Creating Your Blues

Learning Resource Type

Learning Activity

Subject Area

Arts Education

Grade(s)

5

Overview

In this learning activity, students will create their own blues piece using the "Madlib" and perform their blues piece using the 12 Bar Blues pattern on the instruments available.  (This activity can be altered at the discretion of the teacher based on the classroom resources and skill level of the students). Choices can be the use of just the singing voice, barred instruments, guitars, ukuleles, boomwhackers, etc. 

Phase

During/Explore/Explain
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.
Arts Education (2017) Grade(s): 5 - Music

AE17.MU.5.8

Demonstrate understanding of the formal and harmonic structure created by the elements of music in music selected for performance.

UP:AE17.MU.5.8

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: Analyzing creators' context and how they manipulate elements of music provides insight into their intent and informs performance.
EQ: How does understanding the structure and context of musical works inform performance?

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.

Learning Objectives

Students will demonstrate their understanding of the formal and harmonic structure of the 12 bar blues by performing their own arrangement of a blues piece.

Activity Details

The teacher will have the following words on the board for students to fill in on a notecard.

Noun

Verb

Same noun as above

Same verb as above

Feeling

Verb

The students will think of a word for each of these descriptors and write them on the note card.  When they are completed, the teacher will pass out one Madlib sheet to each person. 

"MadLib"document

https://bit.ly/2T90BiD

The students will exchange their note card with a partner and the partner will write the word in the blanks on the sheet.  

Show the students the video of "The Blues with Larry".  Lead a discussion of the video and how the song was a classic blues melody (although it is very silly!)

The students will take the basic melody from the "Blues with Larry" song and add it to the lyrics of THEIR blues song that they created. Also, at this time, if the students would like to change the words they used to make their blues piece make more sense, they can. They can work with their partner to add the blues chord progression on the instrument provided, if available or just sing a cappella. Students will share their blues piece with the class.  

Assessment Strategies

The teacher will listen to each group play and sing the 12 bar chord progression pattern and informally assess their performance.

Variation Tips

The "Madlib" is a funny way to engage the students in the creative process and start them with ideas. A variation would be to go ahead and give the students the worksheet to fill in the blanks with words that would make more sense.  

To further the concept of the blues genre, students can take the worksheet and write a blues piece based on real-life experience. 

Students can perform the song a cappella or with pitched instruments such as guitars with chord buddies, ukuleles, barred instruments, boomwhackers, or keyboards.

Background / Preparation

The teacher should have already provided background knowledge and instruction on the 12 Bar Blues genre and on the I, IV, V chord progression.  

Veggietales: The Blues with Larry - Silly Song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-2m0Gj3wmM

Approved Date

Owner (Author)

melthom1
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