3.5 Music form activities  (Page 2/3)

Materials and preparation

• Decide whether you will use recordings for this activity or have the students sing songs they know. A mixture of both will be very effective. Choose some songs that have only one section (one "verse", so to speak; many nursery rhymes have only one section, as does "Happy Birthday to You".). Also choose some that have more than one verse, but don't include any songs with refrains or choruses in this activity. If you want to stretch the children's listening skills, include some recordings of music that is unfamiliar, but again play only songs with a single section, or verses only, or instrumental music that is only one section or a section with its repeat, so that it sounds like two verses. Marches and dances are a good source of music with repeated sections. If you think your students will be able to hear the "theme" in its new disguise in each variation, a "theme and variations" is also a very good example of a multiple-A-section form.
• If you are using recordings, you will need a tape or CD player, and some recordings of age-appropriate songs. Use some songs that are familiar to them and some that aren't. Have the tapes ready at the appropriate spot, or know the track numbers on the CD.

Procedure

• Tell your students that the form of a piece of music is just a description or list of the main sections of the music. If your students are old enough and experienced enough, you may use the discussion in Form in Music to introduce the idea of labelling sections with letters.
• Ask the students if they know what a verse is in music. They may know but have trouble explaining. Ask if they can sing more than one verse of a song. How are the verses different? (Usually the words are different.) How are they the same? (Usually the music is the same.) If they can't answer any questions even with some prompting, explain that each verse of a song has the same melody but different words.
• Play a recorded song with more than one verse, or have the students sing a song they know. Point out to them when each new verse starts.
• Play more recordings, or sing together some more songs, letting the students point out when each new verse starts (they can raise their hands, or clap at the beginning of each verse, for example). Ask them to count the verses of each song, and to identify which songs have only one verse.
• If you include instrumental selections, ask the students to identify similarities and differences between the instrumental and vocal music. Have the students identify the beginning of section repeats, or beginnings of new variations.
• If you are including a discussion of A/B forms, write the forms of the songs on the board as you sing or listen to them. (Verse forms will mostly look something like A or A A A or A A' A''; you can let your students decide which verses are different enough to give primes .)

Activity 2: refrains

Objectives and extensions

• Time Requirements - One (approximately 45-minute) class period
• Objectives - The student will listen to or perform several examples of vocal music consisting of verses with a contrasting refrain. The student will identify the form of the music and identify each verse and refrain.
• Extensions - For older or advanced students, include examples from instrumental music that are also simple A/B or repeated A/B form. The student will listen to examples of instrumental music, recognizing whether the form is a single section (A), two contrasting sections (AB) or (exact or changed) multiple repeats of a single idea (AA'...), or multiple repeats of two contrasting ideas (ABA'B...), and will identify the form of the music using the standard A/B method.