ARTSEDGE: Playing in the Orchestral Team

This Lesson at a Glance:

Grade Band:

Integrated Subjects:
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Materials:

For the student:

Orchestral Music Vocabulary Handout

Targeted Standards:

The National Standards For Arts Education:

Music (5-8)
Standard 4: Composing and arranging music within specified guidelines

Music (5-8)
Standard 6: Listening to, analyzing, and describing music

Other National Standards:

Language Arts III (6-8) Standard 1: Uses the general skills and strategies of the writing process

Language Arts III (6-8) Standard 2: Uses the stylistic and rhetorical aspects of writing

Language Arts III (6-8) Standard 7: Uses reading skills and strategies to understand and interpret a variety of informational texts

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Playing in the Orchestral Team

Part of the Unit: Perfect Pitch

Lesson Overview:

Students will learn about musical instruments in an orchestra by exploring the ARTSEDGE Look*Listen*Learn Web site Perfect Pitch. The site draws parallels between orchestral instruments and baseball players. Students will compare and contrast aspects of baseball and orchestras. They will write a creative story from the perspective of a musical instrument that would convince a composer to choose the instrument for the "orchestral team."

Length of Lesson:

Five to seven 45-minute periods

Instructional Objectives:

Students will:

write a creative story about a musical instrument that demonstrates their understanding of persona, perspective, and personification
conduct research online about musical instruments in orchestras over time
take a quiz demonstrating their knowledge about musical instruments and orchestras
compare and contrast characteristics of baseball and orchestras

Supplies:

pen and journal (one each per student)
computers with Internet access (one per student or pair of students)
headphones (one set per student)

Instructional Plan:

Warm Up

Tell students that they will learn about musical instruments in the orchestra. Instruct students to take out their journals and list as many instruments that they can think of; tell them they will add to this list as they learn more about instruments.

Draw a two-column table on the board. Label the left-hand column "orchestras" and the right-hand column "baseball." Ask students what they know about orchestras and write students' responses in the left-hand column. Next ask students what they know about baseball and write their responses on the right-hand column. Ask students if orchestras and baseball have any characteristics in common. If students recognize any common characteristics, draw a line connecting the common characteristic in each column.

Tell students they will explore a website that will reveal more characteristics that orchestras share with "America's favorite pastime."

Computer Lab Activity: Meet the Players

In a computer lab (or at your classroom or other computers), allow students to explore the "Meet the Players" section of Perfect Pitch on their own or with a partner. Give each student or student pair a set of headphones so that they can listen to each instrument's sound. Instruct them to add at least five new instruments to the list of instruments they created in the Warm-up activity. For each instrument on their list that is used in orchestras, tell them to write down at least one interesting fact about the instrument that they learned from exploring the site.

On your next visit to the computer lab, visit the "Meet the Players" section again. You may wish to have students explore the Baroque and Classical eras during one class period and the Romantic and Modern eras during a second class period. Tell students to add five new instruments to their list and five accompanying facts.

Instruct students to pick their favorite instrument; however, do not permit them to choose a percussion instrument that is not pitched. When a percussion instrument is pitched, then a musician can play a melody on it. A snare drum, for instance, is an example of an instrument that is not pitched, and a xylophone is an example of a pitched instrument. On the Perfect Pitch site, percussion instruments that are pitched are noted as such in the "Meet the Players" section under the heading "Basics." (Note: The choice of a pitched instrument becomes relevant later on in this lesson in "Computer Lab Activity: Create a Lineup.") Inform students that they will write a story about their favorite instrument. Allow them to write three more interesting facts about their instrument of choice so that they have enough material with which to write their stories.

Writing Activity: Pick Me for the Team

Tell students they will use a literary device called personification and will write a story based on facts they learned from Perfect Pitch. In personification, an object or a concept is given human characteristics. Explain that personification is a device that writers use to make their stories and poems more vivid and creative.

Provide examples of personification for your students. For examples of personification in poetry, view the lesson "Dancing Minds and Shouting Smiles: Teaching Personification through Poetry" on the ReadWriteThink Web site. Choose a few inanimate objects in your classroom and ask students to imagine that the object has come to life. What would it say? What does it like about being used in a classroom? What doesn't it like? Once students have practiced taking on a different persona, they can begin writing their stories from the perspective of a musical instrument.

Tell students to imagine that their instrument has come to life and they must write from the perspective of that instrument. Give them the following directions:

You will write a story from the perspective of an instrument from the Perfect Pitch Web site. In the story, you must convince a composer to include you in a musical composition. Be creative! What makes the instrument you chose unique? How would you describe its unique sound? Write as if you really want to be picked for a team and you want to showcase your talents and unique traits. Refer to the notes you wrote in your journal.

Take students through the writing process. Ask Students to write a first draft then review the draft to check for a consistent point of view. Also instruct them to add any details that would clarify meaning or enhance description. Next, you provide feedback on the draft and students use your direct feedback to make corrections and revisions in a final draft.

Computer Lab Activity: Create a Lineup

Inform students that they have all written convincing arguments and the composer has given them the lead part in the composition. In the computer lab, instruct students to navigate to the "Create a Lineup" section of Perfect Pitch. Depending on which instrument students have chosen, instruct them to navigate to the Baroque, Classical, Romantic, or Modern era. Students should choose the era during which their instrument first appeared in the orchestra. They can find this information in the "Meet the Players" section of the site. Instruments that are new to the orchestra during a particular era are labeled with an "R" for "rookie."

After students have picked the appropriate era, instruct them to assign their chosen instrument to either the "Melody" part in the Baroque and Classical eras or the "Theme 1" part in the Romantic or Modern eras. You may wish to have students work in pairs to complete this activity. If they work in pairs, the partners must decide which instrument would be better for the lead part.

You may wish to work with the music teacher of your school to teach students the definitions of melody, harmony, theme, descant, and all the other words in the "Create a Lineup" sound mixer. In "Create a Lineup," students can view the definition of each term by moving their cursor over the word. You may wish to pass out to students the Orchestral Music Vocabulary handout and go over each term with the class. You could reinforce student understanding by navigating to the "Create a Lineup" section and having students listen to each musical part on its own by selecting the "solo" button for that part. By isolating each musical part, students can gain a sense of the part's function.

Allow students time to experiment with different instrumentations. After they have chosen the final line-up for their orchestral team, allow them to share their new sound mix with the rest of the class.

Discussion and Wrap-up

Return to the chart on the board. Ask students to provide additional characteristics of the orchestra and add to the list in the left-hand column. Ask them for more characteristics of baseball and add their responses to the chart. Remind them to recall images and information they viewed on Perfect Pitch.

Instruct students to draw a Venn diagram in their journals. Tell them to refer to the notes they took in their journals and the chart on the board. Students should write down all the aspects of baseball and orchestras that are similar in the overlapping section of their Venn diagram. Next they will write down all the characteristics that orchestras do not have in common with baseball and vice versa on the either side of the overlapping section of the Venn diagram.

Ask students to share with the class which characteristics they think orchestras and baseball have in common.

Assessment:

In the computer lab, students will "Play Ball" by taking a quiz that tests their knowledge of the orchestra. Instruct them to choose the "Junior Varsity" level of the quiz. After the quiz, if time allows, and, depending on their skill level, students may choose more difficult levels after completing the "Junior Varsity" part successfully. If you wish to assess student learning, you could instruct students to print the screen of their computer after completing each quiz so that you know their scores.

Authors:

Theresa Sotto
Santa Monica, CA