Determine Acceptable Evidence

Assessment Summary:
The students will work together to create their own musical orchestration for a speech piece. They will create their own short story or poem, and then put instrument sounds accompanying it. They will perform this in the front of the class.

Key Criteria
They will perform their own instrumental creation of music to words. They will be able to hear specific instruments in musical works, and identify the sounds of instruments.

Task/Prompt: The Composer

Type: Performance Task

Topics: Music

Summary:
The students will work together to create their own musical orchestration for a speech piece. They will create their own short story or poem, and then put instrument sounds accompanying it. They will perform this in the front of the class.

Print Materials Needed:

Resources:

Resource Attachments:

Internet Resource Links:
Link 1: http://
Link 2: http://
Link 3: http://
Link 4: http://
Link 5: http://

Notes:

Student Directions:
You are a composer. Decide who your audience will be. Then you need to write at least a twelve-line poem or story on a topic of your choice. Then you will decide which instruments, and how many of each you will use to accompany your words. Use varying dynamics, rhythms, and tone colors.
Write out the instructions (for the music and the reading) in detail, so that if someone picked it up, they would be able to play it exactly how you planned (details are essential).

Other assessment evidence to be collected:

Stage 3: Plan Learning Experiences and Instruction

Learning Activities:

W
How to listen for everyday sounds and to musical compositions.
How the rain stick became an instrument and how to play it effectively.
The song "It's Raining, It's Pouring".
The song "Raindrop Prelude" and what the instruments' expressions sound like.
How to write a short story to accompany the song they hear.

H
Have the students sit quietly and listen to everything that they hear for several minutes, write down at least three things that they are hearing.
Then have them listen to a symphonic piece of music and have them tell me at least four things that they hear. (Aaron Copeland's "Fanfare for the Common Man")

E
Read "It's Raining, It's Pouring" by Kin Eagle and sing the song.
Read "The Rain stick; A Fable" by Sadra Chisholm Robinson and play the instrument.
Listen to "Raindrop Prelude" by Fredric Chopin and create pictorial representations.
Create their own stories to go with the "Raindrop Prelude".

R
Brainstorm several ways you would put together the speech piece orchestration differently (before the Assessment performance task).

E
The students will work together to create their own musical orchestration for a speech piece. They will create their own short story or poem, and then put instrument sounds accompanying it. They will perform this in the front of the class.

Notes: