Lesson Plans:

• Experimental Music
• We’ve Got Rhythm
• Good Vibrations

We’ve developed core tools around the concepts of chords, frequency, and rhythm in partnership with Indaba Music. These tools incorporated in the lesson plans can also be appreciated on their own! Feel free to check out these fun interactives below.

Learn about basic chord stucture:

Learn about frequency and how it manifests in sounds the sounds around us:

Learn about how rhythm can manifest itself in the environment:

2) Tell the students that they will be conducting their own experiments on a research question of their choosing. They will also choose the music samples (these may be from their own collection of music, for example on an mp3 player, or from online sources – see the “websites” section of this lesson plan for examples of free streaming music samples. They can make their own recordings by playing selections themselves). The subjects may be other students in the class, or alternatively might be students in a peer class, or younger students (if this has been arranged).

3) Remind the students that their research question should in some way relate to the feelings evoked by changes in different elements of music. For example, their question might be:
a) Do first-graders think minor chords sound more “sad” than major chords?
b) Do students in our class associate music that has a faster tempo with happier mood?
c) Do eighth-grade students think “Amazing Grace” sounds more solemn when played on an oboe or on a violin?

4) Allow the students some in-class and homework time to devise their research question and select their sample sounds. Make sure to help them come up with a question and procedure that is testable (while this experiment may not control all variables, the sound samples should still be somewhat similar, in order to reduce confounding variables).

5) Prior to collecting data, have students submit their Research Question, Hypothesis, Materials and Procedure for teacher approval. Once approved, the students should schedule time to conduct their experiments and collect data.

6) Have each student group analyze the data and write up the Results of the experiment (remind them that the Results can include things the students would do differently if they were to run the experiment again). Each group should orally report their Results to the class.

2) Distribute a “Music Experiment Writeup” organizer (RTF) (PDF) and a “Music Response Survey” (RTF) (PDF) organizer to each student.

3) Pick one of the adjectives the class came up with to describe a chord you played earlier. Have the class write down a research question using this information (something like “which chord does our class think is the most wistful?”). Lead them through the steps of filling out the organizer through the “procedure” section (the subjects will be the individuals in the class, the sound samples will be three chords of your choosing, including the one described earlier by the adjective, and the procedure will be that students will listen to three chords and rank them from 1 to 5 on how “adjective” they sound). The students should also fill out the pertinent information on the Survey Template Organizer.

4) Play the chords for the students (being careful not to let the students know which one you’re playing when) and have them mark their responses on the Survey Template Organizer.

5) Collectively, analyze the results, finding a numerical class average for each of the three chords.

2) PLAY the video segment and then FOLLOW UP by asking students to explain the experiment (the scientist traveled to a remote village where inhabitants had no experience of Western music. They played piano pieces for the villagers, who ranked them as “happy,” “sad,” or “scary” by pointing to faces expressing these emotions). You may want to note for the students the similarity between this experiment and the exercise the students did in the Introductory Activity – but while the class used smiley face representations of the emotions, the images used in the Cameroon experiment were photographs of a woman expressing sadness, happiness, and fear. These exact photographs are often used in experiments like these – they are called “Ekman faces” after the scientist who first used them, and have been tested to make sure they are accurately understood by people in all parts of the world.

3) Ask the students what the result of the experiment seemed to be? (The villagers’ opinions of the musical pieces were very much in line with the opinions of Westerners about which music was “happy,” “sad,” and “scary.”) You may note the additional information that while in this experiment the Cameroonian villagers’ reactions to music were in line with Western responses, other studies have not had the same result, leaving the “universality” of emotions in music very much up for debate.

4) Ask the students if they can describe the differences between the “happy,” “scary,” and “sad” music used in the Cameroon experiment using the basic elements of music? You may want to REPLAY the last 30 seconds of the video segment (starting after the researcher is showing marking X’s on a chart) so the students can listen for the differences. (The happy music is in a major key, takes a quick tempo and is in a steady, simple rhythm. The scary music has a lot of repeated chords and a more unpredictable rhythm. The sad music is in a slow tempo and a minor key).

2) Tell the students that just as this simple exercise shows, we often have emotional associations with everyday things – and we also have these associations with different pieces of music. Tell the students that this lesson will focus on what impact different elements of music have on our emotions.

3) First the students will see if they can use emotion words to describe basic combinations of notes – chords. Load the “Chord Structure Interactive” (or prepare to play chords on a piano). Without telling the students what you are playing, play a chord and ask them to use an adjective to describe it (accept all answers, which could include “happy,” “sad,” and “scared,” but also “rough,” “smooth,” “stable,” “wistful,” “aggressive,” or any other descriptive adjectives). Do the same for several other chords (for example: C Major, C Minor, C Dominant 7, C Minor 7). See if the class can come to a consensus on a few descriptive words for each chord, and tell the students which chords are eliciting these reactions. Make a note of these adjective-chord associations for use later.

4) Explain that in this lesson, the students will be exploring how it is that different music can be associated with different feelings and reactions. Write the heading “ELEMENTS OF MUSIC” on the board. Underneath this, write the words “pitch,” “tempo,” and “timbre”.

5) FRAME the beginning of the first Video Segment, “Elements of Music,” for the class: they will see a few seconds of a video where a scientist demonstrates these terms. FOCUS the students: ask them to listen for how the scientist uses his voice to demonstrate the meaning of the words. PLAY just the first few seconds of “Elements of Music,” and PAUSE it after Daniel Levitin says “variations in timbre.” FOLLOW UP by asking the students to recreate the demonstration. Have the class provide a definition of each term Levitin mentioned (pitch = high/low; tempo aka “timing” = fast/slow; timbre = the characteristic sound of an instrument or voice, e.g. the difference between how a note sounds on an oboe and a violin).

6) Explain that changes in basic elements of music like these are what enable one piece of music to sound different from another. These elements are also what make us feel differently about the music – for example, we tend to think that music in major keys sounds “happy,” and in minor keys more “sad.” Add “harmony = chords, like major/minor” to the list of definitions on the board.

7) FRAME the rest of the first video clip: tell the students that they will see musician Bobby McFerrin and scientist Daniel Levitin discussing how people respond to the basic elements of music. Provide a FOCUS: ask students to determine if Levitin thinks that our responses to music are due to instinct, or are learned.

8 ) PLAY the rest of Video Segment 1. FOLLOW UP with a discussion about whether the responses we have to, for example, major and minor keys are due to instinct or learned, and why? (There is evidence to support the role of both instinct and learning on our perception of music. While some basic aspects of musical perception may be common to all humans, this clip shows that our neurons are very flexible and are shaped by our experience. In other cultures, the associations between music and feeling may not be the same as in Western cultures. For example, much Middle Eastern music is in a “minor” key, but it is not always experienced as sad).

9) Add the following terms to the list on the board: “interval,” “chord,” “melody.” Ask the class for definitions of each (interval = distance between two notes; chord = combination of three or more notes; melody = a sequence of notes, or tune). FRAME Video Segment 2, “Expression in Music,” for the class: in this segment, McFerrin and Levitin will describe how these elements influence how we feel about music. Provide the students with a FOCUS: ask them to use the segment to explain whether our feelings about combinations of notes have changed over time.

10) PLAY Video Segment 2. FOLLOW UP by returning to the focus question (our assessments of certain combinations of notes have definitely changed over time. A major seventh chord would not have been considered “consonant” in Beethoven’s time, but today it fits easily into jazz and other musical styles. This is another example of context and culture’s influence on our musical tastes and feelings).

11) Review the elements of music that have been discussed, asking the students to provide an example of each one to enhance comprehension.