A Lesson Plan for Teachers on Music and Musicology

National Standards: (6) Students should be able to listen to, analyze and describe music. (7) Students should be able to evaluate musical performances.

Instructional Materials: Stereo, Recording of Ludwig Van Beethoven’s 5th Symphony, Handouts of reviews of the initial performances, Computer with access to the internet and Microsoft Excel. Think sheets to include the following questions: (a) Every expert was once a beginner. How can you become an expert in talking about music? (b) What languages are used to describe music? (c) Can music terms be used to describe things other than music? How or why not?

Problem Statement: When listening to music, there are many times when we may not understand everything that is happening or we may not be able to verbally express what we hear. Many people only define their musical taste by songs they like and songs they dislike. By identifying and describing complex music terms, we will be able to better understand the music we listen to and be able to explain what we hear and how it makes us feel to others.

Computer Integration: Since music terminology is awkward and difficult to understand, we will create a master list of difficult musical words in Microsoft Excel and then define them using the internet.

Results Presentation: Each student will present a printed spreadsheet to the class with their list of 30 words to describe music. This is the list they choose to investigate. After all presentations have been made, students can then amend their lists if they are inspired by their peers.

Lesson Introduction: The class will begin with the teacher reading a verbose criticism of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony (but the piece of music will not be identified). The review will feature music terminology and expressions in multiple languages. Then the class will listen to the opening section of the piece of music after the teacher gives the composer and title. Finally, the teacher will re-read the review so that the students can hear it in context with the music. The teacher will tell the students that after this three lesson project, each student will be able to write a similar review on a different piece of music.

Computer Activities: Prior to using the computers, students will brainstorm a list of musical terms already learned and words they have heard describing music. Once at the computers, the students will search for more musical terms and descriptors to add to their list. After that section of computer research is complete, access to the internet will be blocked and students will have time to input their lists into Microsoft Excel and format the document in any way they choose.

Supporting Activities: In addition to the exposure to musical criticism and descriptions in class, students will have access to supplemental materials including copies of reviews of music and lists of commonly used terms in music theory which they can have access to after their research task is completed.

Culminating Activity: Students will present their list to the class, one at a time. They will show how they formatted their document, then read their list. While listening to presentations, students should add any words they wish to add to their lists making sure they have exactly 30.

Implementation Plan: During the internet computer time, in addition to the use of firewalls, the teacher will randomly view each monitor for a screen shot to ensure students are staying on track keeping the focus of the project. The teacher will have a list of suggested websites to search if students are having difficulty finding their musical terms.

Assessment: The following is a rubric that will be used to grade this lesson on a 20 point scale. Each section will be graded 1 to 5, 5 being the highest point total making a perfect score, 20.

Complete Format of List in Excel

Number of Words in the List (30)

Level of Difficulty of Words

Research time used appropriately

Total

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