Download - Wiggins Composing Lessons

Jackie Wiggins Composing Lessons 1

Composing in the Music Classroom This website contains a series of projects designed to help you incorporate improvising and composing into your music teaching. Performing, creating, and listening are the three processes of music. To learn music, students must engage in all three processes. In current music education practice worldwide, creating often receives the least attention, partially because of the nature of the prior musical experiences of the music teachers. Often they, themselves, have been educated through performing and listening with little or no opportunity for creating. That is why materials like this are so important for supporting well-rounded music teaching. The intention is for these materials to be used in conjunction with performing and listening lessons (although these projects also contain many listening experiences). Children and young adults are usually quite comfortable creating original music in much the same way as they are comfortable creating visual arts projects. Unless we give them some reason to fear, they usually have no fears. The fears are often our own, due to our own inexperience with the process. For students to be comfortable creating, it is of utmost importance that they are able to perceive the classroom as a safe, supportive environment in which their ideas are welcome and valued.

QUALITIES OF A HEALTHY, PRODUCTIVE MUSIC LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

⇒ Students are engaged in real life, problem-solving situations that require them to use what they know and understand about music to perform, create, analyze, or respond to music.

⇒ The challenges teachers create for students are genuine and authentic – the same challenges that “real” musicians face.

⇒ The questions teachers ask students are real questions – the same questions that “real” musicians seek to answer.

⇒ Students perceive the curriculum and content with which they are engaged as genuine and relevant to their lives.

⇒ Problems for learning are designed in ways that foster multiple solutions. Solutions are considered and valued for their uniqueness,

creativity, and originality.

⇒ Students have a sense that the answers they are seeking are not “predetermined and fully predictable” (Perrone, 1994, p. 12).

⇒ Students understand the goals of the experience and have sufficient grounding in the processes and understandings necessary to achieve the goals.

⇒ Students feel the ideas they bring to the classroom are welcome – important to and valued by everyone in the classroom.

(From Teaching for Musical Understanding (Wiggins, 2001, McGraw-Hill)


GENERAL PLAN OF THE LESSONS ON THIS SITE

The creating lessons on this web site are all designed based on a similar process.

⇒ In each case, students engage with a musical idea through a performing or listening experience. ⇒ Once they understand the idea quite well, they are invited to engage in an improvising or composing experience based on the same

musical idea.

⇒ Since students are working on their own in small groups during the creative activities, this is not a good time to introduce new ideas. New ideas are always introduced in the whole class setting with the teacher providing any needed support. Only when students are relatively secure in their understanding of the new idea are they asked to engage in the more independent process of creating original music.

⇒ If you look at each lesson, you will see that new ideas are always introduced in the section called Groundwork. This section of the plan

lays the groundwork that students will work from and draw upon when they create. This does not mean that the teacher abandons the students when they are creating. Certainly the teacher remains a resource throughout the process. But by its nature, creative work requires more independence. Therefore, students need a solid introduction to the ideas before plunging into the creative part of the lesson.

⇒ The Groundwork sections all contain some means of assessment that will enable the teacher to know just how well the students have

mastered each new idea and how ready they are to engage in independent work. Especially because listening is an internal, unobservable process, it is important that listening experiences in this kind of setting include some way for students to make their understanding overt. In these lessons, an assortment of graphic representations and charts are used for this purpose.

⇒ When working with more complex music, you may want to dedicate one whole class to the listening experience that lays the

groundwork for the creating experience in order to be sure that students have enough time to understand the concepts.

⇒ Once students have a good understanding of the new ideas, they are invited to form groups, choose instruments, and begin to work on the creating project. It is generally best to allow students to choose their own groups. Composing together is a highly personal process and usually more successful when students have already established some understandings with their peer group. (This idea is supported by the research of Miell & Macdonald, 2000.)

⇒ If students are given 20 minutes to compose, they can usually produce something, but truthfully, not much of value. Composing takes

time. For best results, allow at least one or two class sessions for the composing and possibly another class for sharing. While these projects may look like single lessons, all but the most basic ones are not intended to be. Creative thinking takes time – as does organizing and learning to work together toward a common goal. It is usually time well spent, well worth the time allotted.


⇒ As students work on their compositions, the teacher should circulate throughout the room as a resource and support. When doing this, however, it is best not to “hover” (which can be intimidating) or intervene when not invited (unless there is a behavior situation that needs addressing). Students need to feel relaxed and comfortable when generating and working with their own ideas.

⇒ There is no reason for students to notate their pieces. Unless they are highly experienced musicians, they are not able to think through

notation. It is thinking in sound – musical thinking – that matters here. Students will not forget their pieces. They never do. They seem to be able to hold the aural image of the music they create for much longer than an adult might be able to do.

⇒ Once students have completed their pieces, it is time to share. This sharing time is extremely valuable teaching time. It is important to

have enough time to talk about and celebrate what the students have done. Make sure that you leave enough time for sharing. If there is not enough time at the end of a class session, wait until the next session to share. The students will remember their pieces. That is not usually a problem.

⇒ When students are sharing their work, try not to “bruise the moment” – an expression that I learned from my undergraduate mentor,

Lawrence Eisman, professor emeritus, Queens College of the City University of New York. It has always been one of my favorite expressions because it so clearly describes the mistakes teachers sometimes make in their efforts to do the “right thing” and explain things to students. Sometimes the music says it all and words are not needed. These moments should be respected.

⇒ Most important, the process needs to be designed and facilitated in a way that enables and supports students’ capacity to feel

ownership of the process and the music – to feel that they are genuinely the decision-makers. If these projects are carried out in a way that makes students feel like they are “assignments” to be done to please the teacher, they will be of little educational and musical value.

⇒ The main point of the experiences is not getting the “right” answer. The point of the listening experiences is for students to further their

understanding and valuing of the music of the world. The point of the creating experiences is for students to learn to use music as a means of personal expression. If they happen to learn something about the dimensions of music along the way, that is a plus. If you can adopt this attitude, your students will embrace the experiences with a fervor that will generate more musical learning and passion about music than you might have believed possible.

For the most part, the projects on this web site are arranged in order of difficulty, with the earliest lessons designed for younger students and the latter ones for older students. However, please realize that prior musical experience is much more important here than chronological age. Students who have composed in class for several years will be ready for the more complex lessons even if they are younger chronologically. Conversely, a fifteen-year-old who has never composed before is not ready for a complex lesson, even if he is fifteen.

⇒ The very youngest students (four, five, and six years old) can improvise together with the teacher. They can also plan improvised embellishments to songs, like introductions and endings. They can compose short songs together with the teacher, building on the natural ways they sing as they play. But children of this age generally are not mature enough musically or socially to engage in a small group composing project with peers in a classroom setting.


⇒ The simplest projects on this site can be done with seven and eight-year-olds. However, if middle school students have never done this

kind of work, even those projects could be adapted for older children.

⇒ The most sophisticated projects are based on music that is likely too complex (and probably too long) for young students to analyze and understand in all its depth. Therefore, the final lessons should be reserved for at least upper elementary, if not secondary school.

DIMENSIONS AND METADIMENSIONS OF WESTERN MUSIC

For most of the 20th century and into the 21st century, music teachers have used the elements of music as the basis for their curriculum and teaching. With my colleagues and students, I have engaged in a series of highly productive conversations about how limiting this vision of music curriculum can be because there are qualities of music that are much larger and more holistic that may be better points of departure for good music teaching and learning. We have therefore begun to think of a broader vision – identifying what we are calling dimensions and metadimensions of music and using these as starting points for conceiving music learning experiences. All of our attempts to represent these ideas on paper have left something to be desired in terms of accurate representation of what music actually is, but I share our most recent incarnation with you on this site because we have found it to be quite valuable. This idea was first published in an article I wrote for the Music Educators Journal, Volume 93, No. 3, pp. 36-42, entitled “Authentic practice and process in music teacher education” (Wiggins, 2007). I also presented the idea at the Suncoast Music Education Research Conference, University of South Florida, Tampa, on February 2, 2007, in a paper entitled, “Metaphorical imagery and musical understanding: A springboard for music instructional design.”


Dimensions and Metadimensions of Western Music

Idea first published in the Music Educators Journal, Volume 93, No. 3, pp. 36-42: “Authentic practice and process in music teacher education,” Jackie Wiggins (2007)


Lesson Plans Entry-level Experiences

Improvising on Recorder for the First Time ...............................................................................................................p. 7

A Musical Conversation ...............................................................................................................................................p. 10

Telling a Story through Music ......................................................................................................................................p. 13

Changing Dynamics .....................................................................................................................................................p. 17

Changing Tempo ...........................................................................................................................................................p. 20

Middle-level Experiences Arranging a Round .......................................................................................................................................................p. 23

Using Alternate Sound Sources ..................................................................................................................................p. 29

Melody and Accompaniment: “Main Part” and “Background Part” .........................................................................p. 33

Using More than One Melody: AB or ABA or ABAB Form ........................................................................................p. 36

Textural Variety .............................................................................................................................................................p. 39

Making Repetitive Music Interesting ...........................................................................................................................p. 43

More Complex Experiences

A Cross-Cultural Puzzle ...............................................................................................................................................p. 46

Theme and Variation .....................................................................................................................................................p.54

Jackie Wiggins Composing Lessons 7 Improvising on Recorder for the First Time

Improvising musical ideas is part of the composing process. In order to be able to compose, students need to be able to think in sound and act on those thoughts through singing or playing an instrument. Research shows that students do not “hunt about” on instruments looking for musical ideas but rather bring musical ideas to the instrument and then try out their ideas. They may reject an idea once they hear it, but the ability to conceive of musical ideas and then realize them in some way is central to both improvising and composing. Just to be clear, it is not that students think of the ideas long before they play them. The processes are relatively simultaneous. The process can be compared to speaking. When you speak, you have a general idea of what you want to say before you say it, but the actual choice and arrangement of words happens rather spontaneously. Throughout the process, you are thinking in words, but you are speaking as you are thinking. Thinking in sound and singing or playing that sound is a similar process. Students have a general idea of what they want to sing or play before they produce the sound, but the specific details often materialize rather spontaneously as they are conceived. As with speech, students need to become fluid musical “speakers.” They need to have many opportunities to generate musical ideas in their voices and on instruments. And they need to be able to do so in a safe, supportive atmosphere, similar to the atmosphere in which a baby learns to speak – without criticism and with much encouragement and celebration. This lesson provides some entry-level experiences for first-time improvisers.

Objective To help students develop an understanding of how to improvise simple melodic ideas and connect those ideas to someone else’s ideas. Each student will engage in simple “musical conversation” with a peer.

Prior Experience Needed Students need to have played the instruments before. They will work with the notes they already know how to play. This is an entry-level experience that can be appropriate for students of any age, depending on prior experience.

Materials Each student needs an instrument – a recorder or other similar instrument.

Organization Whole group improvisation followed by improvisation in pairs

1 GROUNDWORK

Review one or two songs or pieces that students already know how to play on recorder.


Introduce the idea of improvising original music on the pitches students know how to play. One way to do this is for the teacher to improvise a short melody using some or all of these pitches and ask the class to answer, together as a group. Of course, within the group there will be many different answers – perhaps as many as there are students!

⇒ It is not important or even necessarily desirable that the answers resemble the questions. Free musical conversation is the goal here. The point is for students to feel at home thinking in sound and articulating what they hear in their heads through the recorder.

⇒ Encourage spontaneous musical thought and expression of that thought through the instrument, whatever the nature of the musical

ideas the children choose to express.

2 CREATING Ask each student to find a partner. Each pair will try to play questions and answers, resulting in a musical conversation. The partners should take turns initiating the conversations.

⇒ Students can “talk about” whatever they choose, in whatever way they choose. There are no incorrect responses in an activity like this.

Ask for volunteers who might like to share a conversation with the class.

⇒ Make it clear to the students that you are not expecting them to remember their previous conversations. Each one should be new and fresh since they are improvising, not composing.

⇒ Students will, however, begin to find preferred patterns that may appear in similar configurations across their various improvisations.

They may also begin to incorporate peers’ ideas or respond directly to peers. This is wonderful and should be encouraged. Professional musicians do the same, of course.

3 SHARING

Encourage teams of partners to share some of their conversations. Talk with students about the different kinds of effects and affective qualities that have been generated. It is likely that no two teams will have the same conversation or even, perhaps, the same type of conversation.

⇒ In this sharing experience, it is important to celebrate the differences and enjoy the wide array of solutions to the problem that have been suggested by the various teams.


ASSESSMENT

Students will show their understanding of the development of motivic material within a context, where their original musical ideas may connect in some way to the ideas of someone else. In this context, any kind of musical conversation will meet the criteria and therefore be considered successful. The intention is to provide an initial experience for students to enable them to begin to feel comfortable and confident in the process of initiating personal musical ideas in a public arena and to begin to think musically in relation to someone else’s musical ideas.

EXTENSIONS

Students might try the same activity using other classroom instruments, such as xylophones, keyboards, or non-pitched percussion instruments. It is easier for students to “converse” with like instruments, so for entry-level experiences, students should choose partners who are playing a similar instrument to their own. It is also easier for students to “converse” in pairs. Once students become more experienced improvisers, they might try working in groups of three or four, eventually incorporating a wider variety of instruments. When more than two students “converse,” students may interrupt each other, musically comment on one another’s contributions, or change the “topic” or mood in much the same way as a verbal conversation takes place. Two or more students may even “talk” at once. They should, however, endeavor to listen to what all parties are doing and try to produce some kind of unified work.

Jackie Wiggins Composing Lessons 10 A Musical Conversation

“The Hunting of the Snark” is a musical interpretation of a poem from Lewis Carroll’s book Alice In Wonderland. Arne Norheim is a Norwegian composer who has interpreted this poem in a piece for solo trombone. In this excerpt of the piece, the soloist alternates playing with and without a mute to simulate the voices of the two characters as they converse.

Objective To help students extend their understanding of improvising musical dialog and use that understanding as the basis for planning an original composition that represents a conversation.

Prior Experience Needed Students need to have had some prior experience playing the instruments on which they will be composing. This is an entry-level experience that can be appropriate for students of any age, depending on prior experience.

Materials Arne Norheim, “The Hunting of the Snark” (excerpt)

Available on the CD that accompanies the book Teaching for Musical Understanding (Wiggins, 2001, McGraw-Hill). CD available through Amazon.com at: http://www.amazon.com/Audio-use-Teaching-Musical-Understanding/dp/0072307846/ref=ed_oe_a

Any pitched classroom instruments: classroom xylophones, synthesizers, students’ own orchestral instruments

Organization Listening together as a whole class Composing in pairs Sharing products with the whole class

1 GROUNDWORK Tell students that they are about to hear a recording in which the composer and performer are intentionally trying to imitate a conversation through music. Invite students to listen to the excerpt and speculate about who might be having the conversation and what it might be about.


⇒ Make sure they realize you are not expecting them to name people or say what they are actually saying. They need to understand that the conversation is not literal. If you do not make this clear, students may worry that they will not know who the people are or what they are saying.

⇒ Once students hear the work, what you are seeking is usually self-evident. The work is so obviously a representation of a stronger and

weaker figure having some sort of altercation that if they are at all concerned about their ability to figure it out, they usually relax once the music begins.

⇒ Students tend to respond that the music is representing a teacher and a student or a parent and child, or an older and younger sibling –

and that they seem to be having an argument or disagreement of some kind. Ask whether they could tell who won the argument.

⇒ Students usually need to listen again to be able to determine this, which is a good thing. (The weaker character seems to emerge victorious at the end, which generally pleases the children.) It is always good to be able to find an excuse to listen again since familiarity generally breeds increased understanding and valuing of the music.

Invite students to describe what was happening in the music that made it sound like two different people having an argument. This is the most critical part of the conversation because it will scaffold their ability to carry out the project on their own.

2 CREATING

Set up a situation where students can improvise a conversation with the teacher. One way to do this is to set up a small number of xylophones and invite volunteers to come up to “talk” to the teacher and each other.

⇒ Ask whether someone would like to begin. Sometimes students prefer beginning to responding. Somehow, it seems easier to some. ⇒ Once one statement is made, wait a moment to see if any students respond. If not, add your own response and look to another student

to invite his or her participation. By creating a friendly, accepting atmosphere, you should be able to engage a small group of five or six students in a mutual improvised conversation for a minute or so.

⇒ Then invite several more groups to try. This kind of improvised conversation builds on the earlier experience with recorders.

⇒ Once they seem to have the idea, invite students to choose a partner and create a conversation with that partner. This time, however,

they should try to remember what they did and create a composition that they can recall.


⇒ Some students may continue to improvise within planned parameters. That is, with their partner, they sometimes plan the scenario but choose to improvise within that established scenario. This not really a problem. ☺ In fact, it can be quite fun – and could lead to more musical complexity than a fixed composition might (at this level of experience).

3 SHARING When students are ready, invite groups to take turns performing their finished products for the class. After each performance, encourage the students to talk about all the ways they could tell which part was which. Encourage them to verbally describe what they hear in their peers’ music. Sharing ideas in this way provides a wonderful source of possibilities upon which students can draw when engaging in subsequent lessons.

ASSESSMENT Through their composing process, their compositional product, and their ability to discuss the work of their peers, students will show their understanding of how to emulate a musical conversation with instruments. In doing so, they will explore many of the expressive qualities of melody and interpretative performance of melody – likely on a much more sophisticated level than they would be able to articulate in words.

EXTENSIONS This lesson naturally extends into the one that follows, which invites students to tell a story through music. These experiences also connect to interpretive decisions that students might make about how to perform songs and pieces in class in an expressive manner.

Jackie Wiggins Composing Lessons 13 Telling a Story Through Music

Research shows that, as students compose, the more holistic qualities or metadimensions (Wiggins, 2007) of the work in progress are often decided before they work out the details. For this reason, projects that ask them to consider more holistic qualities can be easier than those that ask them to consider details. This lesson is designed as an entry-level experience for first-time composers. Once students have had some experience engaging in improvised conversations with peers, they are ready to assemble some musical ideas to “tell a story.” Although a verbal story is used as a starting point for this experience, there is no expectation that students will literally tell the story. The intent of the project is to engage them in thinking about the broader architecture of a musical work: How will it begin? How will it end? What happens along the way?

Objective To help students develop an understanding of how to generate and organize musical ideas to tell a story, connecting to language arts concepts of beginning, middle and end, as well as creating a musical product through musical process.

Prior Experience Needed Students should have had some experience improvising musical ideas with peers using instruments, voice, and/or environmental sounds. This is an entry-level experience that can be appropriate for students of any age, depending on prior experience.

Materials An interesting assortment of instruments: classroom xylophones, non-pitched percussion, synthesizers, students’ own orchestral instruments and/or environmental sounds A story that will lend itself to this experience

Organization Composing in small groups Sharing products with the whole class

1 GROUNDWORK Ask students about how music is used to help tell stories on television and in movies. Invite them to talk about the ways music is used to create the mood of a scene. Ask students if they think music could tell a story all by itself. Talk about how music is not literal – that while it can create or recreate the feel of a story, it cannot tell the story with all the details that words can.


Read or tell a story to the students. As they listen, students should think about how they might represent some of the ideas or feelings of the story through music.

⇒ A good choice of story will be one that contains elements that might easily be portrayed in music. There might be a variety of moods or emotions that could be portrayed or, perhaps, characters running or jumping or shouting or whispering, and so on. Of course, the story also must be appropriate for the age and experience levels of the students in the class.

⇒ With older students, poetry could also be used as a basis for this project – especially poetry that elicits aural imagery.

Ask students which aspects of the story they might be able to represent through music. List their suggestions on the board or chart paper so students can refer to them as they work with the instruments.

⇒ There is no requirement that students utilize the ideas that have been listed on the board or paper. This preliminary conversation and creation of lists of ideas serves to inspire their thinking. It is not intended to regulate or contain their thinking once they are in the process of creating. New ideas should be welcomed throughout the process.

2 CREATING Invite students to work in small groups using acoustic or electronic instruments or some combination of the two to develop music that portrays ideas or qualities they have drawn from the story.

⇒ They will need to explore the timbres available to them and make judgments about which might be more appropriate to portray particular ideas.

⇒ They will also need to explore the ways the instruments can be played and the effects each way of playing can produce in combination

with different timbres.

After this period of exploration, invite students to share some of the sounds and ways of playing they have discovered. Together, the class will decide how they would like to combine the ideas to represent the ideas of the story.

⇒ This should not be a “sound effects” story. Reading or telling a story and embellishing it with sound effects during the reading is not really a music lesson, even when the sound effects are produced by musical instruments.


⇒ The experience becomes a music lesson when the music itself is used to express the ideas that the story author has expressed in words. While students may want to incorporate some of the words or phrases from the story into their work, the finished product should be a musical work and not a musically embellished verbal work.)

3 SHARING Invite students to perform the final product as a whole-class collaborative work and evaluate its effectiveness. They may decide to make some changes in the sounds or organization once they have had an opportunity to hear the work.

⇒ Please note that students are working together as a whole class to plan the work, but the work is not necessarily performed by the whole class. The group might decide that one students’ idea should begin the piece, and so that student might begin the work by performing his or her idea alone. That idea may then be joined by a small group whose idea will be played second, and so forth. The whole class plans the work by listening to, evaluating the effectiveness of, and organizing the ideas of individuals or small groups. There is no expectation that the whole class will be playing at the same time (although if appropriate for the story, this could happen at strategic points).

ASSESSMENT Students will show their understanding of some of the ways that moods and feelings are established through music by the decisions they make in selecting sounds, in deciding how those sounds should be played, and in deciding how the ideas should be assembled into one collaborative work. This is an introductory experience designed to encourage creative thinking. The product should be evaluated by its creators (the class) for its effectiveness in portraying what they intended to portray –and not evaluated by the teacher for a grade.

EXTENSIONS Using this whole class experience as a model of the process, students might work in small groups (four, five, or six students per group) to tell their own story through music. All groups could use the same story (a different one from that used for the whole class experience) or each group might choose their own story. The music might be based on stories the students read for this project, stories they have read before, stories they know, or stories they invent. Students might also use what they learned in this lesson to analyze some music from a movie score, paying particular attention to how the music helps tell the story or, in some cases when there is no dialogue, may actually tell the story along with the visual images.


They might then try to generate their own background music for a short movie clip, setting a particular mood or combination of effects. Students could also simply improvise music to create a particular mood (working from imagination instead of video clips). They often choose to create “scary” music but can be encouraged to explore other moods as well, such as music that builds excitement or creates a calm, relaxing feeling.

Jackie Wiggins Composing Lessons 17 Changing Dynamics

Because of its simplicity, this lesson is designed for younger children. For older beginners, creating a piece that utilizes dynamic change only may not be challenging enough. For such students, you might plan a lesson around a piece that makes use of dynamic change along with tempo change and textural changes, such as Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King” from Peer Gynt Suite, No. 2. For a model of a such a lesson using this work, please see Teaching for Musical Understanding (Wiggins, 2001, McGraw-Hill) which includes a CD recording of this piece.

Objective To help students develop an understanding of how dynamic change can be used as a means of organization and expression.

Prior Experience Needed This lesson assumes that students have had some prior experience playing music on classroom instruments. It is a relatively simple lesson that can be appropriate for students as young as 2nd grade (7 years old).

Materials Jacques Ibert, “Parade” from Divertissement

Available on the CD that accompanies the book Teaching for Musical Understanding (Wiggins, 2001, McGraw-Hill). CD available through Amazon.com at: http://www.amazon.com/Audio-use-Teaching-Musical-Understanding/dp/0072307846/ref=ed_oe_a Ibert’s “Parade” is organized as one big orchestral crescendo and decrescendo – or more accurately, a long crescendo that is then brought back down through terraced dynamics. A lesson based on this piece can be found in the book Teaching for Musical Understanding (Wiggins, 2001, McGraw-Hill).

Or use a different piece of music in which dynamic change is an obvious, important feature.

You might choose a work that has distinctive and obvious loud and soft sections. For the youngest students, be sure the contrasts are extreme and obvious. Older and more experienced students might enjoy working with a piece that contains more subtlety.

An interesting assortment of instruments: classroom xylophones, non-pitched percussion, synthesizers, students’ own orchestral instruments

Organization Listening together as a whole class Composing in small groups Sharing products with the whole class

Jackie Wiggins Composing Lessons 18 1 GROUNDWORK

It is usually best to base this composing experience on a listening experience. As students listen to the music, invite them to move or gesture in some way that shows the changes in dynamics. Alternatively, or as an outgrowth of the movement experience, students might chart the dynamic changes in some way using lines or other graphics to represent the dynamic plan of the music.

⇒ Students often draw lines that slant upward when the music gets louder. They are not really confusing dynamics with pitch in this case. An upward sloping line is a logical representation of increasing loudness, which is why a crescendo mark contains an upward slope.

⇒ Sometimes they draw larger shapes for loud and smaller for softer. Again, where the result may look as though they were representing

rhythm (long and short sounds), this is a logical way to represent dynamic change.

2 CREATING Talk with students about ways of making loud and soft music on acoustic and electronic instruments. Be sure they understand their options before they continue on their own. Invite students to form small groups of four, five, or six and then to choose instruments for their piece.

⇒ Students will need to make a plan for how they would like to organize their piece in terms of its dynamic structure. ⇒ Students then brainstorm thematic material that will fit into their dynamic scheme.

⇒ Because melodic and rhythmic ideas are usually the ideas of individuals within the group, to assemble and perform the piece, some

students may need to teach others to play the material that the group has decided to use.

⇒ Once they have a plan and thematic material to carry out the plan, they should try to put the parts together.

⇒ They will need time to practice their performance of the piece.

Students may find that they need to develop some kind of agreed-upon signal in order to know when and how to change dynamics.

⇒ They might decide to ask one group member to serve as the conductor (not necessarily using conventional conducting technique). ⇒ Instead, they might discuss and plan the number of repetitions of a particular idea there will be before the dynamics change.


⇒ Or they might develop some sort of signal for the changes, either a hand signal or the like or perhaps an instrumental sound (triangle sound means change).

⇒ Or they might try carefully watching one another, or any other plan that serves the group well.

3 SHARING Groups take turns performing their finished products for the class. After each performance, encourage students to talk in depth the choices their peers made. Help them understand what was important in the organization and effect of each work. Sharing ideas in this way provides a wonderful source of possibilities upon which students can draw when engaging in subsequent lessons.

ASSESSMENT Students will show their understanding of the use and effect of dynamics in a musical work through their compositional processes and products and through their ability to analyze and discuss their peers’ work.

EXTENSION Students might use what they have learned through this experience to make decisions about how dynamics might be used to interpret a song or instrumental piece they are performing. They might work with a song or piece they already know how to perform and try out different versions with different dynamic schemes, and then decide which version they think is most effective and why.

Jackie Wiggins Composing Lessons 20 Changing Tempo

Working with a small group of peers, students will compose a piece that uses tempo change as one means of organization.

Objective To help students develop an understanding of how tempo change can be used as a means of organization and expression.

Prior Experience Needed This lesson assumes that students have had some prior experience playing music on classroom instruments. It is a relatively simple lesson that can be appropriate for students as young as 3rd grade (8 years old).

Materials “Lo Peter,” Children’s Game Song from Ghana

Available on the CD that accompanies the book Teaching for Musical Understanding (Wiggins, 2001, McGraw-Hill). CD available through Amazon.com at: http://www.amazon.com/Audio-use-Teaching-Musical-Understanding/dp/0072307846/ref=ed_oe_a

Or Brahms, Hungarian Dance #6

CD available through Amazon.com at: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_m/105-0981516-5750833?url=search-alias%3Dpopular&field-keywords=Hungarian+Dance+%236&x=0&y=0

Or “Walking Song” from Acadian Songs and Dances by Virgil Thomson

CD available through Amazon.com at: http://www.amazon.com/Virgil-Thomson-Louisiana-Story-Plains/dp/B000002ZQW

Or a different piece in which tempo change is an important and obvious feature. An interesting assortment of instruments: classroom xylophones, non-pitched percussion, synthesizers, students’ own orchestral instruments


Jackie Wiggins Composing Lessons 21 1 GROUNDWORK

Work from a listening lesson that provides students experience with a piece in which tempo change plays a significant role.

⇒ Invite students to show the tempo changes in the listening example through movement or gesture. ⇒ Work with the students to generate a graphic representation of the scheme of the tempo throughout the work.

⇒ Use the listening experience and representation of the tempo changes to help them understand that tempo change can be an important

organizer for a piece of music.

2 CREATING

Talk with students about ways of making faster and slower music on acoustic and electronic instruments.

Invite students to form small groups of four, five, or six and then to choose instruments for their piece.

⇒ Students will need to make a plan for how they would like to organize their piece in terms of its tempo, planning for at least one tempo change. Changes can be sudden or gradual, depending on the effect desired.

⇒ Students then brainstorm thematic material that will fit into their tempo scheme.

⇒ Because melodic and rhythmic ideas are usually the ideas of individuals within the group, to assemble and perform the piece, some

students may need to teach others to play the material that the group has decided to use.

⇒ Once they have a plan and thematic material to carry out the plan, they should try to put the parts together.

⇒ They will need time to practice their performance of the piece.

Students may find that they need to develop some kind of agreed-upon signal in order to know when and how to change tempo.

⇒ They might decide to ask one group member to serve as the conductor (not necessarily using conventional conducting technique).

⇒ Instead, they might discuss and plan the number of repetitions of a particular idea there will be before the tempo changes.

⇒ Or they might develop some sort of signal for the changes, either a hand signal or the like or perhaps an instrumental sound (triangle sound means begin speeding up).


⇒ Or they might try watching one another, carefully watching one another’s faces and instruments, or any other plan that serves the group well.

3 SHARING Groups take turns performing their finished products for the class. After each performance, encourage the students to talk in depth the choices their peers made. Help them to understand what was important in the organization and effect of each work. Sharing ideas in this way provides a wonderful source of possibilities upon which students can draw when engaging in subsequent lessons. Students will show their understanding of the use and effect of tempo in a musical work through their compositional processes and products and through their ability to analyze and discuss their peers’ work.

EXTENSION

Students might use what they have learned through this experience to make decisions about how variation in tempo might be used to interpret a song or instrumental piece they are performing. They might work with a song or piece they already know how to perform and try out different versions with different schemes, and then decide which they think is most appropriate and why.

⇒ This process could include a discussion of whether it is appropriate to alter the tempo of just any song or piece. What would happen, for example, if you changed the tempo of a dance or march – particularly if there were dancers or marchers involved?

Jackie Wiggins Composing Lessons 23 Arranging a Round

In this experience, students will use what they know about accompanying and performing a song to develop their own arrangement of a simple round. Because this experience includes learning to perform the round in a particular arrangement, learning about how to create a new arrangement, working in small groups to create a new arrangement, and finally performing the arrangement for the class, the experience will extend over several class periods. In essence, it is one lesson that takes several classes to complete.

Objective To help students develop an understanding of what it means to create an arrangement of a song.

Prior Experience Needed This lesson assumes that the students have had some prior experience working with these instruments in small groups. It also assumes they have had experience playing one part against another in classroom performance settings. This lesson is generally appropriate for students in middle and upper elementary (depending on prior experience) and secondary school.

Materials

A simple round such as “Hey Ho, Nobody Home” (sheet music included for the teacher’s use)


Charts showing a graphic representation of the phrases of the melody

An interesting assortment of instruments: classroom xylophones, non-pitched percussion, synthesizers, students’ own orchestral instruments, and/or students’ voices

Organization Learn round in a whole class setting Arranging in small groups Sharing products with the whole class

1 GROUNDWORK Review what students already know about using instruments to accompany singing. Review some different kinds of accompaniments from the students’ prior experience and discuss what makes them the same or different. Teach the students to sing the round “Hey Ho, Nobody Home.” In order to carry out this project, they need to know the melody well and also need to be comfortable and confident in singing it as a round with their peers.

⇒ You might teach the melody by using the three charts that follow this lesson – showing a graphic representation of the pitch and duration of the melody of the round. (Cards as shown above are in the correct order. They should be mixed up so that the students can listen to the melody and unscramble them.)

⇒ Ask three students to come to the front of the classroom, each holding one of the charts so that the class can see the shapes printed on

the cards. Alternatively, you might project the three charts onto a screen in the front of the room or hang them on the board. Whichever way you choose, students need to be able to mix up the cards and experiment with the order in which they are placed as they work to decide which one comes first, second, and third to properly represent the melody. Another way to do it is for each pair or small group to have their own set of cards to organize as they hear the music.


⇒ Sing the first line of the round and challenge the students to figure out which chart best represents the first line. Once they have traced the charts and decided which one represents the first line, that chart should be moved to the beginning of the line of charts.

⇒ Then sing both the first and second lines and challenge them to figure out which one comes second. The third will then be obvious, as it

will be the only chart remaining, but if you sing the whole melody for the students, they will realize that the first chart actually comes at the end as well. (When the song is sung as a round, each group repeats the three phrases again and again, ending with “Hey Ho, Nobody Home” when the song is to end. However, if you simply sing the melody without singing it as a round, you sing all four phrases, both beginning and ending with “Hey Ho, Nobody Home.”)

⇒ Once they are comfortable with the melody, invite them to sing it with you. When they know the melody well, invite them to sing it in first

a 2-part and then a 3-part round. When they are able to do this comfortably, they will be ready to create arrangements.

⇒ If you are singing the melody in d minor, you might try inviting some students to accompany the round by playing an ostinato on recorder:

Once students know how to sing the round with the ostinato, you might organize a simple arrangement. For example, the recorder players might begin by playing the ostinato twice. The whole class might then sing the melody through together once, along with the ostinato. A performance of the round might follow this, ending with everyone singing “Hey Ho, Nobody Home” – however you wish to arrange it. It is best for this whole class arrangement to be relatively simple since it will be used as an exemplar and you need to be careful not to intimidate students before inviting them to do their own arrangements.

2 CREATING

Ask students if they know whether all songs can be performed as a round. Do all songs work as rounds? What makes this one work? Is it because the music of the first phrase fits with the music of the second and third phrases as well? Could any of the phrases be sung with any other phrase in the song? Encourage them to experiment and “mix up” the three phrases any way they choose. Does it always “work?” Students will need to know how to sing and play the three phrases of the song. After learning to sing the round, they might move to acoustic instruments to teach themselves to play it.

⇒ Place the charts representing the three phrases of the song where students can easily see them as they sing and play. ⇒ Students may be able to simply play the melody by ear on recorders, xylophones or keyboards.


⇒ If they need support, you can create versions of the graphic charts that include scale syllables or letter names, depending on what students are accustomed to reading. If they know how to read notation, you can provide a notated version, of course.

Once students know how to perform the song or at least parts of the song, invite them to form small groups to develop their own arrangement of the round.

⇒ Using their selected instrumentation, groups are free to “reorganize” the phrases of the song in any way they choose to create a unique arrangement.

⇒ They may opt to repeat one particular phrase throughout the piece.

⇒ They might construct an accompaniment out of several repeated phrases and sing the round against it.

⇒ They might use the rhythmic aspects of the song to develop percussion parts. The song may appear in its entirety in their arrangement,

or may remain well hidden.

⇒ They may sing parts of the song and play parts, or the whole arrangement can be sung or played.

⇒ Encourage them to explore all sorts of possibilities. The “puzzle pieces” of this song may fit together in countless ways to produce all kinds of solutions to this problem.

3 SHARING

Invite groups to take turns performing their finished products for the class. After each performance, encourage students to talk about the choices their peers made. They may have questions for the groups who perform, or may need to hear the work more than once in order to understand the choices that were made.

ASSESSMENT

Through their decisions and products and through their comments about peers’ work, students will show their understanding of arranging as well as their understanding of how to perform one line against another with rhythmic accuracy.

Jackie Wiggins Composing Lessons 27 EXTENSIONS

Students might also be asked to create a graphic score for their arrangement that can be interpreted by other groups of peers or by the whole class. This can also be a good starting point for entry-level work on Western harmonic structure, as students work to figure out why certain melodies can be sung against others, and some do not “work” as well. Students might record and save their compositions, share them through video, podcasts, etc.

Jackie Wiggins Composing Lessons 29 Using Alternate Sound Sources

In "The Banshee," 20th century American composer Henry Cowell utilizes unconventional ways of playing the piano to impersonate a spirit from Irish folklore. A banshee is a female spirit whose voice travels on the howling wind. This music was written for prepared piano. It is performed on the strings inside the piano. At different points during the work, the strings are plucked, strummed, scraped, and hit with mallets, generating ominous sounds and screeches. This works well as a preparatory lesson for work with synthesized sounds, though experimentation with alternate means of production on acoustic instruments for the most part predated synthesizer, it was a related issue for composers looking to expand their palette of choices of timbre.

A version of this lesson was previously published in Strategies for Teaching Middle-Level General Music. Copyright © 1996 by Music Educators National Conference. Used by permission. The complete U.S. National Arts Standards and additional materials relating to the Standards are available from MENC––The National Association for Music Education, 1806 Robert Fulton Drive, Reston, VA 20191, USA (telephone 800-828-0229). Another version of the same lesson was published in Wiggins (2001), Teaching for Musical Understanding, McGraw-Hill. Material is reproduced with permission of the McGraw-Hill Companies.

Objective

To help students develop an understanding of a composer's use of alternate means of sound production to generate a particular effect.

Prior Experience Needed Some introductory experience listening to and creating music with instruments used in a conventional manner. Depending on the students’ prior experience, this lesson may be appropriate for students in upper elementary or secondary school.

Materials

Suggested Recordings: Composers Recordings, Inc #750-1997 New World Recordings #80203 (1995 CD) Smithsonian/Folkways SF 40801

An interesting assortment of acoustic instruments of any kind (classroom instruments or students own instruments, orchestral and other) Upright piano with front panels removed or grand piano with cover open, picks, mallets, paper, etc. to play and prepare piano strings

Jackie Wiggins Composing Lessons 30 Organization

Listening together as a whole class Improvising as a whole class

1 GROUNDWORK

Tell students that a banshee is a female spirit in Irish mythology, often considered to be an omen of death or a messenger from the Otherworld (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banshee). In Irish legend, it is said that a banshee wails around a house if someone in the house is about to die. Ireland is sometimes quite windy and it is sometimes said that the voice of a banshee can be heard in the howling wind. Invite students to predict how a piece intended to portray a banshee might sound. Invite them to listen to the piece – or, at least, enough of an excerpt for them to be able to understand the composer’s intent. Invite them to compare their predictions to what they heard. In particular, invite them to consider the effectiveness of the composer’s decision to use alternate means of sound production. You might explain that in the mid-20th century, many composers were seeking a wider selection of sounds than what traditional acoustic instruments could generate. They experimented with alternate ways of producing sound on traditional instruments. This same need led to the development of electronic sound sources that led to the development of today’s synthesizers. Open the piano so that students can see the strings and ask them how they might produce sounds in non-conventional ways. Try some of their ideas. Stepping on damper pedal, demonstrate playing strings with mallet or guitar pick. Strings can be plucked, scraped and scratched. Invite students to listen to “The Banshee” (or excerpt) again, this time gesturing inside the piano to show how some of the sounds are being made. As the piece is played, you might gesture strumming the strings or hitting or plucking them at appropriate points to help them connect the sounds they are hearing to their means of production.

2 CREATING Invite students to explore the instruments in the classroom or those they have brought with them, seeking alternate means of producing sounds (other then the usual means of sound production). You might suggest a few ideas to get them started, for example:

⇒ String players might try sliding their fingers along the fingerboard as they play or playing on the wrong side of the bridge. ⇒ Drums can be hit on the side instead of on the head. Drumheads can be rubbed with the fingers rather than hit.

⇒ Wind players can rattle their keys or valves or blow into the instruments without the mouthpiece or reed (to make wind sounds).


⇒ Shakers can be rolled.

⇒ Students can hit the boxes of classroom xylophones with mallets or gently tap the sides of the bars.

Suggest that students try many ideas for each instrument, the only constraint being that they do not damage the instrument in any way, of course. Organize a large group, teacher-guided improvisation experience using the new sounds. Invite students to share some of their ideas.

⇒ If space allows, invite them to sit in a circle with their instruments. ⇒ If there is not enough room for them to sit in a circle, at the very least, have the students who are playing sit so that they can see one

another and one another’s instruments.

⇒ If the class is small enough, everyone can participate in the same improvisation. If the class is large, you may want to organize them into 3 or 4 large groups and invite each group to perform a separate improvisation while the others act as audience and discuss the effect generated.

At first, the teacher can “conduct” the improvisation by pointing to individuals or groups, making motions that invite them to play or stop, suggesting dynamic levels, articulation or tempo changes by the way you move. It is better not to use conventional conducting techniques. See if you can reflect the sounds you would like to hear in the motions you make. Once you have modeled how to conduct an improvisation, invite students to take turns conducting class or group improvisations, adopting motions similar to those you used or inventing their own.

3 SHARING

The large group improvisations are shared experiences in themselves. Students also enjoy talking about the effects they have created in each improvisation, although you should be careful not to stop the momentum of the experience by calling for a discussion after each improvisation. It is better to let comments and discussion emerge naturally. Some improvised works are deemed self-explanatory without words in that everyone smiles or applauds at the end and there is no need for discussion that might “bruise the moment.”


ASSESSMENT

As students predict and then listen and analyze, they will demonstrate the sophistication of their understanding of the capability of a musical work to generate an affective response in the listener. Through their composing process, their compositional product, and their ability to discuss the work of their peers, students will show their understanding of the use of alternate sound sources to generate particular effects in a musical work. As students improvise, they will demonstrate their ability to create a similar effect using their own ideas

EXTENSIONS

Students might consider other early and mid-twentieth century works written for alternate sound sources as well as works for synthesized sound, and consider the cultural and historical climate that encouraged composers to seek and use new kinds of sounds in their music. They might also try composing pieces using environmental sounds and/or electronic sounds. They might use looping software to emulate what earlier twentieth century composers did with tape loops. In addition, many contemporary rock groups use this technique, particularly in the repetitive drum tracks that underlie so much of the music. Students can use keyboards and sequencers to compose their own looped drum tracks for use with in-class performances of songs, original raps, and the like. They might also explore alternate uses of vocal sounds and develop original compositions based on poetry or simple songs. An example might be choral works of Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer, such as “Epitaph for Moonlight,” “Snowforms,” or “Fire.”

Suggested Recording: A Garden of Bells: Choral Music of R. Murray Schaefer Vancouver Chamber Choir, Jon Washburn, Conductor #WRC8-5076 available through: Grouse Records, 1254 West 7th Ave, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6H 1B6 or Arcana Editions, Box 425, Station K, Toronto, Ontario, CA M4P 2G9

Jackie Wiggins Composing Lessons 33 Melody and Accompaniment: “Main Part” and “Background Part”

Students compose and perform a piece that has a melody and an accompaniment, or in vernacular that students often use to describe the phenomenon, a “main part” and a “background part.”

Objective To help students develop an understanding of melody and accompaniment or “main part” and “background part,” as they often describe it.

Prior Experience Needed This lesson assumes that students have had prior experience creating original music with their peers using classroom instruments. Most students have developed understanding of the musical principles involved in this project through their experience with the music of their world. (Most music of the popular culture consists of a “main part” with a “background part,” as does most of the music they perform in the general music classroom.) Depending on the students’ prior experience, this lesson may be appropriate for students in upper elementary or secondary school.

Materials An interesting assortment of instruments: classroom xylophones, non-pitched percussion, synthesizers, students’ own orchestral instruments and/or students’ voices Music that has an obvious “main part” and “background part” that the students can either listen to or perform. This is an excellent place to use popular music as an exemplar, since most rock music is organized in this way.


1 GROUNDWORK Working with a small group of peers, students will compose a piece that has a “main part” and a “background part.”

⇒ They will need to be careful in their choice of instrument and in how loudly they play each part to be sure the performance is well enough balanced to make the organization evident. It should be clear to the listener which part is intended to be the “main part” and which part is intended to be the “background part.”

More than one student in the group may perform one part.


⇒ For example, three people may be part of the background while one plays the main part, or two people may play one part and two the

other, etc. This decision will depend upon the nature of the two parts, that is, on how many players it will take to create the part, or on whether any of the parts are to be doubled, perhaps in a different timbre.

Review some music that the students have performed in class in which there is an obvious distinction between the “main part” (usually a sung melody) and the “background part” (usually a teacher or student accompaniment). Play some recorded examples of music that has an obvious “main part” and “background part” – drawing from music of a variety of styles, genres, and cultures. Invite students to brainstorm and speculate on some possible solutions to this compositional problem. What might make something sound like the most important part in a piece? What might make something sound like a less important part? Of course, there are numerous answers to these questions involving decisions regarding many different elements of music. Encourage students to think of a few in this large group setting, and then challenge them to either use some of the ideas shared or to think of their own once they begin work in the small group setting.

2 CREATING

Invite students to form small groups of four to six peers and decide the instruments they will use.

⇒ In their choice, they should consider which timbres will work best for the “main part” and which might be more appropriate for “background parts.” They might decide to use the instruments as accompaniment (background) only and sing the melody (main part).

⇒ They might also consider how they will play the instruments in order to make one part sound more important than the other. There are

numerous correct solutions to this problem. Encourage exploration and experimentation. Let students find their own ways of accomplishing this.

⇒ Once students have agreed upon how their piece will be constructed, they will need time to practice their performance of the work.

3 SHARING When students are ready, invite groups to take turns performing their finished products for the class.


After each performance, encourage the students to talk about all the ways they could tell which part was which. In other words, encourage them to verbally describe what they hear in their peers’ music. Sharing ideas in this way provides a wonderful source of possibilities upon which students can draw when engaging in subsequent lessons.

ASSESSMENT Through their composing process, their compositional product, and their ability to analyze and discuss the work of their peers, students will show their understanding of melody and accompaniment and how these musical dimensions can be used to organize a musical work.

EXTENSIONS Students might record and save their compositions, share them through video, podcasts, etc. Students might try to make a graphic score of their finished product to enhance their understanding of the way the piece has been constructed. They might then try to make a graphic score showing how a particular listening example was constructed.

Jackie Wiggins Composing Lessons 36 Using More than One Melody: AB or ABA or ABAB Form

Students will compose and perform a piece in ABA form. Students with more experience might opt to include an introduction and/or coda and/or bridge material (transitional material) between the sections.

Objective To help students develop an understanding of a bi-thematic work – a musical work that is constructed of two contrasting musical ideas. This experience also supports students’ general understanding of the dimension of form in music.

Prior Experience Needed This lesson assumes that the students have had prior experience creating original music (melodic and rhythmic ideas, melodies with accompaniments) on classroom instruments with their peers. Most students have developed understanding of the musical principles involved in this lesson through their experience with the music of their world. (Most music of the popular culture is bi-thematic, as is much of the music they perform in the general music classroom.) Depending on the students’ prior experience, this lesson may be appropriate for students in upper elementary or secondary school.

Materials Kabalevsky, “March” from The Comedians Or Tchaikovsky, “Trepak” from Nutcracker

Both available on the CD that accompanies the book Teaching for Musical Understanding (Wiggins, 2001, McGraw-Hill). CD available through Amazon.com at: http://www.amazon.com/Audio-use-Teaching-Musical-Understanding/dp/0072307846/ref=ed_oe_a

Lesson plans for teaching both pieces can also be found in the book Teaching for Musical Understanding (Wiggins, 2001, McGraw-Hill) An interesting assortment of instruments: classroom xylophones, non-pitched percussion, synthesizers, students’ own orchestral instruments


1 GROUNDWORK

Review some music that students have performed in class in which there are two themes (e.g., songs that have verse and refrain).


Play a recorded example of music that has an obvious ABA form. Work with the students in a way that will help them to understand the form of the work. Be sure they understand that the A and B sections must be based on different melodies, and that the A theme needs to return in the final section.

For a model of a combined listening/composing lesson based on the ABA piece “Trepak” from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker, please see Teaching for Musical Understanding (Wiggins, 2001, McGraw-Hill), which includes a CD recording of this piece.

2 CREATING Working with a small group of peers, students will compose a piece in ABA form. They may incorporate introduction, bridge, or coda, if they have worked with these in the past and have an understanding of how they operate in a musical work. With older students, you might leave the project more open-ended, asking them to compose a piece that has two thematic ideas, organized as they choose: AB, ABA, ABAB, etc.

⇒ The A theme should have different melodic content from the B theme. Students should try to make it clear to their audience which music is A and which is B. If they decide to use introduction, bridge, or coda, they need to do it in a way that a listener would be able to tell that these are “less important” sections. In other words, they will need to do something that will make it clear that their introduction is not A.

⇒ Some students might decide to play the A and some the B, or everyone may choose to play the whole piece. Some may choose to play

only one part (e.g., introduction). Some may decide to play the accompaniment (“background”) for one of the themes. Students may carry out the project in any way they interpret, so long as they think the form of the piece will be evident to their audience.

⇒ Once students choose their groups and instruments, they will need to brainstorm thematic material. Who will play the A theme? How will

the B theme be different? How will the group know when one section is over and the next begins?

⇒ Students will decide which thematic material they will use, teach one another to play the parts if necessary, and then try to put the parts together into one work. Once they have agreed upon how their piece will be constructed, they will need time to practice their performance of the work.

3 SHARING When students are ready, invite groups to take turns performing their finished products for the class. After each performance, encourage the students to talk about all the ways they could tell which part was which. In other words, encourage them to verbally describe what they hear in their peers’ music.


Sharing ideas in this way provides a wonderful source of possibilities upon which students can draw when engaging in subsequent lessons.

ASSESSMENT Students will show their understanding of form and the creation of a bi-thematic work through their compositional processes and products and through their ability to analyze and discuss their peers’ work.

EXTENSIONS Students might record and save their compositions, share them through video, podcasts, etc. Students might try to make a graphic score of their finished product to enhance their understanding of the way the piece has been constructed. They might then try to make a graphic score showing how a particular listening example was constructed. Students might try to create original songs that have a verse and refrain (AB). They might develop an instrumental accompaniment to the song that might include an introduction, bridge, and coda. They might try to record their finished products. Students might use what they have learned through this experience to analyze a more complex bi-thematic work.

⇒ For a model of a such a lesson using Bizet’s “Farandole” from L’Arlésienne Suite No. 2, please see Teaching for Musical Understanding (Wiggins, 2001, McGraw-Hill) which includes a CD recording of this piece.

Students who have a strong understanding of ABA form often enjoy moving on to Rondo form, which is an extension of the same principle (ABACADA and so on).

Jackie Wiggins Composing Lessons 39 Textural Variety

Objective

To help students develop an understanding of how textural variety can be used as a means of organization and expression.

Prior Experience Needed This lesson assumes that students have had considerable prior experience performing and identifying textural organization in obvious musical examples. They should know about and have had experience with rounds (canon), melody and accompaniment, melody and countermelody, solo and ensemble, and other relevant introductory experiences with texture. This lesson should be part of a series of lessons that provide students opportunities to become aware of textural organization of music through performance with understanding and analytical listening experiences. It is a good culminating lesson for an instructional scheme on texture. For an example of a scheme on texture, please see Teaching for Musical Understanding, McGraw-Hill, 2001.

⇒ As students explore the textural dimensions of various pieces of music, work with them to generate graphic representations of the textures so they will become familiar with texture charts and know how to use them to represent their understanding of what they hear and/or perform.

⇒ A texture chart is a graphic score of the textural organization of the music. For example, you might represent a single melodic line with a

wavy line going across the page and stopping when that line stops. A melody and countermelody might be represented by two different types of lines drawn parallel across the page. You might represent a single rhythmic idea with a series of slashes across the page. A single cymbal crash might be represented by a “splat” of some kind. The graphics used in the “Cross-cultural Puzzle” lesson on this web site is an example of a rather complex texture chart. For beginners, you should use music with simpler textural organization.

Depending on the students’ prior experience, this lesson may be appropriate for students in upper elementary or secondary school.

Materials

“Rìu Rìu Chìu,” Old Spanish Carol Available on the CD that accompanies the book Teaching for Musical Understanding (Wiggins, 2001, McGraw-Hill). CD available through Amazon.com at: http://www.amazon.com/Audio-use-Teaching-Musical-Understanding/dp/0072307846/ref=ed_oe_a

Blank texture charts – one copy for each pair of students; a pencil for each student

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10



Organization Listening together in small groups Composing in small groups Sharing products with the whole class

1 GROUNDWORK Remind students of prior experiences performing and analyzing works that represent various kinds of textural organization. Tell students that today they will listen to a work and graph the texture as they hear it. Give each pair of students a blank texture chart and pencils. As they listen, each pair will try to draw the texture they hear in each box. You, as teacher, need to call out or point to each number as each new section begins. Remind them that they are representing the general idea of a melody and not trying to represent every detail of the melody. Otherwise, they might try to graph the pitches of the melody, which will make the project extraordinarily difficult. The Old Spanish Carol, “Rìu Rìu Chìu,” is in verse and refrain form, with the verse generally performed as a single vocal line and the refrain sung in parts. In all probability, students will not be able to capture all the nuances of the performance on the texture chart, but they should at least capture the single line vs. multiple lines. They also may hear and represent the tambourine that accompanies the verse. One possible way to graph the texture is shown below:

In preparation for composing their own works, talk briefly with the students about possible ways of creating layers of music using classroom instruments.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ~~~~~~~~~~ * * * * *

~~~~~~~~~~ ^^^^^^^^^ µµµµµµµµ

~~~~~~~~~~ * * * * *

~~~~~~~~~~ ^^^^^^^^^ µµµµµµµµ

~~~~~~~~~~ * * * * *

~~~~~~~~~~ ^^^^^^^^^ µµµµµµµµ

~~~~~~~~~~ * * * * *

~~~~~~~~~~ ^^^^^^^^^ µµµµµµµµ

~~~~~~~~~~ * * * * *

~~~~~~~~~~ ^^^^^^^^^ µµµµµµµµ

Jackie Wiggins Composing Lessons 41 2 CREATING

Working with a small group of peers, students will compose a piece based on a texture chart (graphic score of the textural organization of the work). Students could use the texture chart from the listening experience as a model, but they would probably enjoy more being able to create their own charts. If you choose this second option, you will find that students tend to create the chart and the music simultaneously. They often begin with the chart, but as soon as they draw an idea, they move to instruments to realize it before adding another graphic idea to their chart. Some students get so involved with the musical process that they forget all about the chart, which is actually fine, if the music represents the idea of changing texture. The project is about the music, not the chart. ☺ Other possibilities:

⇒ The teacher to provides the texture chart ⇒ Students and teacher to work together to develop a chart that everyone will use

⇒ Each group develops and carries out its own texture chart

⇒ Each group develops a texture chart and gives the chart to a different group to use as a basis for their composition.

Example of a texture chart:

* * *

~~~~~~~~~~

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

* * * * * * * * * *

/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /

A chart like this should be realized in the same way as a musical score would be interpreted. This piece begins with the lowest voice, which seems to be some sort of steady beat. There is also some sort of crash or explosive sound that begins with the first note of the bass part.


Other voices enter at different times. Once each enters, it remains until the end of the piece. At two other times during the piece, the explosive sound is heard – once when the top voice enters and once at the end (which the students might use to signal the end of the work).

3 SHARING When students are ready, invite groups to take turns performing their finished products for the class. After each performance, encourage the students to talk about all the ways they could tell which part was which. In other words, encourage them to verbally describe what they hear in their peers’ music. Sharing ideas in this way provides a wonderful source of possibilities upon which students can draw when engaging in subsequent lessons.

ASSESSMENT Students will show their understanding of the use and effect of textural change in a musical work through their compositional processes and products and through their ability to analyze and discuss their peers’ work.

EXTENSIONS

More experienced students will enjoy realizing even more complex texture charts. When, as suggested earlier, groups are asked to design their own charts and then give them to a different group to realize, they often develop highly complex charts. In fact, when students work in this way, there is generally a significant amount of interaction between groups, as those interpreting the charts confer with the creators of the charts to be sure they are realizing them the way the creators intended. Highly experienced students might incorporate what they know about harmony into this texture lesson by creating accompanying parts that “fit” with the melodies they create. Students might use what they have learned through this experience to develop their own textural settings or arrangements of songs and/or pieces they already know, and then consider the effect generated by the decisions they have made. Students might record and save their compositions, share them through video, podcasts, etc.

Jackie Wiggins Composing Lessons 43 Making Repetitive Music Interesting

Sometimes composers create a highly complex, interesting work based on repeating one musical idea over and over. When they choose to do this, they find many ways of changing the one idea to create an interesting piece.

Objective To help students develop an understanding of how a piece of music can be constructed from only one theme and yet contain enough variety to make it interesting.

Prior Experience Needed

This project assumes that students have had prior experience composing on classroom instruments with peers. It also assumes they have had experience working with a variety of expressive elements, such as dynamics, tempo, articulation, timbre. Depending on the students’ prior experience, this lesson may be appropriate for students in upper elementary or secondary school.

Materials

Finale from The Firebird, Stravinsky Available on the CD that accompanies the book Teaching for Musical Understanding (Wiggins, 2001, McGraw-Hill). CD available through Amazon.com at: http://www.amazon.com/Audio-use-Teaching-Musical-Understanding/dp/0072307846/ref=ed_oe_a

Or, for an easier, more accessible listening experience, please see the lesson on Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King” in Teaching for Musical Understanding (Wiggins, 2001, McGraw-Hill). Graphic representation of the theme of the Finale from The Firebird:

4 3

5

2 1

4 3 3

2

4

1

2 2

5




1 GROUNDWORK Invite students to try to sing the theme of the Finale from Firebird from the graphic representation, either in numbers or scale syllables, whichever system is more familiar to them. They need to be familiar with the theme to understand how the music is put together. If a composer were to create a piece of music by just repeating this theme over and over, would it be an interesting piece? What are some of the things a composer can do when a repeating theme to make the music more interesting? Invite students to listen to the work and identify the techniques used by this composer to make the music interesting even though it is based on a repeated theme. You may want to silently trace the shape of the graphic representation of the melody as the music plays, for the first few repetitions and then at strategic points during the listening experience, to support their ability to follow the plan and to keep them focused, since the piece is a bit long for youngsters. Students may notice:

⇒ Changes in tempo

⇒ Changes in range

⇒ Changes in color

⇒ Changes in dynamics

⇒ Changes in rhythm

⇒ Additional decorative notes in the melody

⇒ Changes in texture

⇒ Changes in articulation

⇒ Change in meter (Students are less likely to notice this without teacher support.)


It is not essential that students identify every change. They just need to understand the idea of what can be changed to make music interesting. It is important for them to realize that, in their own work, they may not create a new theme. The point is to repeat one theme over and over and change as many other dimensions as they can, without changing the melody itself. This is not a lesson on variation. That comes later.

2 CREATING

Invite students to work in groups of four, five, or six to create their own composition that has only one theme. In developing their music, they may use the techniques that Stravinsky used or may invent their own ways of making the music interesting.

⇒ Students can use any instruments for this project. ⇒ They will need to invent a theme that everyone in the group likes and can play. They should then figure out ways to put the piece

together where the theme appears again and again, always changed in some way to keep the piece interesting. 3 SHARING

When students are ready, invite groups to share their compositions with the class. Encourage students to assess the effectiveness of the compositions, with specific attention to the list of characteristics that was generated by the class before the composing experience. Sharing ideas in this way provides a wonderful source of possibilities upon which students can draw when engaging in subsequent lessons.

ASSESSMENT:

Through their composing process, their compositional product, and their ability to discuss the work of their peers, students will show their understanding of how various dimensions of music can be used to make a thematically repetitious piece interesting.

EXTENSION

Listen to and analyze other works with limited thematic material that are driven by expressive elements, such as Edvard Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King” from the Peer Gynt Suite No. 2.

Jackie Wiggins Composing Lessons 46 A Cross-Cultural Puzzle

Regina Carter is a renowned American jazz violinist. Richard Bono joins Ms. Carter in creating this piece. Mr. Bono is a jazz bass player from Cameroon who brings to this recording his knowledge of African traditional music and instruments, including a water drum, which creates an unusual and interesting sound. Mr. Bono has created all the accompanying and vocal lines in this work. Ms. Carter plays all the violin parts, including the main melody and improvisatory sections.

Objective

To help students develop an understanding of a cross-cultural piece that combines African rhythms with Western jazz. As they engage in the activities of this lesson, they will also experience and extend their understanding of form, texture, melody and accompaniment, the “feel” generated by African cross-rhythms, and improvisation within a compositional context.


This is a higher-level experience that builds on students’ understanding of melodic contour, texture, melody and accompaniment (“main idea” and “background idea”), their understanding of bi-thematic form (AB), and their understanding of the differences between composing and improvising. Because of the complexity of this project and music, this should not be students’ first experience representing music with graphics. Because of the complexity of this piece and these activities, this lesson is most appropriate for secondary school students.

Materials

“Mandingo Street,” Regina Carter and Richard Bono from album Rhythms Of The Heart Available from Amazon.com at: http://www.amazon.com/Rhythms-Heart-Regina-Carter/dp/B00000IP85/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1206033033&sr=8-1 Also see Ms. Carter’s web site: http://www.reginacarter.com/


Puzzle cards and texture charts of the “background.” Each pair or group of students will need enough puzzle cards to represent the whole melody. Each pair or group will also need enough background pages to be able to represent the whole piece (see next 2 pages). Each group needs one copy of the first page and as many copies of the second page as are needed to finish the whole puzzle.

⇒ Note that on page one, the first two melody puzzle cards are printed in their proper place after the representation of the introduction. Students should consider these two cards to represent the first two statements of the opening melody and then continue from that point to place cards to represent the melody over the accompaniment.

⇒ When the melody changes, they will need to use different cards, as appropriate. The graphics on the cards approximate the melodic

contour and rhythmic dimensions of the melodic material. They are not intended to represent the melody with precise accuracy. They represent the general shape of the phrases.

Jackie Wiggins Composing Lessons 48 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

Jackie Wiggins Composing Lessons 49 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

Duplicate this page to produce the puzzle pieces that each group will need to solve the puzzle. Each puzzle requires:

⇒ 20 red cards to represent the A theme. Students can use marker to add the parallel thirds when they appear, if they hear them. ⇒ 4 of the first green card to represent the 1st and 3rd phrases of the B theme, 2 of the middle green card to represent the 2nd phrase of the

B theme, 2 of the last green card to represent the 4th phrase of the B theme.

⇒ 10 of each blue card (total of 20 blue cards). Each pair of blue cards together represents the C theme. The 3rd repetition of the C theme has a slightly different 1st card. If students notice, they can adapt the given card or draw their own representation on the paper instead of placing a card.

There is also an extended improvisatory section that students can represent by drawing their own graphics with colored markers. There is no expectation that they will draw all the details of the improvisation – just that they identify it and note how it is different from the composed sections of the piece.


Students will also need colored markers for this project since there is more happening in the music than that represented on the cards. They may use the markers to add anything else they hear and also to indicate the improvisatory sections, which are not represented by the cards. Students who have used these materials found that they needed to secure the cards to the paper as they worked. A glue-stick or tape can be an invaluable tool since there are many cards to place on the paper that can easily be knocked or blown off the page. Just a dab will do, since students may change their minds and want to relocate some of the cards later on as they listen more. An interesting assortment of instruments: classroom xylophones, non-pitched percussion, synthesizers, students’ own orchestral instruments

⇒ For this project, each group will need a variety of non-pitched percussion instruments in addition to at least one melody instrument or voice.

Organization Listening together in pairs or groups of three or four Composing and improvising in larger groups, perhaps as many as six per group Sharing products with the whole class


1 GROUNDWORK

Invite students to choose partners or groups of three or four to solve the listening puzzle. Distribute materials: puzzle cards and background papers, markers, tape or glue-sticks. Explain how to go about solving the puzzle. Play the piece as many times as students need to solve the puzzle. Discuss the solutions together as a group, noting the important features of the work.

2 CREATING

Based on the listening and mapping experience, invite students to form larger groups (perhaps six or seven students in each). Groups need to be a bit larger than usual to enable the layering of many parts in the accompaniment. Invite students to work together to create a similar piece to “Mandingo Street.”

⇒ Discuss beforehand that there should be many layers in the accompaniment, and that the accompaniment should be more rhythmic than melodic.

⇒ They will need to decide who will play the melody and what that melody will be.

⇒ There should also be some sort of improvisatory part.

⇒ If you have less time to allot to this project, the whole melody can be improvised rather than composed.

⇒ The melody might also be sung, whether it is composed or improvised. This project lends itself nicely to this combination: a rhythmic

instrumental accompaniment and a sung melody. 3 SHARING

When students are ready, invite groups to take turns performing their finished products for the class.


After each performance, encourage the students to talk about all the ways they could tell which part was which. In other words, encourage them to verbally describe what they hear in their peers’ music. If there is time, you might encourage them to compare the decisions of the various groups with the decisions made by Ms. Carter and Mr. Bono in their recording. Sharing ideas in this way provides a wonderful source of possibilities upon which students can draw when engaging in subsequent lessons.

ASSESSMENT

Through their solutions to the puzzle, composing process, their compositional product, and their ability to discuss the work of their peers, students will show their understanding of how a piece of this complexity can be created. They will show their understanding of

⇒ Melody and accompaniment ⇒ Form

⇒ Texture

⇒ The “feel” generated by African cross-rhythms

⇒ Incorporation of improvisation within compositional process

⇒ What it means to combine into one work elements of more than one musical culture

EXTENSION

Students might explore their own music collections to see if they can find examples of music that is organized with a similar plan. They might bring this music to school to share with the class. You might follow this experience with asking students to listen to the first movement of Stravinsky’s Three Pieces for String Orchestra. Three Pieces for String Quartet (1914), Stravinsky (1882-1971)

1st Movement: Dance 00:49 Wigmore Hall Recording Naxos Catalog # WHLive0012 Ysaye Quartet: String Quartets by Debussy, Stravinsky, Faure


In this work, one theme is repeated by the violin, again and again with slight variations each time. Students might discuss the similarities and differences between the two works.

⇒ For your own information, these quartets were written in 1914, just after his first three works for Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes: Firebird

(1910), Petrushka (1911), and Le Sacre du Printemps (1913). Stravinsky said that this work marked an important change in his music. His subsequent work developed the ideas that first appeared in this quartet. This piece was the beginning of a leaner, more austere style for Stravinsky.

Jackie Wiggins Composing Lessons 54 Theme and Variation

Because of the complexity of the principle of variation, students engaging in the activities in this unit will have to make decisions about just about every element of music. Therefore, this makes an excellent culminating project for a semester or school music experience (e.g., a final project for a fifth grade class before moving on to middle school, or a final project for a middle school or high school mini-course.) To begin this project, you will need to introduce the notion of theme and variation. One good way is to use the students’ clothing as an example. For example, most everyone is probably wearing some kind of shirt (or shoes, or socks). If "shirt" is the theme, how many different variations on that theme are present in the room? What all the different variations have in common is that all are shirts, regardless of how different they appear to the observer. There are certain characteristics that are intrinsic. Musical theme and variation is quite similar to this phenomenon. The theme may be altered in many ways, but it must retain some of the characteristics of the original theme, characteristics that will enable the listener to identify the theme – to understand that the theme is still present in some form. It may retain melodic characteristics, or rhythmic, or harmonic characteristics, but the composer may not originate a brand new idea and still call it a "variation." Just to be clear, let students know that the kinds of changes that were found in the “Hall of the Mountain King” or Firebird lesson do not constitute variation. Variation is more than changing dynamics, tempo, or orchestration. It means changing the theme itself in some way, which students were asked not to do in the “Hall of the Mountain King” and Firebird lesson. They may certainly use dimensions that create interest, (e.g., changing dynamics, tempo, or timbres) in the context of variation, but these changes do not, in themselves, constitute variation. Tell students that they will spend the next few lessons studying theme and variation based on one particular melody.

Objective

To enable students to broaden their understanding of how the various dimensions of music can interact to produce a particular result, in this case, a variation on a theme.


This is a higher-level project that assumes extensive experience with the ways in which composers manipulate the dimensions of music to produce desired effects. It is actually an excellent culminating assessment – a good year-end or program-end project – because carrying it out involves understanding of all the dimensions and some metadimensions of music.

Materials Suggested Recordings:


Charles Ives, Variations on "America" (or “God Save the Queen”) (use the orchestrated version, not the original, which is for organ) American Variations, Klavier #11060 or 1992 Teldec Classics International Time Warner - 9031 - 74007 - 2

American composer Charles Ives (1874-1954) wrote this wonderful set of variations on the British song, "God Save the Queen," as an organ solo in 1891, when he was just seventeen years old. The work was orchestrated by another well-known American composer, William Schumann, in 1963, receiving its premiere performance by the New York Philharmonic in 1964. Ives’ penchant for experimentation and delightful sense of humor are evident in this work, which is known today as the "Variations on 'America.'"

Or Reinhold Glière, “Russian Sailor’s Dance” from The Red Poppy

CD available through Amazon.com at: http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&tag=mozilla-20&index=blended&link%5Fcode=qs&field-keywords=Russian%20Sailor%27s%20Dance&sourceid=Mozilla-search

Or Zhang Wu, Variations on a Northern Chinese Folksong

Naxos Catalog # ACD22187 CD: Alla Gitana

An interesting assortment of instruments: classroom xylophones, non-pitched percussion, synthesizers, students’ own orchestral instruments and/or students’ voices Handouts containing both iconic and notated versions of the theme of the work used as an exemplar

⇒ If students are playing orchestral instruments, be sure to notate in a variety of clefs and transpositions Chart paper to write and save student ideas

Organization Theorizing in small groups Listening as whole class Composing in small groups and as a whole group Sharing product as a whole class

1 GROUNDWORK

Because this scheme is highly complex, it will take multiple class sessions to complete. Sessions 1 and 2 are Groundwork only.


Session 1 Using something familiar (like clothing, shoes, flavors of ice cream, sandwiches) consider ways the idea you have chosen might be varied (color, pattern, style, size, shape). Help them understand that to vary is to change in some way. Connect this idea to variation in music by playing a simple, familiar melody and demonstrating some ways it might be varied. Tell students that for the next few classes, they will be learning about and working with musical variation on a particular theme (specific to the work they will study). Then, invite students to theorize about some of the ways one might alter the musical theme to generate a variation, first in a whole class setting and then with small groups of peers. In order to understand theme and variation, students must be very familiar with the theme that is used as a basis for the work. The next set of activities serves three purposes: (1) to familiarize them with the theme of the work they will study in Session 2 and (2) to help them begin to know how to play the theme, which they will use as a basis for composing beginning in Session 3, and (3) to help them begin to understand what variation is. Students will need to become acquainted with the theme of the exemplar. They can learn it from a graphic or notated representation, depending on their prior experience and skill level with notation. Invite students to work with their peers in pairs or small groups to begin to learn to play the theme (or parts of the theme) on an instrument and then experiment with possible ways of varying that theme.

⇒ They do not have to be proficient at playing the whole melody to be able to theorize about a possible variation. Their proficiency playing both the melody and their invented variation will increase over their days of working out the piece. In this initial experience, the work with the instruments and handouts of the melody are intended to inspire ideas not to create finished products.

⇒ Students need at least 20 minutes for this activity, more if time allows.

Once students have had time to think of some ideas, invite them to reconvene as a large group to share their ideas about possibilities for varying the theme.

⇒ They may perform their ideas, but many will prefer to describe them instead, e.g., “I will play the melody forwards while my friend plays it backwards” or “We will change the rhythm” or “We will add notes.” I share these examples because they are ideas often suggested by 10-year-olds.


Describe each student idea on the chart paper. In doing so, you might help students with terminology that describes what they have performed or described.

⇒ For example, a student might perform a rhythmic variation of the theme that you might describe on the chart as “varying the rhythm” or “rhythmic variation.” A student might also describe this process as “changing the length of the sounds in the tune.” Again, as you write the idea on the chart, you might suggest the label “varying the rhythm,” explaining that it means the same thing as “changing the length of the sounds in the tune.”

Students will show understanding of the meaning of “variation” through their comments in class and through their theories and speculations as to how this particular theme might be varied.

⇒ Some will share their ideas through performance. ⇒ Some will communicate through verbal description of the musical ideas.

⇒ Some will use a combination of performing and describing to share their idea.

On the chart paper, list all the students’ theories about how a melody might be varied. This chart paper will be used in subsequent sessions.

Session 2 Based on the introductory experience during Session 1, students will move on to analyze the exemplar, which should take all of Session 2. Display the chart of the students’ theories generated during Session 1. Distribute copies of the Form Chart (below) and place a copy of the chart on the board or screen in front of the room. Students will listen to the music, section at a time, and fill in their own copies of the charts. The chart needs to have as many sections as there are sections in the piece. A chart for the Ives piece (used as an example here) would have 11 sections.


Student chart for the Ives variations:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Intro Theme Var. 1 Var. 2 Bridge Var. 3 Var. 4 Bridge Var. 5 Var. 5a Coda

[Note that the chart includes two boxes for the fifth variation. This is because there is a significant change in character in the middle of that variation which students usually perceive as a separate variation.] As students listen, invite them to write in the larger boxes any characteristics they notice when that music is playing. As the piece progresses, you will either need to pause the piece after each variation to discuss and characterize it or you will need to call out or point to each number as it comes. As you listen, you will note that, in the Ives work, the introduction, bridges, and coda are all developed from thematic material, which makes the piece particularly interesting to students. When students are ready to share their ideas, they can be discussed and combined to create a master chart in front of the room. Students usually enjoy comparing their own speculations about how to vary a melody, generated in Session 1, with the ideas used in the work they analyzed. They are often quite pleased to find that they may have thought of something that the professional composer did not, even if the reason is that their idea is quite unconventional and rarely (or never) used by professional composers. Finally, with the Session 1 theory chart and the Session 2 analysis chart displayed for handy reference, students are ready to begin their own composing.

2 CREATING

Sessions 3, 4, 5, 6 or more


Based on what they have learned in the first two sessions, and throughout their music coursework, students will now work in small groups to develop their own variations on the theme of the work they studied.

⇒ Each group will be responsible for one variation. ⇒ These will then be assembled into a large class Theme and Variations, in which someone (or everyone) will play the theme followed by

each group playing the variation they have composed.

⇒ After the variations have been created, the class will then discuss and determine the order in which the variations will be placed within the larger work.

⇒ Depending on their experience with the exemplar, students might decide to add an introduction, a bridge or more than one bridge, or a

coda.

3 SHARING

Sharing occurs several times during this project, including during the initial theorizing session and the listening/analysis session. Once the groups have developed their variations, they will all share them with the group so that the group can make decisions about assembling them into one large work. Then, the actual performance of the work is a shared experience as well. You might also record the final products in some way and share them in a broader context, such as through audio- or video-recordings or podcasts.

ASSESSMENT

There are also many assessments built into this extended experience, including:

⇒ Initial assessment of student understanding of the dimensions of music as they theorize about variation and analyze the listening exemplar.

⇒ Subsequent assessment of their understanding of how to use the dimensions and metadimensions of music to learn to play the theme, create an original variation of the theme, and eventually evaluate and assemble the variations into a larger work that reflects their understanding of the form of Theme and Variation.


The students’ original variations will reflect their understanding of the technique of variation. Further, students’ ability to conceive of, carry out, and evaluate the variations reflects their understanding of all the dimensions and metadimensions of music and the ways in which they interact to produce a viable whole.

EXTENSIONS

Understanding of the principles of variation can extend to further work with blues improvisation, jazz improvisation, and variation on a ground bass.

Download - Wiggins Composing Lessons

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