WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION This Curriculum Guide is designed to prepare, reinforce, and extend learning concepts and ideas in two MPR Class Notes Videos: A Journey through Musical Emotion and A Recipe for Emotion in Music. These two videos work well in tandem. To get the most out of the experience, begin by watching A Journey through Musical Emotion and follow up with A Recipe for Emotion in Music. The first video uses four pieces of music to present the idea that music communicates emotion and feeling. The second video digs deeper and discusses specific things that composers do to create a desired mood or feeling. Both videos are full of great music vocabulary. Together, these two videos teach and reinforce two “big ideas:” 1. Music can express feeling and communicate emotions. 2. Composers can do certain things to create a certain mood, emotion, or feeling in a piece of music.

In the video presentation, the concepts are moved through quickly. This curriculum will slow things down a bit and present activities based on all of the concepts so they can be repeated, reinforced, and applied in a variety of ways to ensure learning and mastery. The information and activities in the Guide are intended to make music come alive and to align with Minnesota Standards in Music Education. We hope you will personalize, modify, or adjust content to meet the needs of your unique classroom. PREPARING TO WATCH THE FIRST VIDEO Just as literacy teachers use pre-­reading strategies, music teachers can use pre-­listening and pre-­watching strategies. This helps students create a mental frame work to organize new ideas, relate new content to prior knowledge, and make connections. What you bring to a listening experience will affect what you hear and take away from that experience.

ACTIVITIES 1. Together with your students, brainstorm a list of feelings. Get a good list going. You might purposefully connect with literacy curriculum by including or emphasizing new vocabulary or asking for synonyms for common feelings (happy = elated;; calm = serene;; sad = dismayed.) When finished, it might look like this:

CALM

2. Select one feeling and ask students to silently imagine music that sounds like that feeling. Repeat with several different contrasting feelings.

3. Introduce the idea that music communicates feeling. This will be an easy connection since this explanation simply summarizes the activity they’ve just completed. Some sample language: One of the amazing things about music is that it can express feelings. It can sound how you feel. Or-­ listening to certain music can make you feel a certain way. Composers who write music often try to create the sound of a certain feeling.

4. Explain that they will be watching two Class Notes Videos about emotions, or feelings, in music. In each video, they will hear four pieces that demonstrate how music communicates feeling. In the first video, they will hear four pieces and think about what feeling each piece communicates. In the second video, they will learn how composers get music to sound that way. The pieces are: Bernard Hermann: Psycho: A Suite for Strings Claude Debussy: Clair de Lune Frederic Chopin: Piano Sonata No. 2, Op. 35. III. Marche Funebre Gustav Holst: The Planets-­ IV. Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity

5. Preview each piece by listening. Use a listening sheet (see below) to guide the experience. Afterward, facilitate classroom discussion. Was there a lot of agreement about the feelings expressed in the music? Emphasize the fact that there are no wrong answers-­ everyone is entitled to an opinion.

List at least one instrument you heard

List three adjectives that describe this music

How does this music make you feel?

Why do you think the composer wrote this music?

Psycho: A Suite for Strings

Clair de Lune

Piano Sonata No. 2, Op. 35. III. Marche Funebre

The Planets-­ IV. Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity

6. You might decide to compile results/reactions by creating a master list for each piece. For example:

Piano Sonata No. 2, Op. 35. III. Marche Funebre

7. Watch the first video: A Journey through Musical Emotion. Compare the descriptions of each piece in the video with the response/listening sheets from the previous activity. Were the responses similar?

REINFORCE IDEAS AND CONCEPTS FROM THE FIRST VIDEO THROUGH ACTIVE LEARNING Try this idea out on some new pieces. 1. Create a blank listening sheet. Play various repertoire (see suggestions below) and ask students to describe what they hear in terms of emotion and feelings.

grave grim

sadur

TITLE OF PIECE EMOTION/FEELING/MOOD ADDITIONAL COMMENTS 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

LISTENING SUGGESTIONS: Most or all of these examples can be found on iTunes or Spotify. Below are links to quality YouTube performances. Many include visuals that provide good teaching opportunities. For example, students might be interested to see the zheng in the Tan Dun composition.

• Mary Ellen Childs. Lines https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hr3Ys7-­Jvko • Gediminas Gelgotas. Never Ignore the Cosmic Ocean. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7HALlYaRlg

• Saint-­Saens. “The Swan” from Carnival of the Animals. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNbXuFBjncw

• G.F. Handel. Music for the Royal Fireworks: Minuet I, II, & III https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDa3J2KJqxM

• S. Prokofiev. “Dance of the Knights” from Romeo and Juliet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUmq1cpcglQ

• D. Shostakovich. Waltz #2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmCnQDUSO4I

• J. Tower. Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman No. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQVeQqn9qpg

• H. Villa-­Lobos. The Little Train of the Caipira. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6R593Ekw04

• Tan Dun. Zheng Concerto. I. Andante molto. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sxe5GkwXrQ

• György Ligeti. Sonata for Cello. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aA0MHmwsq8U This link shows the score as we hear the music. Fun and interesting to watch the notation as we hear the sounds.

• Francis Dhomont. Chambre d’enfants. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHYg4SZCw_s

Notes on the suggestions: • All of these instrumental pieces with no lyrics. Lyrics/text obviously influence the emotional message of a piece, often making the message more overt. You may choose to extend or modify the activity to include text or focus on text-­only if it aligns with your teaching goals.

• All selections are under six minutes in their entirety. Encourage students to listen carefully to a piece in its entirety before coming to conclusions about the emotional message. Remind them that the mood or feeling can change throughout the course of the piece. Helping them have a question in mind while listening helps cultivate focused listening skills.

• Use the collective listening experience as an opportunity to explore and investigate further. You might notice that the Villa-­Lobos example is played by a very good children’s orchestra. Use that observation to talk about practice habits and commitment to an instrument. Your class may decide to learn more about a specific composer, piece, performer, or instrument.

2. Transfer these ideas and concepts to other art forms. For example, look at a series of paintings, prints, or other pieces of visual art. Ask students if each work has a feeling or mood, and if so, what is it? Make some matches to some of the music you’ve listened to together. An easy, obvious example would be to pair some Debussy with an Impressionist painter.

A very literal example would be to show Claude Monet’s Rouen Cathedral, Façade (Morning Effect)-­ pictured below-­ and listen to Claude Debussy’s La cathédral engloutie (The Sunken Cathedral) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3geejD5Dksk This example might almost be too literal and object-­based (instead of focusing on more abstract emotional effect) but starting with a concrete example will help students make the connection and create some associations of their own.

3. Add creative movement for another layer/mode of response. Return to your emotion chart/list for one of your pieces and ask students to strike a pose for each word/feeling. Using the chart from the Chopin piece, you might say: Show me “solemn” with your body. Ready, go. Now FREEZE. Show me sad. Go. Using “freeze” and “go” as cues are helpful when first trying this activity since it will help students make transitions and keep better control of their bodies and move through space with more control. Once they’ve had some experience with the activity, you can seamlessly move from one word to the next. Feel free to add some sort of additional sound (steady beat on a hand drum, simple ostinato on an Orff instrument) to add another layer of both sound and control to the activity. Once you’ve moved through the emotions found in one piece, combine various pieces (and thus, various moods) to create additional layers and complexity.

PREPARING TO WATCH THE SECOND VIDEO By now, students have had a lot of experience thinking about emotion. Now is the time to take it a step further and explain that composers do certain things to try to create those emotions they hear. 1. Preview some key vocabulary.

a. Dynamics-­ how loud or soft music sounds, or the volume level i. pp-­ pianissimo-­ very quiet ii. p-­ piano-­ quiet iii. f-­ forte-­ loud iv. ff-­ fortissimo-­ very loud

b. Instrumentation-­ the specific combination of instruments in any piece of music

c. Tempo-­ speed or pace of a piece of music i. Adagio-­ slow ii. Largo-­ very slow iii. Allegro giocoso-­ moderately fast/sort of fast

d. Harmony-­ pleasing combination of notes that sound together to create their own sound.

e. Meter-­recurring patterns of beats that create a pulse in music

f. Time Signature-­ symbols that communicate the meter/beat organization of a piece of music

g. Articulation-­ the way notes are sounded. For example: short and separated, or smooth and connected.

i. Staccato-­ short, distinct, separate tones ii. Legato-­ smooth, connected sounds

REINFORCE IDEAS AND CONCEPTS FROM THE SECOND VIDEO THROUGH ACTIVE LEARNING

1. Create a visual with all of these words/definitions. Label it COMPOSER’S TOOL BOX, and explain that these are all tools that composers use to create specific emotions/feelings in music.

COMPOSER’S TOOLBOX Dynamics Instrumentation Tempo Meter Time Signature Articulation *** Note: Tempo and meter can be redundant. Based on the experience/prior knowledge of your students, you may choose to include either one or the other and not both. You will see this done in the example that follows. 2. Tell students it is their turn to be composers. Start with a familiar classroom song. Encourage students to apply various techniques to the song so that the emotional impact changes. Adapt the visual into a personalized tool to help students access and apply the techniques in the

toolbox. See below for a blank template and a completed sample. Adjust categories to match concepts you have learned or are working on in class.

COMPOSER’S TOOLBOX NAME OF SONG/PIECE Oh, Susanna Dynamics-­ ff, f, p, pp pp Instrumentation-­ what instruments? solo voice Tempo-­ what pace/speed? Largo Time Signature-­2/4, 3/4, 4/4, 6/8 4/4 Articulation-­ staccato, legato legato Additional performance notes Overall emotional effect/feeling Melancholy, pensive, sad Another student may come up with a completely different emotional impact by utilizing different tools (see below.) COMPOSER’S TOOLBOX NAME OF SONG/PIECE Oh, Susanna Dynamics-­ ff, f, p, pp ff Instrumentation-­ what instruments? Classroom of singers,

accompanied by hand drums and tambourines on the steady beats

Tempo-­ what pace/speed? Allegro Time Signature-­2/4, 3/4, 4/4, 6/8 4/4 Articulation-­ staccato, legato Staccato, but not silly Additional performance notes Overall emotional effect/feeling Upbeat, rousing, enthusiastic Perform each version, then compare and contrast, using appropriate music vocabulary and terminology.

EXTEND LEARNING WITH PROJECTS AND ACTIVITIES 1. Encourage composition of original works, with an emphasis on purposeful application of tools from the “Composer’s Toolbox.” Ask students to compose a piece. Facilitate the process by creating parameters to guide creation. A few tips:

a. Traditional notation is not required. Encourage alternative means of notation. Ultimately, music notation is a set of instructions, and that can take many different forms.

b. Students may have a hard time coming up with a concept. Encourage them to think programmatically. Ask them to make music that sounds like winter, or like a specific animal, or music that tells a story. Concrete imagery is a great initiator of ideas.

c. If you are planning to ask students to use standard notation, you may want to establish variables, such as how many measures. Perhaps you want students to use a certain set of tones-­ the pentatonic scale, for example. Choosing these kinds of parameters can reinforce a concept you are teaching and make the process seem more approachable for students.

2. Remind students that in additional to notes and rhythms, they must instruct performers how to play the music by using tools from the composer’s toolbox.

3. Upon completion, hold a Composer’s Forum. Each composer must present his/her work. In advance, ask composers to circle any marking they used from the toolbox. During the Forum, a piece should be performed. After each performance, facilitate a Q & A with the composer. Discuss the intended emotional intention and ask what tools were used to achieve this. Ask the composer and the audience if the intentions were carried out successfully. What else could the composer do to create his or her desired impact? If appropriate, revise works based on the critical analysis.

STANDARDS

Taken collectively, the content and activities integrate many of the Minnesota Standards for the Arts, especially those that deal with response/critique and expressive intent. All of the compositional activities are a great vehicle for reinforcement and mastery of all artistic foundations. Below is a description of the standards that aligns most closely with these activites.

1. Grades 4 – 5. 1. Artistic Foundations. 1. Demonstrate knowledge of the foundations of the arts area. Music. 4.1.1.3.1. Describe the elements of music including melody, rhythm, harmony, dynamics, tone color, texture, form and their related concepts. 2. Grades 4 – 5. 1. Artistic Foundations. 1. Demonstrate knowledge of the foundations of the arts area. Music.4.1.1.3.2. Describe how the elements and their related concepts such as pitch, tempo, canon, and ABA are used in the performance, creation, or response to music. 3. Grades 4 – 5. 1. Artistic Foundations. 3. Demonstrate understanding of the personal, social, cultural and historical context that influence the arts areas. Music. 4.1.3.3.2. Describe how music communicates meaning. 4. Grades 4 – 5. 3. Artistic Process: Perform or Present. 1. Perform or present in a variety of contexts in the arts area using the artistic foundations. Music. 4.3.1.3.1. Sing alone and in groups such as rounds and parts songs or play instruments alone and in a group. & 4.3.1.3.2. Revise performance based on the feedback of others and self-­‐reflection.