Grade 9, Unit 3: Music as inspiration

 
Criterion B: developing skills
i. Demonstrate the acquisition and development of the skills and techniques of the art
form studied.
ii. Demonstrate the application of skills and techniques to create, perform and/or present
art.

Level Descriptor

  Demonstrates ​limited​ acquisition and development of the skills and techniques of the art form studied.
1-2  Demonstrates ​limited​ application of skills and techniques to create, perform and/or present art.

  Demonstrates ​adequate​ acquisition and development of the skills and techniques of the art form studied.
3-4 
Demonstrates ​adequate​ application of the skills and techniques to create, perform and/or present art.

  Demonstrates ​substantial​ acquisition and development of the skills and techniques of the art form studied.
5-6  Demonstrates ​substantial​ application of skills and techniques to create, perform and/or present art.

  Demonstrates​ excellent​ acquisition and development of the skills and techniques of the art form studied.
7-8 
Demonstrates​ excellent​ application of skills and techniques to create, perform and/or present art.

Student’s Assessment: I think I should get 7 because my singing part is really hard for me, it is really high and
there are really high pitches, I am not good at singing high pitches, so I practised so hard to reach the high pitch.
Also the beat and rhythm of the song, it is fast and the beat is matching with the melody in a different way, I also
worked really hard to make it.

Teacher’s Assessment: ​6
Nice job on your final performance! Perfect timing on your second verse. You weren't scared at all of that
high note, good for you! Next time, to be more successful, spend more time in classes on your skills
development, practicing your singing every single class.

 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
Criterion D: Responding
i. Construct meaning and transfer learning to new settings
ii. Create an artistic response that intends to reflect or impact on the world around them
iii. Critique the artwork of self and others.

Level Descriptor

  Demonstrates ​limited​ ability to construct meaning and transfer learning to new settings.
1-2 
Demonstrates ​limited ​ability to create music that reflects or impacts the world around them.

Demonstrates​ limited​ ability to critique the artwork of self and others.

  Demonstrates​ adequate​ ability to construct meaning and transfer learning to new settings.
3-4 
Demonstrates ​adequate ​ability to create music that reflects or impacts the world around them.

Demonstrates ​adequate ​ability to critique the artwork of self and others.

  Demonstrates​ substantial​ ability to construct meaning and transfer learning to new settings.
5-6 
Demonstrates ​substantial ​ability to create music that reflects or impacts the world around them.

Demonstrates ​substantial ​ability to critique the artwork of self and others.

  Demonstrates ​excellent​ ability to construct meaning and transfer learning to new settings.
7-8 
Demonstrates​ excellent ​ability to create music that reflects or impacts the world around them.

Demonstrates​ excellent ​ability to critique the artwork of self and others.

Student’s Assessment: 6 because I asked the audience how they feel while listening to our performance, they say
they understand what we are trying to express and they are moved, but I think they are not really being that
happy as we expect them to be.

Teacher’s Assessment: 7
You articulated and communicated your group’s purpose and intent with thoughtfulness, depth, and connections
to your own experiences. You strongly demonstrated your ability to transfer knowledge between difference
settings and gave clear self and peer feedback.
 PLAN / ARTISTIC CHOICES

What specific community has your group chosen to focus on? (D1, D2)

Who we are performing to is the G9 students in APIS and the specific community we are choosing are the
group of people who are depressed because they feel like it is meaningless to stay alive and want to
suiside.
The feeling that the depressing people have is nobody is behind them supporting them and cheering for
them. They feel like everything in their lives is just all going wrong, everything is going to the opposite of
what they want, and there are lots of bad issues bothering them all the time. Also, people in their lives are
treating them coldly, there are no friendly treatments towards them, no friends are with them. They feel like
they are alone, even if they are alive, they are useless, they can’t help with anything. They are thinking:
nobody needs me, everybody hates me, I hate myself too, let me just go die.
Of course these feelings of people only happen in serious situations, there are also people who have some
small depression that is bothering them and they feel lonely. At this time, what they need is just telling
them they are not alone, there are still people behind you, caring about you.

Why did you choose that community? (D1, D2)

From my daily life, I can just see people being depressed. People are good at noticing unfortunate things,
and life has lots of factors, nothing is always going well as you want. The examples that I can see from my
daily life are: Students having a bunch of homework to do. Sometimes the homework is hard and the
students don’t understand, or there is too much pressure on them about the grades. For the teacher I don’t
see much depression, but I think it is just because adults are more good at hiding their depression and
they can not show much depression to students, so there are also invisible depressions. The other
example I see is people are having no friends with them and people show cold faces to them. , so the sad
mood happens very often, being sad is very common and it is not a good feeling, it just feels awful when
people are sad, I am one of the people who are always being sad too, I know how bad it is, so I want to do
something to change this situation.

What impact are you hoping your performance will make in that community? (D1, D2)

First, I hope my performance can make depressed people feel like the melody sounds good, a good
melody can impact people a lot. In our song, the melody should make the audiences move. They will put
down their alert and start to listen to our performance carefully. When they start to listen carefully, they can
feel more about what we want to express, they will start listening to the lyrics and inspired.
Because the people who are sad always like to put themselves in a sad position and can not get out, so
what we should do for them is express the same feeling at first, we should tell something sad first, make
them think that we have the same feeling, so that they can start listening to us and our persuade.
We want them to put down their pressure after they listen to our performance, and I hope we can give
them hope, let them know that they are important to other people, people need them, and they will always
be with them when they have difficulties. I want to give them motivation to stay alive and face their lives
with positive minors.

Why do you think your intended community needs to be impacted in that way? (D1, D2)

Because our communities is the people who are sad and have no motivations to stay alive, they might
even suiside which is very sad and bad thing which shouldn’t happen. The reason why people want to
suiside is they have no goals and they can do nothing for the society and the people around them, so if we
tell them there is people behind them caring about them, needing them, they will have more hope to life
and want to stay alive.

How will you deliver this message in a musical performance?

This is where you should include all details, including song choice, instrument choices,
responsibilities and roles of each group member, etc.

Melody and lyrics

Ben piano melody
Doris Sing(girl parts) Lyrics
Poom Bass lyrics Singing(boy parts)

Melody needs to sound good, and the connecting parts should be natural.
Lyrics do not need to be brand new words, it can just be the mixture of the verses in two songs. The
structure of the final mixture is important, because the melody and the lyrics need to change from soft and
sad to strong and inspirational, so that the mood of the audience can change with this structure.

List all resources you will use (including any online links or resources). You can add to this list
throughout the process if you add more resources.

https://youtu.be/cycUHgg0zzU
https://genius.com/Logic-1-800-273-8255-lyrics
https://youtu.be/RBumgq5yVrA
https://genius.com/Passenger-let-her-go-lyrics

What steps will you need to take to create a successful performance? Complete these steps with
your group. 5 steps are shown, but feel free to add as many steps as you need if 5 is not enough.
Step 1: Find the song to mix Time: 3 classes periods.
Find the song that is meaningful both in the melody and lyrical
side of the music.

Step 2: Mix the melody

Try to mix the melody that can be matched and try to make it more
impactful and meaningful to the communities.

Step 3: Write the lyrics logic

Write the lyrics for the melody. It can be from the song we chose
and add some part of our own lyrics to the melody. It will become
a new song.

Step 4: Practice our own Time: 3 class period

Practice the instruments we were given. This part we should
practice by ourselves first and be skilled about the parts of
ourselves.

Step 5: Practise together Time: 4 class period

After we practice on ourselves then we should practice as a whole
band and learn how to cooperate well and fix some problems, at
last get ready to perform.

CREATING AND IMPROVING YOUR PERFORMANCE

Date: Feb. 11st

Lyrics Rehearsal Notes:

● We are not using one whole song as our
performance song. I think we are going to
combine multiple songs to make a new
song as our final performance.
● We are working on the first step now

What did you work on/how did you improve this week?
We were working on creating and mixing the lyrics and
melody, we only found the songs we are going to mix.
Date: Feb. 18th-19th
(photo/video/audio/etc - evidence of work)
melody1
recording1
What did you work on/how did you improve this week?
We finished mixing the two songs. There is a completed
melody and lyrics now.
Date: Feb. 25-Feb. 26
which is finding meaningful songs on both
melodycal and lyrical sides to mix.
● Me and Poom found some of the good
songs and started considering how we
can connect the lyrics together. We found
2 songs and found one of the lyrics.
https://genius.com/Logic-1-800-273-8255-
lyrics
● Today, me and Poom started mixing the
lyrics. Now there are new lyrics.
What do you need to work on next week?
I think we can start practising our own instrument
next week. Maybe I still need to make some
changes in the future.
Rehearsal Notes:
Feb. 18
● Ben finished the melody of the song
already and he is able to play it on piano.
● His melody is only for the piano.
● We might be changing the melody.
Feb. 19
● We got the final song with a completed
melody matched with the lyrics.
● Ben is playing the main melody on the
piano.
● Poom is playing the bass and singing the
boy part in 1800.
● Doris is singing let her go part.
● I sang the beginning part of Let Her Go
and I think it is too high for me to sing.
What do you need to work on next week?
We should start practising for ourselves and also
make some changes during practising.
I think we should change the key of the whole
song lower because when it’s a boy singing, it is
kind of low, so when a girl is singing in the same
key, they alway go 8 full steps higher. Let Her Go
has a pretty high key already, but it's for boys to
sing. Going 8 full steps higher is too high for me.
We should either change the key higher or lower.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1--0tRLFJNTd5mDiq-
OHIJvfd3JAVlC5d
What did you work on/how did you improve this week?
We were working on the melody of the song. We
changed the key lower so that I can be able to sing it. I
also practiced singing my parts at home, so that after all,
I can sing it.
Date: Mar. 3-4
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1-3zeXX8pnJJSwY1c
GRpz5lg6VqGI_wWG
What did you work on/how did you improve this week?
I improved a lot this week. Before, I always could not find
where to come in after the connection of the two verses.
Now I learned how to count the beat and come in for the
right beat, so I can always come in at the right time.
Rehearsal Notes:
● We changed the key of the song.
● Ben has to change a lot with the song
since the key has changed. He needs to
change the pitches and chords
What do you need to work on next week?
I still don’t know where to come in for the
connecting part, I alway miss the part to come in.
I need to communicate with my group more and
know well where to come in.
Rehearsal Notes:
● On march 3rd, we didn’t have much time
to practise in class, we only practiced
● I was trying to help Poom to solve the
rhythm problem of singing, because the
rhythm in our song is different from other
songs and it is really difficult to get each
word on the right beats. Poom doesn’t
seem to practise and I feel like he didn’t
even realize the rhythm is really wrong.
● Poom is out of tone all the time. We know
he can do it, just need more practise to
make his vocal cord stronger.
● On Tuesday and earlier on Wednesday, I
still can not come in at the right time.
● Right before the performance, I learned
and understood how I should count the
beat to know the beat to come in from Ms.
Clair.
● We were mostly practising with the whole
band, matching with each other, knowing
where to come in.
What do you need to work on next week?
This is the last week.
 FEEDBACK/REFLECTION

Self-Reflection

Explain what you think the actual impact was of your final performance. (D3)

People have no reactions and expression from outside, but since our performance is for people to be
moved inside, open their heart and become happy again. These emotions only happen in people’s
hearts, maybe they are moved inside, but they don’t react out. I interviewed a few audiences about what
they feel about our performance, their feedback is they can understand what we are trying to express and
they are inspired inside, they have a feeling that they are happier after listening to our performances.

How successful was your final performance, musically speaking only? (D3)

We didn’t mess up the connection parts which are very good already. We made the whole song
connected, it is not stopping when one of us made a mistake.
Ben and Poom didn’t play the pitches wrong on piano and bass, even though they had, the audiences
didn’t realize. I think they did really well on the instrument parts.
I made the high pitches. I was able to reach the highest pitch with fine sound.

How successful was your final performance in terms of inspiring your intended community? (D2,
D3)

From the interview, the audiences are saying that we had successfully conveyed the intention, and the
understood the feeling and they are inspired from heart, moved because of the melody and the lyrics.
They also liked my singing parts, they think the high pitches made them feel like their heart is open when
they listen to the high pitches.

Peer Feedback

How successful did you feel the other group’s performance was, musically speaking only? (D3)

I think the singing is very contagious, especially the high pitch parts, it touches the deep of my heart. The
instruments choice is very good. The general style of the song is very soft, so the instruments they chose
are piano and guitar which are the ones that can express soft and tender feeling. The choice of drum is
really good in my opinion, there are a few hard hits that made the whole song have a feeling that hit right
into the deep of your hearts. The high pitches can be more natural, not too sharp.

How successful did you feel the other group’s performance was in terms of inspiring their
intended community? (D3)
I feel like they inspired the audiences very well, especially from the singing part and the drumming parts,
they expressed the intention really well and even me is inspired, so I think the audiences are inspired to
be happy too.

Prior-Learning

Explain what prior learning you used throughout this project and how it helped you. (D1)

What I prior learning I used are video that teach you exercises that help you strengthen the muscles in
your mouth, so that you can pronounce the words in a clearer and stronger way, this helped me a lot
because the power of the muscles in my mouth is very weak, that’s why I can not pronounce the words
fast and clear which is what needed in the performance, so I really need to increase my skill on
pronouncing.

Musical Development

Describe what musical skills or techniques you improved throughout the process and how you
improved them. (B1)

The only musical skill I used in this performance is singing, but only two parts of singing have very much
new techniques for me to learn. First, all the singing parts are really high pitches, but at the beginning I
thought I can never sing that high, then after a bunch of practices, my vocal cords became stronger and
stronger, and being more skillful to reach the high pitches, my voice does not sound hoarse anymore.
Also the speed of the song, one of the part has really dense words, and I need to pronounce them one by
one clearly in a weird way, why I say it is weird is because the lyrics in this part is matching the l=beat
and melody of this part in a scatter way, and I always have to stay in steady beat. The beat of this part is
really hard to control, so I practiced a lot with the original song, practise with slower playback speed and
finally able to sing it correctly. I can pronounce the words clearer and control and breath better.