1.2 Consonance and dissonance activities  (Page 3/3)

Procedure

1. If possible, this activity should be done after Activity 1 . If that is not possible, begin this activity with an explanation of the terms.
2. Play short excerpts from your selections.
3. As the students are listening, have them raise their hands when they hear dissonance.
4. After several samples, have a discussion. Which types of music had more or less dissonance. Did some seem to have none at all? What adjectives (like "happy" or "creepy" or "exciting" or "annoying") would they use to describe each piece? What emotional effects do they think dissonance has on a piece of music?
5. Older or more musically experienced students may be asked: is the dissonance resolved , or is it just "left hanging"? How long does it take to resolve the dissonance? What does this do to the feeling of tension and relaxation in the music?

Activity 3: improvising consonant or dissonant harmony on instruments

Goals and standards

• Goals - The student will practice choosing consonant intervals for improvised or composed harmonies.
• Objectives - After an introduction to the concepts, the students will take turns playing a melody and improvising a harmony to the melody by finding consonant intervals for each note of the melody.
• Music Standards Addressed - National Standards for Music Education standards 2 (performing on instruments, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music), 3 (improvising melodies, variations, and accompaniments), 4 (composing and arranging music within specified guidelines), 6 (listening to, analyzing, and describing music), and 7 (evaluating music and music performances).
• Grade Level - 4-12
• Student Prerequisites - The students must be able to play, smoothly, accurately, and in tune, simple single-note lines on the instruments used in the activity.
• Teacher Expertise - The teacher must be able to conduct and direct the playing, and help the students find consonant harmonies.
• Time Requirements - Depends on number of students, and their comfort level with the activity. Can easily take one full class period.
• Evaluation - Assess student ability to find and play consonant intervals.
• Follow-up - Throughout the rest of the school year, continue to challenge the students to harmonize simple melodies by finding consonant intervals.
• Adaptations - Students who do not play an instrument, but who are comfortable singing, may be asked to sing consonant intervals against a known melody.
• Extensions - Ask advanced music students to compose, write down, and perform consonant harmonies, or to quickly improvise and play harmonies to a new tune. Very advanced students should be encouraged to compose lines using good voice leading.

Materials and preparation

• The students will need access to instruments in the classroom. Instruments with fixed tuning (keyboard, xylophone, bells, for example) are ideal. If the students play other instruments (band or orchestral instruments, for example) well enough that tuning will not be an issue, that will also work well.
• Choose a melody to harmonize, and teach it to all of the students before the class period reserved for this activity. This activity works best if the students can play the melody as a solo with confidence. A slow melody will allow students more time to choose a note for the harmony.
• Also have the students do Activity 1 before this activity. While doing Activity 1, help the class prepare a list of specific suggestions for finding notes that will be consonant with a given note. (Rules that they can discover, like "avoid the note right next to it", are ideal.)

Procedure

1. Remind the students of what they discovered about where to find consonant notes. Go over the list prepared by the class during Activity 1.
2. Have the students "warm up" by playing the melody you have chosen. You may want to further "warm up" their readiness to improvise a harmony by allowing them to experiment (on a keyboard, for example) to find notes that go with the notes of the melody; or by having some students play the notes of the melody one note at a time, while other students are allowed to "search for" consonant pitches.
3. Students take turns playing melody or harmony. On each turn, one or a few (not too many) students play the melody while one student plays a different note to "harmonize".
4. Depending on the students' maturity, confidence level, and ability to do this in a spirit of exploration and cooperation rather than critique and embarrassment, you may ask the students who are not playing to raise their hands either when they hear a consonance or when they hear a dissonance. If you add this element, you may want to remind the students that dissonance is acceptable in many styles of music, or point out that resolving dissonances is an important element in keeping music interesting and exciting. You may even want to challenge students to play dissonances deliberately.

Activity 4: relating these terms to other disciplines

Goals and standards

• Goals - The students will become more comfortable with a general use of the terms, and use them to make connections and parallels between disciplines.
• Objectives - In a class discussion, the students will use the concepts "consonant" and "dissonant" to draw appropriate parallels between music and other disciplines and to categorize and draw appropriate inferences within each discipline. A written essay summarizing the discussion and/or giving personal opinions on the subject, can be assigned.
• Music Standards Addressed - National Standards for Music Education standard 8 (understanding relationships between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts).
• Other Subjects Addressed - Depending on the subject matter, this activity may also address goals and standards in social studies or language arts.
• Grade Level - K-12 (adaptable)
• Student Prerequisites - The students should already be familiar with the terms in their musical context.
• Teacher Expertise - Teacher expertise in music is not necessary to present this activity.
• Time Requirements - 10-30 minutes, depending on the depth and breadth of the discussion, and student interest and engagement.
• Evaluation - Assess student learning by evaluating participation in the discussion or grading written essays.
• Follow-up - Throughout the rest of the school year, continue to use the terms "consonant" and "dissonant" whenever appropriate.

Materials and preparation

• Choose a non-music area in which the students have already discussed the concepts of things which do or do not go together well, or initiate such a discussion during an appropriate class period. Some suggestions: color usage in the visual arts; ingredients in cooking; anomalies (the avoidance of, or the deliberate use of things that are "out of place") in the visual or performance arts or literature; or even, in social studies, the cultural "consonance" or "dissonance" that occurs when people do or do not behave in similar ways or expected ways.

Procedure

1. Remind the students of both of the previous discussions (of musical consonance and dissonance and also of the non-music subject). Encourage them to summarize some of the key points of both discussions.
2. Ask the students to draw comparisons between the two subjects. In the non-music subject, what might the students label "consonant" or "dissonant"? Why? What is the effect of "consonance" or "dissonance" in the other subject? Is dissonance used deliberately and why? Is it avoided and why? In what ways is this similar or different to consonance and dissonance in music? Are there any elements that are similar to the resolution of dissonance in music?
3. Have the students summarize the discussion. This may be an in-class summary of the main points of the discussion, or it may be a written essay including the student's personal opinions or conclusions as well as the main points of the discussion.