One Flute, Two Flute, Red Flute, Blue Flute: Nigerian-Style Flute Music

Learning Resource Type

Classroom Resource

Subject Area

Arts Education

Grade(s)

3, 4, 5

Overview

Students will listen to improvised flute performances. They will identify musical elements, including steady beat, rhythm, melody, harmony, and expressive qualities.  They will improvise using recorders. The unit includes three lessons based on music from Nigeria. 

Arts Education (2017) Grade(s): 3 - Music

AE17.MU.3.3

Demonstrate selected musical ideas for a simple improvisation or composition to express intent and describe connection to a specific purpose and context.

UP:AE17.MU.3.3

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: Musicians' creative choices are influenced by their expertise, context, and expressive intent.
EQ: How do musicians make creative decisions?

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 2: Organize and develop artistic ideas and work.
Arts Education (2017) Grade(s): 4 - Music

AE17.MU.4.3

Demonstrate selected and organized musical ideas for an improvisation, arrangement, or composition to express intent and explain the connection to purpose and context.

UP:AE17.MU.4.3

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: Musicians' creative choices are influenced by their expertise, context, and expressive intent.
EQ: How do musicians make creative decisions?

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 2: Organize and develop artistic ideas and work.
Arts Education (2017) Grade(s): 5 - Music

AE17.MU.5.3

Demonstrate selected and developed musical ideas for improvisations, arrangements, or compositions to express intent, and explain connection to purpose and context.

UP:AE17.MU.5.3

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: Musicians' creative choices are influenced by their expertise, context, and expressive intent.
EQ: How do musicians make creative decisions?

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 2: Organize and develop artistic ideas and work.

CR Resource Type

Lesson/Unit Plan

Resource Provider

Smithsonian

License Type

Custom
https://folkways.si.edu/one-flute-two-red-blue-nigerian-style/folk/music/tools-…

Custom License Type (URL)

https://www.si.edu/termsofuse

Accessibility

Text Resources: Content is organized under headings and subheadings

Comments or Notes

PDF of lesson plan https://folkways-media.si.edu/docs/lesson_plans/FLP10100_Nigeria_Olsen.pdf

 

Approved Date

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