Using Our Voices to Improvise

Learning Resource Type

Classroom Resource

Subject Area

Arts Education

Grade(s)

2, 3, 4, 5

Overview

Students will improvise melodic patterns using scat, or nonsense, syllables.  Video demonstrations are provided. 

Arts Education (2017) Grade(s): 2 - Music

AE17.MU.2.1

Improvise rhythmic and melodic patterns and musical ideas for a specific purpose.

UP:AE17.MU.2.1

Vocabulary

Rhythm
  • Eighth note, eighth rest, half note, half rest, whole note, whole rest
  • Strong/ weak beat — 2/4; 3/4 meter
  • Accelerando/ ritardando
Melody
  • Pitch Set: Do , Re, Mi, So, La
  • Five-line staff
  • Treble clef
  • Names of lines/ spaces (treble staff)
Harmony
  • Melodic ostinati
  • Partner songs
Form
  • AAB, AABA, Rondo
  • Verse/ Refrain
Expression
  • Orchestral instrument families
  • Piano (p), forte (f)
  • Crescendo/ decrescendo
  • Orchestral Music: programmatic
  • Indigenous music: Native American
  • American music: slave songs, colonial folk songs
Other
  • Age-appropriate pitch matching (B3-D5)1
  • Mallet/ drumming technique: alternating hands

Essential Questions

EU: The creative ideas, concepts, and feelings that influence musicians' work emerge from a variety of sources.
EQ: How do musicians generate creative ideas?

Skills Examples

Performing
  • Perform original melodic patterns in do pentatonic as an introduction to a known song.
  • Perform original rhythmic patterns on body percussion or unpitched percussion, containing eighth note, eighth rest, half note, half rest, whole note, whole rest, as an introduction to a known chant.
Creating
  • Create a melody on pitched instruments using speech rhythms from a selected poem.
  • Improvise with a partner in question/answer style, using pitched or unpitched percussion instruments.
Reading/ Writing
  • Notate speech rhythms from a selected poem, using iconic or standard notation.
  • Using music composition software, create an original composition based on a personally selected topic.
Responding/ Evaluating
  • Refine compositions based on self-evaluation of a recorded performance.
  • Indicate dynamic markings for original compositions.

Anchor Standards

Anchor Standard 1: Generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work.
Arts Education (2017) Grade(s): 3 - Music

AE17.MU.3.1

Improvise rhythmic and melodic ideas and describe connection to specific purpose and context.

UP:AE17.MU.3.1

Vocabulary

Rhythm
  • Bar lines
  • Measures
Melody
  • Pitch set: Low So, Low La, High Do
  • Treble clef reading (Mi, Re, Do)
  • Middle C to high G
  • Ledger lines
Harmony
  • Partner songs
  • Rounds
  • Ostinati
Form
  • Theme and variations
  • Coda
  • D.S. al coda
  • Repeat sign
  • Fermata
Expression
  • Phrase/ phrasing
  • Pianissimo (pp), fortissimo (ff)
Other
  • Age-appropriate audience and performer etiquette
  • Orchestral instruments: 4 families
  • Age-appropriate pitch matching (Bb3 - Eb5)

Essential Questions

EU: The creative ideas, concepts, and feelings that influence musicians' work emerge from a variety of sources.
EQ: How do musicians generate creative ideas?

Skills Examples

Performing
  • Play a variety of classroom instruments with proper technique.
  • Use the head voice to produce a light, clear sound employing breath support and maintaining appropriate posture.
Creating
  • Use pitch and rhythm to improvise vocal, instrumental, and/or movement ideas within a context (such as question and answer phrases or simple accompaniment/ostinato).
Reading/ Writing
  • Use iconic or standard notation and/or recording technology to sequence and document personal musical ideas.
Responding/ Evaluating
  • Demonstrate a final version of personal musical ideas using created vocal, instrumental, or movement pieces through performance.
  • Develop criteria to critique and refine selected musical examples.

Anchor Standards

Anchor Standard 1: Generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work.
Arts Education (2017) Grade(s): 4 - Music

AE17.MU.4.1

Improvise rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic ideas, and explain connection to specific social and cultural purposes and contexts.

UP:AE17.MU.4.1

Vocabulary

Rhythm
  • Conducting patterns in
  • Syncopation
Melody
  • Pitch set: Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, Ti
  • Treble clef reading (La, So, Mi, Re, Do)
  • Middle C through High B
  • Create melodic sequences
  • Half-step
  • Whole step
Harmony
  • Canons
  • Chord components
  • Chord progression (I, V)
  • Crossover bordun
Form
  • Phrasing: antecedent and consequent
  • D.C. al coda
  • Fine
Expression
  • pp through ff
Other
  • Age-appropriate audience and performer etiquette
  • Orchestra instruments within the 4 families
  • Age-appropriate pitch matching (A3-E5)

Essential Questions

EU: The creative ideas, concepts, and feelings that influence musicians' work emerge from a variety of sources.
EQ: How do musicians generate creative ideas?

Skills Examples

Performing
  • With limited guidance, perform simple chord progressions on pitched instruments.
  • Play a variety of classroom instruments with proper technique.
  • Use the head voice to produce a light, clear sound employing breath support and maintaining appropriate posture.
Creating
  • With limited guidance, improvise or compose a 2-4 measure musical idea, a pentatonic melody, or a rhythm pattern using age-appropriate note values.
  • Create vocal harmony using rounds, ostinati, canons and partner songs.
Reading/ Writing
  • Use notation and/or recording technology to document personal musical ideas.
Responding/ Evaluating
  • Describe the way sound is produced by various instruments and the human voice.
  • Listen, identify and respond to music of different composers and world cultures.

Anchor Standards

Anchor Standard 1: Generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work.
Arts Education (2017) Grade(s): 5 - Music

AE17.MU.5.1

Improvise rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic ideas, and explain connection to specific social, cultural, and historical purposes and contexts.

UP:AE17.MU.5.1

Vocabulary

Rhythm
Melody
  • Pitch set: Do-centered diatonic
  • Treble clef reading (choral octavos)
  • Grand staff
  • Bass clef
  • Accidentals
  • Major scale
Harmony
  • Part singing/ playing
  • Chord progression (I, IV, V)
  • Arpeggio
  • Descant
  • Level bordun
Form
  • Rondo form
  • 12-Bar blues
Expression
  • Vibrato
  • Tremolo
  • Reggae
  • Blues
  • Timbre: soprano, alto, tenor, bass
Other
  • Age-appropriate audience and performer etiquette
  • Age-appropriate pitch matching (Ab3-F5)

Essential Questions

EU: The creative ideas, concepts, and feelings that influence musicians' work emerge from a variety of sources.
EQ: How do musicians generate creative ideas?

Skills Examples

Performing
  • Improvise over standard folk songs using the pitch set: La, So, Mi, Re, and Do.
  • Improvise melodies in a major diatonic scale by singing or using a pitched instrument.
  • Compose melodies and accompaniments to songs, poems, stories, and dramatizations, using AB, ABA, and rondo forms.
  • Perform pre-written musical ideas.
  • Perform harmonic accompaniments using Orff instruments, Boomwhackers, electronic sources, or by any other appropriate harmonic instrument.
  • Notate simple rhythms and melodies within a specified meter and tonality.
Creating
  • Create a 12-bar blues song using appropriate chordal structure and lyrics.
  • Explore and identify musical instruments from different historical periods and world cultures.
Reading/ Writing
  • Write an original blues song.
  • Identify elements of music including tonality, dynamics, tempo and meter.
  • Identify patterns of whole and half steps in a major scale.
  • Compose 4 or 8 measure pieces using appropriate notation.
Responding/ Evaluating
  • Review and refine a composition.
  • Evaluate a performance, using appropriate vocabulary to describe strengths and weaknesses of the performance.
  • Listen to, identify, and respond to music of different composers, historical periods, and world cultures.
  • Identify terms related to form.
  • Recognize and identify longer music forms such as 12-bar blues, sonata form and theme and variations.
  • Identify vocal timbre as soprano, alto, tenor, or bass.
  • Write short self-reflections about his/her composition and the creative process.

Anchor Standards

Anchor Standard 1: Generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work.

CR Resource Type

Learning Activity

Resource Provider

Other

License Type

BY-NC-SA

Resource Provider other

Carnegie Hall
https://www.carnegiehall.org/Education/Programs/Music-Educators-Toolbox/Resourc…

Approved Date

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