My first day in the classroom I had 3 goals:
1) to convince the kids that what we would be doing together was going to be fun.
2) to introduce music in a unique way.
3) to help the students listen with new ears.
I prepared a lesson about Peer Gynt. I started off by playing "In the Hall of the Mountain King". I told the students to put their heads down on the desk and listen to the story that the music is telling them. The students quietly listened and were very excited when I gave them paper and the instructions to draw the story they hear as they listen a second time. The kids were drawing furiously trying to finish their story by the end of the song. "Who wants to share their story?". All 18 hands shot up. Here are a few:
Several of the kids had imagined a story with some type of mouse chase. I wonder if this is because of the accelerando at the end of the piece. Here is one of the mouse drawings:
Other students began telling stories of races, of fights over a teddy bear, of aliens etc. Finally a student raised his hand and said "I know the whole story, can I tell it?". He told his rendition of Peer Gynt and I afterwards added the details he missed. I told about how Peer went to the troll palace inside of the mountain and tried to escape so he was chased down by the trolls.
We listened another time looking at the music map. I asked the students to tell me what the composer used in the music to tell the story. "Different instruments!" "Loud and soft!" and "Fast and slow!" were some of their answers. We listened again following along with this listening map.
The last time, I had them all stand up and follow along with the music by doing "head and shoulders knees and toes" along with the music. They were totally worn out and laughing by the end of the lesson because of how fast it gets at the end.
This lesson ended up being very effective because of what the students were able to learn:
1) that composers tell stories through music by changing the dynamics, tempo and timbre.
2) when we active listen to music we can hear stories and emotions in the music.
3) Listening to music and participating in music is fun.
4) There is no wrong way to listen to or interpret music.
Several of these points relate well to some concepts we will further emphasize in the future linking music to language arts. This was a fun first lesson and a great intro to what we will be doing for the rest of the semester.