Isaac Mahoney

CONTENT AND ACHIEVEMENT STANDARDS

Singing alone and with others while maintaining steady beat, rhythm,
and pitch.

CLASS GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

By the end of this lesson, students will have achieved a higher

understanding of pitch and rhythm as well as gaining experience
singing different parts within the same song.
Introduce the concept of a descant line above a melody line.

MATERIALS

Down the River

PROCEDURES

QUESTION: Have you ever taken a trip to or spent time on a river? If

so, what kinds of activities did you do?
Students will respond to the question.
Explain the song Down the River.
Students will be asked to listen and maintain a beat as the instructor
demonstrates Down the River.
o While the instructor demonstrates Down the River, students
should listen for specific lyrics such as what is being done on the
river and what river is being described in the song.
QUESTION: What are they doing on the river? What River are they on?
o They are just floating down the Ohio River.
Students will repeat small chunks of Down the River as presented by
the instructor. Portions will being 2 to 3 measures each.
Students will repeat the previous step using larger portions as
instructed. Portions will be twice the length of the previous step.
Students will repeat larger portions again, this time echoing half of the
song.
Students will sing along with the instructor as they sing Down the
River in its entirety.
Instructor will announce that will sing the song one more time, warning
the class that he or she will do something differently. Students should
observe the difference.
Students will sing along for the first half of Down the River. Where the
song divides into two parts, the instructor will sing the descant line
above the melody line being sung by the students.

QUESTION: What did I do differently this time? Compare what I sang

with what you sang.
Students will share their thoughts on what was done differently. They
should observe that the instructor sang a line higher in pitch than what
they sang themselves. They should also observe that the rhythm and
the words were the same.
Students will now echo the instructor with the descant line alone.
The class will sing Down the River one final time, with half of the
class singing the descant line and the other half singing the melody
line.
EXIT TICKET: On a note card, recall what a descant line was and how
it was similar and different to the melody line.

ASSESSMENT OF GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

Students will have their understanding of the concept from this lesson tested
by defining the concept in their own words before leaving class.
FOLLOW UP LESSONS
Future lessons will include other two part songs such as: Canons,
Harmonization, and Ostinati Patterns.