Classroom Resource

We've Got the Blues

Subject Area

Arts Education

Grade(s)

5

Overview

Students will listen and evaluate blues music. The teacher will play C-major, C-minor, and Blues scale on C. Students will compare and contrast the scales. Students will use the Blues scale to compose a song.  

Arts Education (2017) Grade(s): 5 - Music

AE17.MU.5.2

Generate musical ideas within specific related tonalities, meters, and simple chord changes.

Unpacked Content

UP:AE17.MU.5.2

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.
Arts Education (2017) Grade(s): 5 - Music

AE17.MU.5.11

Demonstrate and explain how intent is conveyed through interpretive decisions and expressive qualities that reflect stylistic performance practices.

Unpacked Content

UP:AE17.MU.5.11

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: Performers make interpretive decisions based on their understanding of context and expressive intent
EQ: How do performers interpret musical works?

Skills Examples

Performing
  • Sing a varied repertoire with accurate rhythm and pitch, appropriate expressive qualities, proper posture and breath control.
  • Sing intervals on pitch within a major diatonic scale.
  • Perform melodies on recorder while reading standard and/or iconic music notation.
  • Perform, on instruments, a varied repertoire with accurate rhythm and pitch, appropriate expressive qualities, proper posture and breath control.
  • Sing partner songs to create harmony.
  • Sight-read and prepare a performance.
Creating
  • Demonstrate appropriate use of legato and staccato in a song.
  • Create a personal playlist and explain why each piece was selected.
  • Improvise, compose and arrange music.
  • Use technology and the media arts to create and perform music.
Reading/ Writing
  • Read, write, and perform rhythms in 2/4, 3/4.
    • 4/4. and 6/8 meter signatures using whole notes through sixteenth notes, including dotted notes.
  • Read, write and perform diatonic melodies and the major scale on the treble clef staff.
  • Identify tempo markings such as allegro, presto, largo, and andante.
  • Identify ledger-line notes A, B, and C above the treble clef staff.
  • Identify whole and half steps of the major diatonic scale in printed music.
  • Recognize the difference between major and minor tonalities.
  • Write program notes to accompany performances.
Responding/ Evaluating
  • Discuss melodic and harmonic elements used in a piece of music.
  • Explain how a performer performs a piece of music differently when he/she knows the social, cultural, or historical background of the piece, (e.g., How does knowing the history of the American Civil Rights Movement affect the performance of "We Shall Overcome?"
  • Demonstrate appropriate audience etiquette at live performances.
  • Write performance reviews of performances.

Anchor Standards

Anchor Standard 4: Select, analyze, and interpret artistic work for presentation.
Link to Resource
https://www.carnegiehall.org/Education/Programs/Music-Educators-Toolbox/Resourc…

CR Resource Type

Learning Activity

Resource Provider

Other

Resource Provider other

Carnegie Hall
Accessibility
License

License Type

BY-NC-SA

Comments or Notes

Carnegie Hall is free for teachers. 

Approved Date

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