Lesson One Information Form

Lesson # : 1/3 Date of lesson: 11/16/18

Objectives
Students will be able to:
• Play three- and four-note tonal patterns based upon pitches of Eb and Bb major triads by
echoing teacher’s patterns (P)
• Improvise tonal patterns in response to teacher’s patterns by responding with notes of
the same triad in a different sequence from that of the teacher (C, P)
• Outline the chord structure of the given song by playing broken chords in a given pattern
(P)
• Outline the chord structure of the given song by improvising on only chord tones in new
patterns on given rhythm (C, P)

Assessments:
Instrumental performance assessment

Materials:
Instruments

Class Groupings:
Full Group

Teaching Plan:

• Play Eb and have students play and hold Eb to begin. (P)

• Echo patterns on Eb triad: I play tonal patterns using only notes of the Eb major triad,
which the students have learned as the I/tonic chord since our song is in Eb major.
Students echo as a full group my patterns on their instruments as I cue them. (P)
• Continue echo pattern activity, now including some patterns on a Bb major triad (which
students have learned as the V/dominant chord in this context). (P)
• Now ask students to improvise tonal pattern responses. Explain that responses to each of
my patterns should use only notes of the chord I used for that pattern, but they can be in
any order. I use previously established cues (two hands for group, one for individuals) to
request either full group or individual improvisation responses. (C, P)
• Review bass line we have been working with: I play it, then they play it. (P)
• Demonstrate playing through bass line with the addition of broken chords for each
occurrence of the I chord (we will initially continue playing only the root for the V chord).
Briefly explain we are adding the other notes of the I chord instead of only playing the
root. Students should be able to hear this, but theoretical explanation helps make some of
them more comfortable with the lack of notation. (P)
• Have students play this pattern following my sung preparatory phrase. Repeat and
provide feedback as necessary until performance is mostly consistent. (P)
• Demonstrate adding broken chords to V chord sections as well.
• Have students play through entire bass line on given broken chord pattern following my
sung preparatory phrase. Repeat and provide feedback as necessary until performance is
mostly consistent. (P)
• Explain that for the next activity, students can play the notes in any order, with the limit
that they music remain within the same harmonic structure (e.g. use only notes from the I
chord when on the I chord). Demonstrate.
• Start on one end of the row of students and go down the line, each student improvising
one repetition of the chord sequence (I I V I). They should play one note per macrobeat
and play appropriate chord tones, but may repeat notes. (C, P)
 Lesson One Analysis

I monitored student learning in this lesson through informal assessment of playing

performance or oral/signal responses on each task. I asked only for full group responses in
this lesson because students did not have enough experience yet with the activities to
expect them to respond individually, but the group is small enough that I could easily
identify individuals’ sounds and responses. The students questions and body language also
helped me to monitor their level of understanding. In addition, I checked for
comprehension with questioning and gave students some options in their mode of
participation. For example by asking them to try the full broken chord exercise the first
time only if they felt comfortable (this is shown on the video). This way, students who were
not yet confident with the expectation could have their peers as a model before attempting
it themselves.
In this lesson, students demonstrated ability to echo patterns on an Eb major triad
on their instruments. Aural skill development was shown by the improvement in the
group’s success in this task from the beginning to the end of the segment.
The next part of the lesson proved to be much more challenging for the students
than I anticipated. I overestimated their ability to hear changes in harmonic function from
their prior musical experience, so I chose to add activities to the lesson to focus on that skill
before asking them again to identify the function of my pattern and improvise a response. I
first asked them to hold up either one or five fingers to signal if they heard me play notes
from the I or V chord. This improved understanding somewhat and they made progress in
their ability to identify what they heard, but it was still difficult for them. I thought they
might have more success if they did not have to hold tonic in their audiation for as long
between patterns, so I tried a second new activity.
In this next step, I played two patterns with only a brief pause between them and
asked the students to identify whether they were of the same or different chord. This
seemed to be appropriate for their level of learning.
Both impromptu activities felt like games to the students. They celebrated
enthusiastically when they answered correctly and focused intensely on getting better at
the tasks. Their interest in figuring out the answers is almost tangible in the video clip,
especially when there is disagreements and students can be heard exclaiming, “Oh!”,
“Yesss,” and “I got it!” Activities like this would be much more effective implemented in
class regularly in short segments so students gain aural awareness of chord function over
time. Nevertheless, the tasks helped the students learn even in our condensed setting and
they led to valuable dialogue about the tendencies of different functions, what they “feel”
like (e.g. which function feels more final and what they anticipate before a resolution), and
connection a previous lesson about the concept of “tonic.” They were also fun for the
students and fantastic for engagement.
Next, we moved to the broken chord exercise. My goal with this activity was to help
students feel comfortable moving between chord tones in addition to being aware of the
chords. In the previous class, we did the same exercise, but only added the third and fifth
to the I chord, continuing to play only the root during the V chord. They made the
connection to completing the broken V chord more easily than I expected and quickly
understood how to complete the pattern. This transitional learning process is shown on the
video.
 Since we spent much more time differentiating chords than anticipated, I only had
time to explain the last activity I had planned: playing chord tones on macrobeats again, but
with students improvising the order within each function. I suggested they try it on their
own over the weekend if they have time. I will plan for additional time on that activity in
the next lesson. The horn student who sat further from the camera requested during the
lesson that I continue holding up one or five fingers to help show them the chord changes.
After seeing how challenging it was for them to hear changes in function, I believe this will
be a helpful tool to reinforce aural input they’re receiving, as well as to help them feel more
secure in their performance experience. In previous lessons, most have been successful
trading improvised patterns of the proper length, but they struggle more when they have to
sense the length of rhythms in addition thinking about notes.
 Lesson Two Information Form

Lesson # : 2/3 Date of lesson: 11/19/18

Objectives
Students will be able to:
• Play melody and bass line in groups simultaneously. (P)
• Improvise a melody over the given bass line while using only chord tones and
maintaining a steady pulse. (C, P)
• Use a rubric to assess their current level of improvisation and guide their own progress
toward their performance (A)

Assessments:
Instrumental performance assessment

Materials:
Instruments
Improvisation rubric

Class Groupings: Circle all that apply:

Full Group
Small Groups
Individuals

Teaching Plan:

• Review: play melody previously taught, then have students play it. (P)
• Repeat and provide feedback as necessary
• Possible strategies for remediation:
• Sing and have students sing melody
• Have students move to beats
• Break melody into parts
• Have students play bass line for review. (P)
• Repeat and provide feedback as necessary
• Use hand signals for guidance
• Students play bass line while I play melody. (P)
• Divide students into two groups. One group plays melody while other plays bass line.
Trade roles. (P)
• Establish that each person will solo over the length of one bass line repetition.
• Identify and demonstrate three options for improvisation:
• Play one note per chord and vary rhythms
• Play constant rhythm but change between chord tones more frequently than chord
changes
• Improvise on both varying rhythm and pitches (still chord tones only)
• Explain the process of taking turns for the performance.
• Practice melodic improvisation over opposite group bass line, and performance
procedure (C, P)
• Distribute and discuss improvisation rubrics (A)
Rubric for Beginning Improvisation

Beginning Developing Good Excellent

Tonal Student Student Student plays only Student arranges

demonstrates some demonstrates good chord tones and chord tones in
awareness of chord awareness of chord navigates changes varied order to
tones. tones and appropriately. create a coherent
navigates changes melody.
appropriately with
few discrepancies.
Rhythmic Student Student Student plays Student creates
demonstrates some demonstrates good clearly in time. rhythmic phrasing
awareness of awareness of pulse while staying
pulse. with few rhythmic clearly in time.
discrepancies.
Artistic Melodic ideas may Student Student draws Student draws
or may not be occasionally basic ideas from ideas from original
connected to connects ideas to original melody melody while
original melody original melody and uses some creating their own
and contain little and demonstrates variation of style with appropriate
clarity of style and some awareness of and articulation. and nuanced style
articulation. style and and articulation.
articulation.
 Lesson Two Analysis

In this lesson, students began learning to improvise a melodic phrase over the bass
line they had learned. As seventh grade band students who learned to play their
instruments relatively recently, their first attempts at improvisation were not all polished,
but they demonstrated evidence of learning. Examples of these first improvised phrases are
heard in the video from the horn player further from the camera and the bassoonist. The
horn player struggled with finding the tonal center during this attempt, but it is clear that
he was aware of when the tonal function changed. The bassoon player displayed
surprisingly mature tonal and rhythmic performance for her first try at improvisation. Both
showed evidence of learning by demonstrating concepts from the Series of Lessons, albeit
with different levels of success in their initial attempts.
Students did not learn to successfully play the melody and bass line in groups
simultaneously. Although they had already learned to play the melody by ear, they did not
retain it as well as I expected. I spent some time reviewing the rote teaching process and
the students made some progress, but I decided it was more important to spend time on
the main point of the unit, improvisation. I therefore altered the lesson and performance
plan so I would play the melody over the students’ accompaniment to introduce the theme
before the students’ improvised phrases.
The performers received the improvisation rubrics at the end of this lesson. These
rubrics provided written guidelines to help them understand the main tasks involved in
improvisation and the goals of the performance. We did not have time for extended
discussion of the rubrics, but they reinforced in written form the information I had
expressed orally in the lesson.
Students’ questions and dialogue also demonstrated their learning. The clarinetist in
the group, for example, pointed out that they could improve balance by having the people
performing the bass line play more softly so the soloists could more easily be heard. She
did this immediately after their first chance to practice the process, before I made any
comments. It showed not only that she was thinking critically about the music and
assessing the performances, but that she made a connection between our task and her
prior knowledge about melody and accompaniment parts.
As in Lesson One, my main form of monitoring student progress was informal
assessment of playing performance on each task. In this lesson, I had the opportunity to
hear students playing both individually and in groups, so I could make more detailed
observations of individual progress and I could be certain performers were not simply
imitating those around them for their solos. Checks for understanding, questions, dialogue,
body language, and providing choices all helped inform my instruction as well. For
instance, after my instruction and melodic demonstration and before students’ first
attempts at taking a solo phrase, I asked if they would like me to model soloing while some
students played the bass line, but the horn player who sat further from the camera
exclaimed, “No! I want to try it!” (as seen on the video). Although I would not take his word
as everyone’s, his eagerness to play showed me that he could at least attempt the process
and that would help anyone who was less confident to understand the objective. In other
cases, I was happy to see that students were quite comfortable asking questions and letting
me know when they were confused so I could clarify elements. I hope I can foster that same
sense of openness and safety in my own classrooms.
 As discussed above, my assessment of student progress led me to decide that I
would introduce our original melody in the performance, which is part of Lesson Three. I
gave them the option of playing the melody with me if they chose, but their improvised
phrases were enough for them to think about. Their performance in the lesson also
reinforced that my signaling chord changes would be a helpful guide and I confirmed for
them when asked that I would continue doing that in the performance.
 Lesson Three Information Form

Lesson # : 3/3 Date of lesson: 11/20/18

Objectives
Students will be able to:
• Improvise a melodic phrase over a bass line for an audience. (C, P)
• Perform a learned bass line in a group to accompany a soloist. (P)
• Reflect on successes and areas of improvement in their performance. (A)
• Self-assess using a rubric as a guide. (A)

Assessments:
Improvisation performance rubric

Materials:
Instrument
Improvisation rubric

Class Groupings:
Full Group
Small Groups
Individuals

Teaching Plan:
• Review plan for performance and procedure for taking turns soloing.
• Review options and objectives for content of improvisations.
• Practice performance process once before audience arrives. (C, P)
• Briefly explain to audience (cooperating teacher and students in the class who did not
choose to participate in the project) what the students have been learning and what they
will demonstrate in the performance.
• Perform. (C, P)
• Discussion with performers. (A)
• Include topics such as:
• What went well in your solo performance?
• What do you see on the rubric that you feel you achieved?
• What would you work to improve if you could do it again?
 Lesson Three Analysis

In this lesson, students demonstrated ability to improvise for an audience a melodic

phrase over a bass line and to accompany other performers by playing the bass line as a
group. All of the students demonstrate these skills in the performance video.
During the learning process, the female tuba player frequently interacted with my
musical demonstrations with body percussion and beatboxing and the students asked if
she could beatbox in the performance, expecting me to reject the idea. Instead, I told them
we could easily incorporate that. They were excited and I was happy to have a way to
engage them and their individual interests more deeply in the project. The tubist provided
rhythmic accompaniment to the final repetition of the melody, though much more reserved
than she had been in class.
The rehearsal round before the performance was shaky as the students were
nervous. They played better when the audience arrived, although they were still more
hesitant than they had been the day before. Far from being a negative, however, this simply
demonstrates that they took the performance seriously and wanted to do well in front of
their peers and teacher. The experience will help them develop genuine performance skills.
I was quite pleasantly surprised by the quality of our post-performance discussion.
Students felt positive about their performance while also stating specific areas for
improvement and incorporating criteria from the rubric as well as outside knowledge in
their responses. Several examples of their comments can be heard in the video. The male
tubist noted that rhythm was an area of difficulty, for instance, while the bassoonist said
that she could use help on articulations, and the oboist was proud of her tonal
improvement. The comments were specific and reached across all areas of the rubric,
demonstrating that students were truly practicing quality listening and assessment skills.
I assessed students formally from the recording of the final performance using the
rubric that I designed for the activity. I also monitored their engagement during the
discussion and expanded upon their ideas so the conversation unfolded naturally. If I were
to have future lessons with this group, I would give them many more chances to improvise
to gain experience under similar guidelines but with their new personal goals in mind.