The Stories of Music
Reflection comments are in italics.
Objective: Students will be able to explain how musicians compose and utilize music to tell stories and share beliefs and cultures.
Assessment: Students will create a 2-3 minute iMovie with a background track of classical music and pictures that tell a story representative of their interpretation of the music.
Opening Questions: Have you ever heard a song that seemed to be about your life? What story did it tell you? Can you think of a song that was created specifically to tell a story? Did you know that people have done that for hundreds of years?
I will want students to be thinking creatively. Taylor Swift is great, but her lyrics and their message are usually very obvious. What are some more subtle examples?
Examples:
-Danse Macabre (Dance of Death) The story of Death summoning people from the grave at Halloween. The skeletons dance until the rooster crows at dawn.
Play the beginning and end. Best parts.
-The Planets: Jupiter, Bringer of Joy (Jollity)
The middle section might be overplayed, but it is some of the most thrilling, beautiful music in existance.
-Quartet For the End of Time Messian was captured and taken to a German POW camp. He was trying to reconcile the despair of the camp with his Catholic faith and belief in God’s will.
“It offers a stark juxtaposition between the destructive and creative potentials of humanity, a struggle we all embody to some degree. Do we seek to transform whatever forms of violence we experience into something creative and relational, or do we spit them out and perpetuate the cycle?”
Such a cool story of a talented composer.
Show video from Piano Guys: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKC-lRhvdNY
Granted, this song initially had words that told their own story. But the Piano Guys adapted that story to fit their own.
Now students have 10 minutes to choose a piece of classical music that sounds like a story to them. They are welcome to choose their own music without assistance but if they need suggestions, they can choose from:
-Song For Viola
-Czardas
-Finlandia, Op. 26
-Hungarian Dance No. 5 in G Minor
Once students choose a piece of music, they should listen to the song and write a short story about that song on a piece of paper. It can be a story about a personal experience or a made-up story about anything else. I’ve already provided examples of both.
Once students feel comfortable with their story, the teacher will model how to use iMovie. Students can then choose pictures and create their iMovie based on the story they wrote. Their song should be the background music to the iMovie.
This part might be more difficult. But hopefully between this larger group and Shadow, I can get the help I need to teach it successfully. Make sure I’m encouraging the students to be creative and think outside of the box.
In a real classroom this lesson would be conducted over the span of several days. For this lesson we will pretend that we would pick up creating the movie tomorrow.
Standard (5th Grade, General Music, Responding):
-Explain how music listening is influenced by personal interest, knowledge, purpose, and context.
-Demonstrate and describe expressive attributes and how they support creators’/ performers’ expressive intent.
Modifications:
-If a student can’t hear the music, then they can watch the Piano Guys video and describe the story. They can still write and create a movie.
-If a student can’t see, they can listen to the music samples, choose a song, and orally share their story with the class.
-Enrichment: Students can create a longer video.
-Assistance: Students can work with a partner or create a shorter video.
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