GRADE II Shenandoah - Listening Lesson

Skylar Aichinger
Listening Selection: Making Music: Grade 2 Shenandoah - Composer: Unknown (folk song)

Lesson Sequence Number: 2: Students are familiar with High/low pitches, upward/downward lines, and steps, skips, and repeated pitches. Primary Musical Concept: 1. Pitch a. Contour Materials: National Standards: 6.)Listening to, analyzing, and describing music. 7.)Evaluating music and music performances. 9.)Understanding Music in relation to history and culture Paper boats Crayons Handouts (listening maps) Big foam boat

Skills Needed: Singing Playing Moving X Behavioral Objectives Addressed: The students will accurately trace the contour of a melody on a listening map. The students will raise and lower a boat to demonstrate contour accurately through the song. Creating Listening X Reading/Writing X

Procedure:
PREPARE the listeners: Opening Set - Discussion of the history of Oh, Shenandoah.
Can anybody name any Rivers? What do did you guys do on that river? Show video of the CALM river: http://youtu.be/lmqsPSzNX_c What type of words describe this river? Small waves -- consistent and steady

Show video of RAPIDS: http://youtu.be/H_DmrgSorg0 What type of words describe this river? Big jumps, up and down

Well today we are going to learn an old american folk song named Shenandoah This is a song that sailors would sing on river boats while they fished and carried cargo along the river.

1. Listen to the music

a. Students will watch the teachers boat on the listening map in the front of the room for the first 40 seconds of the piece. 3. Question (handout papers)

a. What did you notice about the way my boat moved? Sometimes it went up, down, sometimes it stayed still... 4. Activate the learning
a. Students will follow their listening map worksheet by pointing to pitch and

contour on their handouts.

4. Question

a. Point to a place on your map where the pitches seemed to go higher. Lower?
Can anyone point to a place where there might be skips or repeated on the listening map?

b. Does anyone know what we call all of these skips, steps, and repeated notes? This is what we call contour. Contour is the way the melody moves and
how it moves.

5. Activate the learning a. The students will raise and lower their boats in the air while they listen. (moving around the room) They will follow the contour of the melody. b. They will watch the listening map again.

6. Evaluate (& listen) a. Observe the students recognition of contour by observing the raising and lowering of students boats. 7. Question
a. Describe the contour of this melody. Is it mostly stepwise or does it have a

lot of leaps?
b. Do you think Shenandoah is a fast or slow river based of the music we just

heard about the river?

c. Would this river be rough or smooth based on the contour of the melody

and the music heard? 8. REVIEW or closing statements: Today we talked about contour. a. How did we show the contour of this melody By raising and lowering boats b. What types of changes did we show in the contour? Steps, Leaps, and repeated notes c. Was this part of the melody mostly stepwise or full of leaps? Stepwise d. How did we define contour? Steps, leaps, and repeated notes 9. Evaluate (& listen) a. On the back of the boats, students will draw their own line showing the contour of 1 line of melody.
Future lessons: Students will listen to, describe, and demonstrate pieces that use more complex contours and melody lines with accompaniment.