Kelly Rock

Objectives:
● Students will be able to play a snippet of a song by ear on their instruments (or singing)
Procedures:
● I will tell students that we’re going to work on some aural skills by learning a snippet of a
song by ear.
● I will play the first lyrics of “Golden” by Harry Styles (“Golden, golden, golden as I open
my eyes…” and wait a couple of seconds to let students start to get some ideas.
● I will play it again, and then ask for someone to tell me the starting solfege
● I will play it twice through, and then ask for a volunteer to play, and then another
volunteer to tell me the solfege
Assessment:
I’ll get instant assessment from the two students who play and tell me the solfege, and I’ll ask the
rest of the class to give me a thumbs up, thumbs in the middle, or thumbs down for how much
they got of the piece.

Revised lesson plan

Objectives:
● Students will be able to play the first line of “Golden” by Harry Styles by ear on their
instruments/singing
Procedures:
● I will tell students that we’re going to work on some aural skills by learning a snippet of a
song by ear.
● I will play the first lyrics of “Golden” by Harry Styles (“Golden, golden, golden as I open
my eyes…” and wait a couple of seconds to let students start to get some ideas.
● After playing the song initially, I will play the song on my oboe to isolate the melody.
● I will play the song again on my computer, and ask a student to sing on a neutral syllable
● Finally, I will play it twice through, and then ask for a volunteer to play, and then another
volunteer to tell me the solfege
Assessment:
I’ll get instant assessment from the two students who play and tell me the solfege, and I’ll ask the
rest of the class to give me a thumbs up, thumbs in the middle, or thumbs down for how much
they got of the piece.

Feedback:
Some feedback I received from a classmate was that they were a little confused about the
solfege. When I first did this lesson, I played the song twice and then asked students to give me
the starting solfege for the words “Golden.” Two of my classmates said they thought it was
Mi-Do, when it was actually Do-La. I thought about this piece of feedback a lot because I realize
how confusing it sounds, but I’m not sure of a better way to ask it. I think it is important to know
Kelly Rock

the solfege of what you are learning by ear, but maybe it would have been helpful to know the
key to give a better starting place?
Another piece of feedback from Lenny was to use whole-part-whole technique to isolate
the melody. I added this to my revised lesson plan because this was such a good suggestion, and
I can’t believe I didn’t think of it the first time. Breaking down the lesson to the easiest parts that
you can is a great way to ensure that all students have the opportunity to succeed, and in the case
of this lesson it allows them to focus on the melody.
For the next three minute lesson, there are a couple things I plan to do differently. I
definitely want to try the lesson out first either on myself or a friend to make sure it will run
smoothly. I have never tried to teach a lesson with aural skills before, and this is something I
struggle with personally. Learning a song by ear is so difficult for me, so I think I went into the
lesson trying to think from someone else’s perspective about how they might learn a song by ear.
By doing this, I didn’t take into consideration that someone else may struggle as much if not
more than I do, so breaking it down as much as time allows would be beneficial. I also want to
try and talk much less. I think I did okay for someone who loves to over explain what I am
teaching, but next time I want to try and talk even less and incorporate some call and response.