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Melodic Dictation

Lesson

Melodic Dictation

Grade Levels

6th Grade, 7th Grade, 8th Grade

Course, Subject

Music
Related Academic Standards
9.1.3.B 9.1.3.B

Recognize, know, use and demonstrate a variety of appropriate arts elements and principles to produce, review and revise original works in the arts.

  • Dance: • move • perform • read and notate dance • create and choreograph • improvise
  • Music: • sing • play an instrument • read and notate music • compose and arrange •improvise
  • Theatre: • stage productions • read and write scripts • improvise • interpret a role • design sets • direct
  • Visual Arts: • paint • draw • craft • sculpt • print • design for environment, communication, multi-media
Expand
  • Big Ideas
    Artists use tools and resources as well as their own experiences and skills to create art.
    People have expressed experiences and ideas through the arts throughout time and across cultures.
    The arts provide a medium to understand and exchange ideas.
    The skills, techniques, elements and principles of the arts can be learned, studied, refined and practiced.
  • Concepts
    Actors and audiences work together to share a performance; there are sets of behaviors and expectations for an audience.
    Actors often use stories to create performances.
    Actors recreate experiences.
    Actors use costumes and props.
    Actors use their bodies, voices and imaginations to create theatre.
    Art has its own vocabulary that people use when making and talking about art.
    Artists often repeat a task many times to learn a new skill.
    Artists reflect on the process of making art in order to improve their skills and techniques.
    Collaborative reflection is a crucial part of the art-making process, and often affects the final artwork.
    Dancers move in various pathways to perform and create works in dance.
    Dancers use the rehearsal process to practice and improve their dance skills.
    Dancers utilize levels, direction and time to perform and create works in dance.
    Dancers utilize various planes to perform and create works in dance.
    Labanotation is a written language that people use to communicate movement ideas.
    Labanotation is a written language used by choreographers and dancers to communicate movement sequences.
    Music is comprised of patterns of notes that can be arranged in various forms.
    Music notation can be used to share rhythms and melodies.
    Music notation is a written language that allows people to share ideas.
    Musical notation can represent short, long, high and low sounds.
    Musicians use the process of creating/recreating, rehearsing, reflecting and revising to improve their skills.
    People can use voices and instruments to improvise music.
    People can use voices and instruments to perform music.
    People create art for a variety of purposes.
    People use theatre to communicate their feelings and experiences.
    Pictures can represent sound and silence.
    Play scripts utilize a unique format to record works in theatre to be performed for an audience.
    Playwrights use dialogue and action to tell a story and/or illustrate a theme.
    Scenery helps communicate where the story takes place.
  • Competencies
    Choose props and/or costume items for dramatic play and creative dramatics activities.
    Choreograph a short piece/phrase utilizing basic Labanotation.
    Create backdrops as scenery for improvised puppet shows.
    Create, rehearse and revise a short improvised play with a partner by choosing and assigning characters and inventing dialogue and actions.
    Define the roles and expectations of audience and actor.
    Describe purposes for art-making.
    Document the processes they use to produce art and reflect on how the processes have evolved through time.
    Document the rehearsal process and explain the effect it has on a dancer’s skills.
    Engage in a repeated artistic process and explain the benefits of repetition.
    Explore scripts and label dialogue, plot, conflict, character, setting and stage directions.
    Identify basic symbols used in Labanotation.
    Identify words commonly used when making and expressing ideas about art.
    Imitate and communicate emotion in creative dramatics and creative play.
    Imitate objects and actions from stories or their own experience while participating in creative dramatics activities.
    Improvise simple melodies and rhythms using voices and classroom instruments.
    Move in place and through space in various pathways.
    Move in place and through space inlonger movement sequences, paying attention to the various body planes.
    Move in place and through space, paying attention to levels, direction and time.
    Move to and perform melodies in various forms.
    Notate simple rhythms and melodies.
    Perform and create music, focusing on the process of creating/recreating, rehearsing, reflecting and revising.
    Perform simple melodies and rhythms using voices and classroom instruments.
    Perform spontaneous movement and sound in response to stories, poems and songs.
    Read and notate more complex rhythms and melodies.
    Read iconic notation representing sound and silence.
    Read musical notation representing short/long and high/low sounds.
    Recreate a favorite story as an improvised drama.
    Reflect with classmates on an in-process work of art and describe how that reflection affects the final product.

Rationale

This lesson is to be used in a Middle School Music classroom immediately after students have adequately learned rhythms and rhythmic dictation. This lesson plan also assumes that students have previously-learned knowledge of how the staff with a Treble Clef works. Since students can dictate rhythms accurately, it is now only logical to have them add pitches to be dictated.

Vocabulary

pitch, rhythm

Objectives

Have students dictate various rhythms and melodies (using notes on the staff) as they hear them with greater than 60% accuracy.

Lesson Essential Question(s)

How are the elements of music shared through notation?

Duration

45 minute lesson, may be elaborated upon for next lesson

Materials

dry erase board/markers, piano, staff paper, (students should bring pencils)

Suggested Instructional Strategies

When verbally instructing students, emphasize the underlined vocabulary words written in this lesson plan. Be sure when modeling melodic dictation for students before they try themselves to break down the musical phrase on the piano into pairs of two notes, then draw each pair one at a time on the board so students can see the direction the notes are going in. Also, for the middle school level, start students out by either playing notes that either ascend by 1 step, descend by 1 step, or stay the same. You can start the skips later once they are more comfortable.

W:  Anticipatory Set: "Last class, we had a chance to learn all of the notes on the staff and complete a worksheet. The class before that, we were working on rhythm dication, where I played a rhythm for you and you wrote it down. So now, it only makes sense that we should hear rhythms on different notes and write them down. What do you suppose that's called? We had rhythm dictation, now we have melodic dictation."
H:  Physical movement set to "Mary Had a Little Lamb" while they sing it.
E:  Modeling, practice, checking and correcting student work while scanning and walking around the classroom.
R:  Asking them to try again when incorrect, offering hints and help when needed.
E:  I will sing some student dictations of "Mary Had a Little Lamb," using the notation they provided. Since it is a familiar song, students will know if they dictated correctly or incorrectly.
T:  Present the concept in as many ways possible: physical movement, drawing on a staff, playing on piano, singing, having students sing.
O:  Eventually, this lesson will lead to a songwriting activity, where students write their own songs.

Instructional Procedures

  1. "The first thing you must be able to do for melodic dictation is simply be able to tell if a note is going up (ascending), down (descending), or staying the same (repeating)." Play a series of 2 notes on the piano either going up, down, or repeating. Go around the room asking each student what the note movement is.
  2. Write "high" on one side of the board and "low" on the other side. Have students get up out of their seats and listen to a series of notes. The second time the same series of notes is played, have them jump straight up for the first note and if the note is the same, jump right if the note is ascending, and jump left if the note is descending.
  3. "The Super Awesome 'Mary Had a Little Lamb' Challenge:" Have students sing "Mary Had a Little Lamb" while jumping in the direction the notes are traveling. (This is the same system as Step 2.)
  4. "The next thing you must be able to do for melodic dictation is draw a decent treble clef." Hand out staff paper and show a step-by-step of how to draw a treble clef. Provide some examples of incorrect ones as well. Have students draw a bunch of them across the top of their staff paper.
  5. On to writing notes correctly; show students on board where stems on notes go depending on their location on the staff.
  6. Draw a staff on the board and do a couple examples of melodic dictation on the board. Remind students that all notes, if moving, will only go up or down by one step.
  7. Have students do some measures on their own.
  8. If time allows, have students flip over their staff paper, draw a staff with four measures in 4/4, and give them a "B" to start with. Have them dictate the rest of "Mary Had a Little Lamb." Sing some student examples, whether correct or incorrect.

Formative Assessment

Check student papers during class, go over examples in class, and correct as needed. If necessary, review more answers during the next class.

Related Materials & Resources

http://www.composecreate.com/students/wendys-piano-studio/wendys-students/web-rewards-level-1/                                       

 http://www.composecreate.com/students/wendys-piano-studio/wendys-students/web-rewards-level-2/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Author

Mr. August Matrisch
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