SOUNDSCAPES OF SOUTHWEST ASIA: MUSIC & THE ENVIRONMENT 6-8

SOUNDSCAPES OF SOUTHWEST ASIA

SOUNDSCAPES OF SOUTHWEST ASIA: MUSIC & THE ENVIRONMENT

Learning Description

Students will investigate how environmental factors such as drought, desertification, and resource availability affect people in Southwest Asia. They will apply their understanding by collaboratively creating a musical soundscape that represents an environmental issue, using elements of music to communicate meaning and reinforce geography vocabulary.

 

Learning Targets

GRADE BAND: 7
CONTENT FOCUS: SOCIAL STUDIES & MUSIC
LESSON DOWNLOADS:

Download PDF of this Lesson

"I Can" Statements

“I Can…”

  • I can describe environmental challenges in Southwest Asia.
  • I can express the meaning of geographic vocabulary.
  • I can create music that represents an idea or problem.
  • I can explain how sounds connect to real-world issues.

Essential Questions

  • How do environmental conditions shape human life and settlement in Southwest Asia?
  • How can students use music to represent and communicate environmental challenges?

 

Georgia Standards

Curriculum Standards

Grade 7:

SS6G7 – Describe the impact of location, climate, physical characteristics, distribution of natural resources, and population distribution on Southwest Asia.

Arts Standards

Grade 7:

MSGM7.CR.1 Improvise melodies, variations, and accompaniments.

MSGM7.CR.2 Compose and arrange music within specified guidelines.

MSGM7.PR.2 Perform a varied repertoire of music on instruments, alone and with others.

MSGM7.RE.1 Listen to, analyze, and describe music.

MSGM7.CN.1 Connect music to the other fine arts and disciplines outside the arts.

 

South Carolina Standards

Curriculum Standards

Grade 7:

Standard 2: Analyze the cultural, economic, environmental, physical, political, and population geographies of contemporary Asia.

7.2.2.ER Identify climate and vegetation regions of Asia and the spatial distributions and patterns of natural resources, including the impact of their location on human activities.

7.2.3.HS Explain Asia’s current human population distributions and patterns, and use geographic models to compare the conditions driving migration and demographic change.

Arts Standards

Anchor Standard 1: I can arrange and compose music.

Anchor Standard 2: I can improvise music.

Anchor Standard 4: I can play instruments alone and with others.

Anchor Standard 6: I can analyze music.

Anchor Standard 9: I can relate music to other arts disciplines, other subjects, and career paths.

 

Key Vocabulary

Content Vocabulary

  • Arable – Land that is good for farming and growing crops
  • Desertification – When fertile land slowly turns into desert because of drought, climate change, or poor land use
  • Drought – A long period of time with little or no rainfall
  • Resource Management – The careful use and protection of natural resources like water, land, and oil
  • Urbanization – The growth of cities as more people move from rural areas to live and work there

Arts Vocabulary

  • Body percussion – Percussive sounds made with the body, such as slaps, stomps, snaps, etc.
  • Soundscape – A piece of music that uses sounds to create a picture, place, or story
  • Rhythm – Long and short sounds and silence
  • Tempo – The speed of the beat
  • Dynamics - Loud and soft sounds; volume
  • Texture – How many layers of sound are happening at the same time (thin = few sounds, thick = many sounds)
  • Timbre (TAM-ber) – The distinctive quality of sounds; the tone color or special sound that makes one instrument or voice sound different from another
  • Steady Beat – A constant, even pulse in music
  • Pattern – A sound or rhythm that repeats
  • Silence (Rest) – A moment with no sound, used for effect or contrast
  • Layering – Adding different sounds on top of each other to build complexity

 

Materials

  • Map of Southwest Asia
  • Audio clips of desert wind, water, city sounds, middle eastern instruments
  • Classroom percussion and/or found sounds
  • Chart paper / smartboard
  • Sticky notes

 

Instructional Design

Opening/Activating Strategy

  • Ask how students are arriving/feeling in their body and begin with them echoing the teacher who models body percussion, vocal percussion (drum-set with voice), creating sound that might mirror the desert, water, urbanization sounds.

Work Session

  • Play audio clips and ask:
    • 1) What place do you imagine
    • 2) What might the environment be like there?
    • 3) How might weather and land affect people living there?
  • Have students describe the sounds using musical vocabulary, such as texture and timbre. Have students experiment with sounds that they can make with their bodies that could imitate the audio clips.
  • Locate Southwest Asia on map.
  • Introduce the following environmental challenges: drought, arable land, desertification, resource management, urbanization
  • Divide class into four groups each with an environmental challenge theme.
  • Each group creates a 30-45 second soundscape (no words - telling the story with sound).
  • Have students use their imagination by talking through a made-up story first. Remind students that stories should have a beginning, middle, and end, just like songs.
  • Then, students in their groups, “tell” their story through sound only using musical elements such as rhythmic and dynamic choices. They can use body percussion, found sounds, vocal percussion, voices etc.
  • Stories can be serious, funny, moralistic etc. provided they represent that group’s environmental challenge of drought, desertification, urbanization, or resource management

 

Closing Reflection

  • Each group performs their story. After each group performs, other groups make educated guesses about what story is told based on the theme.

 

Assessments

Formative

  • Observe group soundscapes for accurate representation of environmental challenges.
  • Observe proper use of vocabulary in discussion.

Summative

  • Students can explain the environmental challenges in Southwest Asia based on performances.

 

 

Differentiation

Accelerated: 

  • Students use rhythm choices and create sentence stems with rhythmic speech explaining their soundscape.

 

Remedial:

  • Exaggerate environmental challenges by adding dynamics swings, layered rhythms, tempo shifts.

 

 

Credits

Ideas contributed by: Lyn Koonce

*This integrated lesson provides differentiated ideas and activities for educators that are aligned to a sampling of standards. Standards referenced at the time of publishing may differ based on each state’s adoption of new standards.

Revised and copyright:  April 2026 @ ArtsNOW

 

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THE BLUES (OR NOT-SO-BLUE BLUES) 4-5

THE BLUES (OR NOT-SO-BLUE BLUES)

THE BLUES (OR NOT-SO-BLUE BLUES)

Learning Description

Using a twelve-bar blues form, students will create music expressing the blues (or “not the blue blues”) about selected subject content.

 

Learning Targets

GRADE BAND: 4-5
CONTENT FOCUS: MUSIC & SCIENCE
LESSON DOWNLOADS:

Download PDF of this Lesson

"I Can" Statements

“I Can…”

  • I can write lyrics about assigned content using a prescribed form.
  • I can play blues harmony.
  • I can combine music and language to express feelings and ideas.

Essential Questions

  • How can music express feelings and ideas?
  • How can music and language be combined to express feelings and ideas?

 

Georgia Standards

Curriculum Standards

Non-ELA Standards will vary depending on selected content for blues compositions; thus, standards below are offered as ideas only and are not exclusive.

Grade 4:

S4L1 Obtain, evaluate, and communicate information about the roles of organisms and the flow of energy within an ecosystem.

 

Grade 5: S5P3 Obtain, evaluate, and communicate information about magnetism and its relationship to electricity.

Arts Standards

ESGM.PR.1 Sing a varied repertoire of music, alone and with others.

ESGM.PR.2 Perform a varied repertoire of music on instruments, alone and with others.

ESGM.RE.1 Listen to, analyze, and describe music.

ESGM.RE.2 Evaluate music and music performances.

ESGM.CN.2.c Describe and demonstrate performance etiquette and appropriate audience behavior.

 

South Carolina Standards

Curriculum Standards

Non-ELA Standards will vary depending on selected content for blues compositions; thus, standards below are offered as ideas only and are not exclusive.

Grade 4:

4-LS1-1. Construct an argument that plants and animals have internal and external structures that function together in a system to support survival, growth, behavior, and reproduction.

 

Grade 5:

5-ESS3-1. Evaluate potential solutions to problems that individual communities face in protecting the Earth’s resources and environment.

Arts Standards

Anchor Standard 1: I can arrange and compose music.

Anchor Standard 4: I can play instruments alone and with others.

Anchor Standard 9: I can relate music to other arts disciplines, other subjects, and career paths.

 

Key Vocabulary

Content Vocabulary

Non-ELA vocabulary will vary depending on selected content for blues compositions.

Arts Vocabulary

  • Beat - The pulse underlying music
  • Blues music - A genre that evolved from folk music of African Americans in the American South (work songs, field hollers, and spirituals) during the late 1800s
  • Body percussion - Using the body as an instrument; includes patting, clapping, stamping, and snapping
  • Chord - A combination of three or more pitches played at the same time
  • Chord progression - A sequence of chords
  • Form - The organization of a piece (how the music is put together)
  • Harmony - Two or more pitches sounding simultaneously
  • Key - The group of pitches (scale) around which a piece of music revolves
  • Measure - The space between two bar lines
  • Phrase - Musical sentence

 

Materials

  • Boomwhackers (or other pitched instruments)
  • Writing materials (e.g., pencil and paper)
  • Recording of blues music (see suggestions below)
  • Sound production resources (e.g., speaker and phone)

 

 

Instructional Design

Opening/Activating Strategy

  • Using found sound or body percussion, perform a rhythm (or steady beat) for eight beats. Have students echo. Label this rhythm A.
  • Using a different found sound or body percussion, perform a different rhythm for eight beats. Have students echo. Compare and contrast with A. Label this rhythm B.
  • Tell students they will be creating musical compositions using same and different patterns (A and B).

Work Session

  • Play a blues recording and ask students about the mood of the music. Lead them to understand that blues music is often about hardship. Suggested blues pieces are “The Thrill is Gone” (BB King), “One Shoe Blues” (BB King), and “Sweet Home Chicago” (Eric Clapton).
  • While many different blues forms exist, this lesson will focus on the twelve-bar blues.
  • The twelve-bar blues includes three phrases (lines), each with four measures and chords, thereby yielding twelve bars (measures). Twelve-bar blues uses three chords (I, IV, and V) in the following sequence:

I    I   I   I

IV IV I   I

V  IV I   I

  • Display visual of twelve-bar blues (this is one example of twelve-bar blues; other versions also exist). The numbers on the top indicate beats; the roman numerals on the bottom indicate chords.

 

beats   1-2-3-4     1-2-3-4     1-2-3-4    1-2-3-4

chord    I               I                I               I

beats   1-2-3-4     1-2-3-4     1-2-3-4    1-2-3-4

chord   IV              IV             I               I

beats   1-2-3-4     1-2-3-4     1-2-3-4    1-2-3-4

chord   V               IV             I               I

 

  • Have students keep the steady beat using different body percussion for each chord.
    • For example, students pat the steady beat for the I chord, clap for the IV chord, and snap for the V chord.
  • Play the recording and have students perform body percussion to show the chord progression.
  • Display visual showing pitches in the I, IV, and V chords.

 

G       C        D

E        A        B

C        F        G

 

I         IV        V

 

  • Give each student a boomwhacker and practice playing each chord. Then, play the twelve-bar blues, playing four beats for each chord.
    • For example, students playing C, E, and G will play 16 beats in the first phrase (bar) since there are four I chords in the first phrase.
  • Have students listen to the recording to determine the form of the lyrics. (This may take repeated listening.) Lead students to understand the form as A A B (A = first four bars, A is repeated, B = last four bars).
  • Listen to the recording to determine the specific content of the lyrics in A and B phrases (bars). Lead students to understand that A presents a problem, followed by A that repeats the problem (sometimes with a slight variation), and B offers a comment on or twist to what has been presented. All bars end with rhyming words.
  • Divide students into groups and have them write lyrics for their twelve-bar blues. (If students choose, they may write a “not-so-blue blues”, a celebration rather than a commiseration!)
    • Since each phrase (bar) is 16 beats long, the lyrics should present the problem (A) and reflection (B) succinctly and include rhyming words at the end of each bar!
  • Lyrics content can be aligned with subject matter content. For example, groups could write blues (or not-so-blue blues) about the roles of organisms and the flow of energy within an ecosystem.
  • Have groups share their blues (or not-so-blues) compositions (speaking or singing) while other students play the chord progression. Other students listen and assess the group’s adherence to the prescribed musical and lyrical form.
  • For example, were the lyrics in A A B form? Did A present the problem and B respond to it? Did each bar end with rhyming words? Was the chord progression a twelve-bar blues?

 

Closing Reflection

  • Question students about lesson content, including music and content area vocabulary and understanding.

 

Assessments

Formative

  • Through observing and questioning, assess students’ understanding of the twelve-bar blues harmony and lyrics.
  • Through observing, assess students’ ability to play a steady beat using body percussion and boomwhackers.
  • Through observing, assess students’ understanding of academic content while writing lyrics.

Summative

  • Students write and share lyrics reflecting assigned content in prescribed form.
  • Students play the twelve-bar blues.

 

 

Differentiation

Accelerated: 

  • Students explore a different blues form.
  • Students write additional blues lyrics using the same form.
  • Students play two boomwhackers.

 

Remedial:

  • For a student having difficulty playing a steady beat, another student with beat proficiency could gently tap the steady beat on the student’s shoulder.
  • For a student having difficulty playing the boomwhacker at the right time, track the chords on a visual, point to the student (or have another student point to the student) to cue playing the boomwhacker, or pair the student with another student playing the same boomwhacker pitch.

 

Additional Resources

Websites for information on blues:

 

Credits

Ideas contributed by: Dr. Maribeth Yoder-White

*This integrated lesson provides differentiated ideas and activities for educators that are aligned to a sampling of standards. Standards referenced at the time of publishing may differ based on each state’s adoption of new standards.

Revised and copyright:  May 2025 @ ArtsNOW

 

Back to Lessons

THE BLUES (OR NOT-SO-BLUE BLUES) 2-3

THE BLUES (OR NOT-SO-BLUE BLUES)

THE BLUES (OR NOT-SO-BLUE BLUES)

Learning Description

Using a twelve-bar blues form, students will create music expressing the blues (or “not the blue blues”) about selected subject content.

 

Learning Targets

GRADE BAND: 2-3
CONTENT FOCUS: MUSIC & SCIENCE
LESSON DOWNLOADS:

Download PDF of this Lesson

"I Can" Statements

“I Can…”

  • I can write lyrics about assigned content using a prescribed form.
  • I can play blues harmony.
  • I can combine music and language to express feelings and ideas.

Essential Questions

  • How can music express feelings and ideas?
  • How can music and language be combined to express feelings and ideas?

 

Georgia Standards

Curriculum Standards

Non-ELA Standards will vary depending on selected content for blues compositions; thus, standards below are offered as ideas only and are not exclusive.

Grade 2:

S2L1 Obtain, evaluate, and communicate information about the life cycles of different living organisms.

 

Grade 3:

S5L3.b Develop a model to identify and label parts of a plant cell (membrane, wall, cytoplasm, nucleus, chloroplasts) and of an animal cell (membrane, cytoplasm, and nucleus).

Arts Standards

ESGM.PR.1 Sing a varied repertoire of music, alone and with others.

ESGM.PR.2 Perform a varied repertoire of music on instruments, alone and with others.

ESGM.RE.1 Listen to, analyze, and describe music.

ESGM.RE.2 Evaluate music and music performances.

ESGM.CN.2.c Describe and demonstrate performance etiquette and appropriate audience behavior.

 

South Carolina Standards

Curriculum Standards

Non-ELA Standards will vary depending on selected content for blues compositions; thus, standards below are offered as ideas only and are not exclusive.

Grade 2:

2-PS1-4. Construct an argument with evidence that some changes caused by heating or cooling can be reversed and some cannot.

 

Grade 3:

3-PS2-1. Plan and conduct an investigation to provide evidence of the effects of balanced and unbalanced forces on the motion of an object.

Arts Standards

Anchor Standard 1: I can arrange and compose music.

Anchor Standard 4: I can play instruments alone and with others.

Anchor Standard 9: I can relate music to other arts disciplines, other subjects, and career paths.

 

Key Vocabulary

Content Vocabulary

Non-ELA vocabulary will vary depending on selected content for blues compositions.

Arts Vocabulary

  • Beat - The pulse underlying music
  • Blues music - A genre that evolved from folk music of African Americans in the American South (work songs, field hollers, and spirituals) during the late 1800s
  • Body percussion - Using the body as an instrument; includes patting, clapping, stamping, and snapping
  • Chord - A combination of three or more pitches played at the same time
  • Chord progression - A sequence of chords
  • Form - The organization of a piece (how the music is put together)
  • Harmony - Two or more pitches sounding simultaneously
  • Key - The group of pitches (scale) around which a piece of music revolves
  • Measure - The space between two bar lines
  • Phrase - Musical sentence

 

Materials

  • Boomwhackers (or other pitched instruments)
  • Writing materials (e.g., pencil and paper)
  • Recording of blues music (see suggestions below)
  • Sound production resources (e.g., speaker and phone)

 

 

Instructional Design

Opening/Activating Strategy

  • Using found sound or body percussion, perform a rhythm (or steady beat) for eight beats. Have students echo. Label this rhythm A.
  • Using a different found sound or body percussion, perform a different rhythm for eight beats. Have students echo. Compare and contrast with A. Label this rhythm B.
  • Tell students they will be creating musical compositions using same and different patterns (A and B).

Work Session

  • Play a blues recording and ask students about the mood of the music. Lead them to understand that blues music is often about hardship. Suggested blues pieces are “The Thrill is Gone” (BB King), “One Shoe Blues” (BB King), and “Sweet Home Chicago” (Eric Clapton).
  • While many different blues forms exist, this lesson will focus on the twelve-bar blues.
  • The twelve-bar blues includes three phrases (lines), each with four measures and chords, thereby yielding twelve bars (measures). Twelve-bar blues uses three chords (I, IV, and V) in the following sequence:

I    I   I   I

IV IV I   I

V  IV I   I

  • Display visual of twelve-bar blues (this is one example of twelve-bar blues; other versions also exist). The numbers on the top indicate beats; the roman numerals on the bottom indicate chords.

 

beats   1-2-3-4     1-2-3-4     1-2-3-4    1-2-3-4

chord    I               I                I               I

beats   1-2-3-4     1-2-3-4     1-2-3-4    1-2-3-4

chord   IV              IV             I               I

beats   1-2-3-4     1-2-3-4     1-2-3-4    1-2-3-4

chord   V               IV             I               I

 

  • Have students keep the steady beat using different body percussion for each chord.
    • For example, students pat the steady beat for the I chord, clap for the IV chord, and snap for the V chord.
  • Play the recording and have students perform body percussion to show the chord progression.
  • Display visual showing pitches in the I, IV, and V chords.

 

G       C        D

E        A        B

C        F        G

 

I         IV        V

 

  • Give each student a boomwhacker and practice playing each chord. (For second grade students, play only the bottom pitch, the chord root.) Then, play the twelve-bar blues, playing four beats for each chord.
    • For example, students playing C, E, and G will play 16 beats in the first phrase (bar) since there are four I chords in the first phrase. (For second grade students, play only the C for the first 16 beats. If playing boomwhackers and changing chords is too challenging for young students, the teacher can play the chord roots on boomwhackers while students say the names of the chords or the chord roots using a steady beat.)
  • Have students listen to the recording to determine the form of the lyrics. (This may take repeated listening.) Lead students to understand the form as A A B (A = first four bars, A is repeated, B = last four bars).
  • Listen to the recording to determine the specific content of the lyrics in A and B phrases (bars). Lead students to understand that A presents a problem, followed by A that repeats the problem (sometimes with a slight variation), and B offers a comment on or twist to what has been presented. All bars end with rhyming words.
  • Divide students into groups and have them write lyrics for their twelve-bar blues. (If students choose, they may write a “not-so-blue blues”, a celebration rather than a commiseration!)
    • Since each phrase (bar) is 16 beats long, the lyrics should present the problem (A) and reflection (B) succinctly and include rhyming words at the end of each bar! (For second grade students, write the lyrics as a whole group.)
  • Lyrics content can be aligned with subject matter content. For example, groups could write blues (or not-so-blue blues) about the life cycles of different living organisms.
  • Have groups share their blues (or not-so-blues) compositions (speaking or singing) while other students play the chord progression. Other students listen and assess the group’s adherence to the prescribed musical and lyrical form.
    • For example, were the lyrics in A A B form? Did A present the problem and B respond to it? Did each bar end with rhyming words? Was the chord progression a twelve-bar blues?
    • (This step would be eliminated for second grade classes writing lyrics together.)

 

Closing Reflection

  • Question students about lesson content, including music and content area vocabulary and understanding.

 

Assessments

Formative

  • Through observing and questioning, assess students’ understanding of the twelve-bar blues harmony and lyrics.
  • Through observing, assess students’ ability to play a steady beat using body percussion and boomwhackers.
  • Through observing, assess students’ understanding of academic content while writing lyrics.

Summative

  • Students write and share lyrics reflecting assigned content in prescribed form.
  • Students play the twelve-bar blues.

 

 

Differentiation

Accelerated: 

  • Students explore a different blues form.
  • Students write additional blues lyrics using the same form.
  • Students play two boomwhackers.

 

Remedial:

  • For a student having difficulty playing a steady beat, another student with beat proficiency could gently tap the steady beat on the student’s shoulder.
  • For a student having difficulty playing the boomwhacker at the right time, track the chords on a visual, point to the student (or have another student point to the student) to cue playing the boomwhacker, or pair the student with another student playing the same boomwhacker pitch.

 

Additional Resources

Websites for information on blues:

 

Credits

Ideas contributed by: Dr. Maribeth Yoder-White

*This integrated lesson provides differentiated ideas and activities for educators that are aligned to a sampling of standards. Standards referenced at the time of publishing may differ based on each state’s adoption of new standards.

Revised and copyright:  May 2025 @ ArtsNOW

 

Back to Lessons

THE BLUES (OR NOT-SO-BLUE BLUES) K-1

THE BLUES (OR NOT-SO-BLUE BLUES)

THE BLUES (OR NOT-SO-BLUE BLUES)

Learning Description

Using a twelve-bar blues form, students will create music expressing the blues (or “not the blue blues”) about selected subject content.

 

Learning Targets

GRADE BAND: K-1
CONTENT FOCUS: MUSIC & SCIENCE
LESSON DOWNLOADS:

Download PDF of this Lesson

"I Can" Statements

“I Can…”

  • I can write lyrics about assigned content using a prescribed form.
  • I can play blues harmony.
  • I can combine music and language to express feelings and ideas.

Essential Questions

  • How can music express feelings and ideas?
  • How can music and language be combined to express feelings and ideas?

 

Georgia Standards

Curriculum Standards

Non-ELA Standards will vary depending on selected content for blues compositions; thus, standards below are offered as ideas only and are not exclusive.

Kindergarten:

SKP1 Obtain, evaluate, and communicate information to describe objects in terms of the materials they are made of and their physical attributes.

 

Grade 1:

S5E1.a Construct an argument supported by scientific evidence to identify surface features (examples could include deltas, sand dunes, mountains, volcanoes) as being caused by constructive and/or destructive processes (examples could include deposition, weathering, erosion, and impact of organisms).

Arts Standards

ESGM.PR.1 Sing a varied repertoire of music, alone and with others.

ESGM.PR.2 Perform a varied repertoire of music on instruments, alone and with others.

ESGM.RE.1 Listen to, analyze, and describe music.

ESGM.RE.2 Evaluate music and music performances.

ESGM.CN.2.c Describe and demonstrate performance etiquette and appropriate audience behavior.

 

South Carolina Standards

Curriculum Standards

Non-ELA Standards will vary depending on selected content for blues compositions; thus, standards below are offered as ideas only and are not exclusive.

Kindergarten:

K-ESS3-3. Obtain and communicate information to define problems related to human impact on the local environment.

 

Grade 1:

1-LS1-1. Use materials to design a solution to a human problem by mimicking how plants and/or animals use their external parts to help them survive, grow, and meet their needs.

Arts Standards

Anchor Standard 1: I can arrange and compose music.

Anchor Standard 4: I can play instruments alone and with others.

Anchor Standard 9: I can relate music to other arts disciplines, other subjects, and career paths.

 

Key Vocabulary

Content Vocabulary

Non-ELA vocabulary will vary depending on selected content for blues compositions.

Arts Vocabulary

  • Beat - The pulse underlying music
  • Blues music - A genre that evolved from folk music of African Americans in the American South (work songs, field hollers, and spirituals) during the late 1800s
  • Body percussion - Using the body as an instrument; includes patting, clapping, stamping, and snapping
  • Chord - A combination of three or more pitches played at the same time
  • Chord progression - A sequence of chords
  • Form - The organization of a piece (how the music is put together)
  • Harmony - Two or more pitches sounding simultaneously
  • Key - The group of pitches (scale) around which a piece of music revolves
  • Measure - The space between two bar lines
  • Phrase - Musical sentence

 

Materials

  • Boomwhackers (or other pitched instruments)
  • Writing materials (e.g., pencil and paper)
  • Recording of blues music (see suggestions below)
  • Sound production resources (e.g., speaker and phone)

 

 

Instructional Design

Opening/Activating Strategy

  • Using found sound or body percussion, perform a rhythm (or steady beat) for eight beats. Have students echo. Label this rhythm A.
  • Using a different found sound or body percussion, perform a different rhythm for eight beats. Have students echo. Compare and contrast with A. Label this rhythm B.
  • Tell students they will be creating musical compositions using same and different patterns (A and B).

Work Session

  • Play a blues recording and ask students about the mood of the music. Lead them to understand that blues music is often about hardship. Suggested blues pieces are “The Thrill is Gone” (BB King), “One Shoe Blues” (BB King), and “Sweet Home Chicago” (Eric Clapton).
  • While many different blues forms exist, this lesson will focus on the twelve-bar blues.
  • The twelve-bar blues includes three phrases (lines), each with four measures and chords, thereby yielding twelve bars (measures). Twelve-bar blues uses three chords (I, IV, and V) in the following sequence:

I    I   I   I

IV IV I   I

V  IV I   I

  • Display visual of twelve-bar blues (this is one example of twelve-bar blues; other versions also exist). The numbers on the top indicate beats; the roman numerals on the bottom indicate chords.

 

beats   1-2-3-4     1-2-3-4     1-2-3-4    1-2-3-4

chord    I               I                I               I

beats   1-2-3-4     1-2-3-4     1-2-3-4    1-2-3-4

chord   IV              IV             I               I

beats   1-2-3-4     1-2-3-4     1-2-3-4    1-2-3-4

chord   V               IV             I               I

 

  • Have students keep the steady beat using different body percussion for each chord.
    • For example, students pat the steady beat for the I chord, clap for the IV chord, and snap for the V chord.
  • Play the recording and have students perform body percussion to show the chord progression.
  • Display visual showing pitches in the I, IV, and V chords.

 

G       C        D

E        A        B

C        F        G

 

I         IV        V

 

  • Give each student a boomwhacker and practice playing the bottom pitch of each chord. Then, play the twelve-bar blues, playing four beats for each chord.
    • For example, students playing C will play 16 beats in the first phrase (bar) since there are four I chords in the first phrase. (If playing boomwhackers and changing chords is too challenging for students, the teacher can play the chord roots on boomwhackers while students say the names of the chords or the chord roots using a steady beat.)
  • Have students listen to the recording to determine the form of the lyrics. (This may take repeated listening.) Lead students to understand the form as A A B (A = first four bars, A is repeated, B = last four bars).
  • Listen to the recording to determine the specific content of the lyrics in A and B phrases (bars). Lead students to understand that A presents a problem, followed by A that repeats the problem (sometimes with a slight variation), and B offers a comment on or twist to what has been presented. All bars end with rhyming words.
  • As a class, have students write lyrics for their twelve-bar blues. (If students choose, they may write a “not-so-blue blues”, a celebration rather than a commiseration!)
    • Since each phrase (bar) is 16 beats long, the lyrics should present the problem (A) and reflection (B) succinctly and include rhyming words at the end of each bar!
  • Lyrics content can be aligned with subject matter content. For example, students could write blues (or not-so-blue blues) about how constructive and destructive forces create deltas, sand dunes, mountains, and volcanoes.
  • Have students perform their blues (or not-so-blues) compositions (speaking or singing) together.

 

Closing Reflection

  • Question students about lesson content, including music and content area vocabulary and understanding.

 

Assessments

Formative

  • Through observing and questioning, assess students’ understanding of the twelve-bar blues harmony and lyrics.
  • Through observing, assess students’ ability to play a steady beat using body percussion and boomwhackers.
  • Through observing, assess students’ understanding of academic content while writing lyrics.

Summative

  • Students write and share lyrics reflecting assigned content in prescribed form.
  • Students play the twelve-bar blues.

 

 

Differentiation

Accelerated: 

  • Students explore a different blues form.
  • Students write additional blues lyrics using the same form.
  • Students play all pitches in each chord.

 

Remedial:

  • For a student having difficulty playing a steady beat, another student with beat proficiency could gently tap the steady beat on the student’s shoulder.
  • For a student having difficulty playing the boomwhacker at the right time, track the chords on a visual, point to the student (or have another student point to the student) to cue playing the boomwhacker, or pair the student with another student playing the same boomwhacker pitch.

 

Additional Resources

Websites for information on blues:

 

Credits

Ideas contributed by: Dr. Maribeth Yoder-White

*This integrated lesson provides differentiated ideas and activities for educators that are aligned to a sampling of standards. Standards referenced at the time of publishing may differ based on each state’s adoption of new standards.

Revised and copyright:  May 2025 @ ArtsNOW

 

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SING ME A STORY 4-5

SING ME A STORY

SING ME A STORY

Learning Description

In this lesson, students will explore how music contributes to the meaning of a story through the use of storybooks that were inspired by songs.

 

Learning Targets

GRADE BAND: 4-5
CONTENT FOCUS: MUSIC & ELA
LESSON DOWNLOADS:

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"I Can" Statements

“I Can…”

  • I can use musical vocabulary to explain what I hear in a song.
  • I can use good posture, breath support, and accurate pitch while singing.
  • Grade 4: I can explain how images and music add meaning to a story.
  • Grade 5: I can compare and contrast a print text and a multimedia version of the same text.

Essential Questions

  • How does analyzing and evaluating music help me understand its meaning?
  • How can I use my voice to express emotions and communicate a message?
  • Grade 4: What do images and music add to a story?
  • Grade 5: How does reading a text compare to listening to and singing a song?

 

Georgia Standards

Curriculum Standards

Grade 4:

4.P.AC.1.d Describe, analyze, and evaluate the design and organization of the text, explaining how specific formats, structures, patterns, and features influence the audience, contribute to the text’s accessibility, and support the text’s purpose.

 

Grade 5:

5.P.AC.1.d Describe, analyze, and evaluate the design and organization of the text, explaining how specific formats, structures, patterns, and features influence the audience, contribute to the text’s accessibility, and support the text’s purpose.

Arts Standards

ESGM.PR.1 Sing a varied repertoire of music, alone and with others.

ESGM.RE.1 Listen to, analyze, and describe music.

ESGM.RE.2 Evaluate music and music performances.

ESGM.CN.2.c Describe and demonstrate performance etiquette and appropriate audience behavior.

 

South Carolina Standards

Curriculum Standards

Grade 4:

ELA.4.AOR.10.1 Determine and explain how visuals (e.g., illustrations, photographs, maps) and/or multimedia elements (e.g., video, audio) contribute to the meaning of a print or non-print text.

 

Grade 5:

ELA.5.AOR.10.1 Compare and contrast a print format of a text (e.g., literary, informational) to a non-print format (e.g., film, image, performance), explaining each media’s portrayal of the subject.

Arts Standards

Anchor Standard 3: I can sing alone and with others.

Anchor Standard 6: I can analyze music.

Anchor Standard 7: I can evaluate music.

 

Key Vocabulary

Content Vocabulary

  • Determine and explain - Find out and make clear by describing
  • Compare and contrast - Identify what is similar; what is different
  • Texts - Can include, but is not limited to, materials such as books, magazines, newspapers, movies, paintings, television shows, songs, political cartoons, online materials, advertisements, maps, digital media, infographics, podcasts, charts, graphs, diagrams, notes, captions, lab reports, scenarios, and works of art

Arts Vocabulary

  • Lyrics - Words to a song
  • Instrumental - Music with instruments and no lyrics or singing
  • Pitch - The highness or lowness of sound
  • Rhythm - Long and short sounds and silences
  • Dynamics - Loud and soft sounds; volume
  • Tempo - The speed of the beat
  • Timbre -The distinctive quality of sounds; the tone color or special sound that makes one instrument or voice sound different from another
  • Form - The organization of a piece (how the music is put together)
  • Articulation - How a performer moves from one note to the next; how notes are connected or not

 

Materials

  • Projection board with internet access
  • Implements for completing writing assignments
  • Graphic organizer for comparison
  • Printed song lyrics
  • Song recording
  • Story book
  • Harvard Project Zero Thinking Routines

 

 

Instructional Design

Opening/Activating Strategy

Hear, Think, Wonder (modification of See, Think, Wonder Harvard Project Zero Thinking Routine)

  • Prepare students for a “Hear, Think, Wonder” listening activity by telling students they are going to listen to a song excerpt (do not reveal title yet!) (**Song and book suggestions are in the Additional Resources section of the lesson plan) and answer three prompts. Students will need implements for documenting their responses. **Make sure only the music is played without showing the accompanying video! This practice allows deeper analysis of the musical sounds!
    • “I hear”: What sounds are heard, not what they think they hear. Musical sounds can include pitch (high/low sounds), rhythm (long/short), dynamics (loud/soft), tempo (fast/slow), timbre (instruments), form (same [repetition], different [contrasting]), articulation (smooth/detached).
    • “I think”: What does the music make you think about? Draw an appropriate image that the music makes you think about.
    • “I wonder”: What “wonderings” do you have? Wonderings are generally questions.
  • Students listen without talking the first time and answer the first prompt (I hear) using words or images.
    • Tell students to “Turn and Talk” about their response with a neighbor.
    • Call on students to share responses with the class.
      • Restate students’ responses. All responses are acceptable.
    • Students listen without talking a second time and answer the second prompt (“I think” and draw) using words and images.
      • Tell students to “Turn and Talk” about their responses with a neighbor.
      • Call on students to share responses with the class.
        • Restate students’ responses. All responses are acceptable.
        • Ask students, “What did you hear in the music to make you think about …?” or “What did you hear in the music to make you draw…?” to encourage deeper connections to the music.
      • Discuss how students’ drawings help them understand the song’s meaning.
      • Students listen without talking a third time and answer the third prompt (I wonder) using words or images. **The “I think” and I wonder” prompts can be combined into one listening event instead of two separate events.
        • Tell students “Turn and Talk” about their responses with a neighbor.
        • Call on students to share responses with the class.
          • Restate students’ responses. All responses are acceptable.
          • Tell students that they are going to be learning how images, words, and music contribute to the meaning of text.

Work Session

  • Provide students with the printed lyrics of the song they just listened to. Read the lyrics together. Help students annotate key words, phrases and imagery.
    • For younger students, read a selection, such as a verse or a chorus, out loud.
  • Discuss:
    • What message do the lyrics tell?
    • What words or phrases stand out?
    • Discuss how the images help tell the message.
  • Play the full audio version of the song with lyrics. Students listen without talking and answer “How does hearing the music with lyrics add to your understanding of the message?”.
    • Tell students to “Turn and Talk” about their responses with a neighbor.
    • Call on students to share their responses with the class.
      • Restate students’ responses. All responses are acceptable.
    • Play the song with lyrics again while students sing along. Teacher reminds students to demonstrate good posture, breath support, and accurate pitch while singing.
    • Display the storybook that accompanies the song. Tell students that the book was inspired by the song.
      • Play the song version of the book the first time while students listen and watch.
      • Play the song version of the book a second time and encourage students to sing along. Teacher reminds students to demonstrate good posture, breath support, and accurate pitch while singing.
    • Discuss how the visuals in the book help students understand the song’s meaning.
      • Document responses on the board.
    • Ask students which format (printed lyrics only, song with lyrics, illustrations in the book accompanied with music) did they prefer? Why?
      • Students document their responses then share their responses with the class.
    • 4th Grade: Ask students to explain how each media format adds meaning; have them identify what each medium added.
    • 5th Grade: Have students complete a graphic organizer, such as a Venn diagram, comparing the media formats to encourage deeper comparisons of the media’s portrayal and effectiveness.

 

Closing Reflection

  • 4th Grade: Have students explain how each media format adds meaning; have them identify what each medium added.
  • 5th Grade: Have students share their comparisons of the different media’s portrayals.

 

Assessments

Formative

  • Teacher observation of students’ engagement and participation in “Turn and Talk”, class discussions, and singing
  • Responses to Hear, Think, Wonder

Summative

  • Written responses to reflective and discussion questions
  • 5th grade: Completion of comparison graphic organizer

 

 

Differentiation

Accelerated: 

  • Students can create their own short song story with illustrations.

 

Remedial:

  • Provide sentence stems and graphic organizers.
  • Allow multiple listenings to the music.
  • Provide individual copies of the text.
  • Allow students to draw images for responses instead of words.
  • Allow students to work with a partner.

 

Additional Resources

 

Credits

Ideas contributed by: Dr. Rue S. Lee-Holmes

*This integrated lesson provides differentiated ideas and activities for educators that are aligned to a sampling of standards. Standards referenced at the time of publishing may differ based on each state’s adoption of new standards.

Revised and copyright:  May 2025 @ ArtsNOW

 

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