New-2-U Music: Song Blog
New-2-U Music: Song Blog
New-2-U Music: Song Blog
This project will consist of students listening to new songs in all musical genres, comparing them to songs they already know, and reflecting on what aspects of the songs they liked or disliked. They will post to a class blog, which will eventually serve as a directory of music that the students connected to. Following the project, the students and teacher will reflect on the experience.Subjects
Music Keywords
aupeo.com, blogging, internet radio, pandora.com, wordpress Grades
K 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 >12 Objectives:
The students’ objectives:
Analyze music by listening to the style and characteristics
Evaluate his/her own musical preferences by finding songs that speak to him/her
Compare new musical selections to previously heard songs by finding or hearing similarities to familiar musical selections
Understand the musical characteristics present in various styles of music
Organize musical selections into appropriate genres through tagging and categories
Respond to the posts of classmates, suggesting additional tags or categories
The Class objective:
Discover new-to-you music and create a “Top 40” chart for multiple musical styles
Materials:
Computer (with internet access)
Headphones
Class blog (individual logins for each student)
Musical styles overview (worksheet / website / link)
Rubric for evaluation
Example site: myclassroom4rils.wordpress.com
Kevin Fancher
About the author
I am currently a student in Full Sail University's EMDT Masters program.
While I am a certified Music Teacher in Ohio, I'm currently a substitute teacher in Cleveland.
Procedure:
1. Teacher needs to set up account(s) including student accounts on kidblog.com (easy, streamlined process), or have students each create a login on WordPress (may encounter problems with account access)
2. Discuss musical styles/genres as a class
3. Create a list of musical genres, including subgenres, where applicable.
4. Class should decide which of these will be included in the listening assignment
5. Teacher should create blog categories for the genres decided on by class
6. Discuss musical vocabulary that might be related to certain genres of music, including instrumentation (acoustic, electronic, electric, sampling, etc.)
7. PDF/web link provided to students with clear and detailed instructions for this lesson
8. Students will navigate to a social music site (suggested sites’ links should be provided on the assignment PDF/webpage)
9. Students should choose a genre and begin searching for a song that they like, that is by someone they’ve never heard before
10. Students should create a blog post containing the song title, artist name, a link to the song (if available), and a reflection comparing that song to others they know. (Ex: _____ by _________ reminded me of the vocal style and song structure of _(song/band)_)
11. Students should tag the post with at least three tags.
12. Students should also file the blog post into a category of the genre(s) into which it belongs.
13. Students should repeat steps 9-13 throughout the course of this assignment until they have found at least one song for each genre category
14. Students should also read each classmate’s blog posts, listen to the songs, and comment on the posts
15. When the process is completed, students (and teachers) will compose a blog post in which they will reflect on the whole experience
Assessment:
Students will be graded using a rubric (attached) that covers the following aspects:
Followed directions
Analysis of music
Comparisons
Comments Reflection
Technology:
Blog (recommended: kidblog.org or wordpress.com)
Social Music Sites are sites that allow the user to choose a style and then approve or reject selected songs until they have tailored a personal ‘radio station.’ (Recommended: Pandora.com, Aupeo.com, thesixtyone.com, wearehunted.com)
Reflection:
The students will be writing reflective blog posts with each new song submission. In addition, after the scenario is completed, the students will write a blog post that summarizes the experience and what they feel they learned. They will also be asked to make suggestions of how this scenario could be improved for future students.
The teacher will read the students’ reflective blog posts along the way as well as their final blog posts with suggestions for the future. The teacher will reflect on these posts to determine how well the students grasped the scenario. The teacher will also review the suggestions made by the students for future revisions.
Audience:
Middle or High School music students
(Note: As music educators, we are not only training the musicians of the future, we are educating the music consumers and patrons of the future.)
This lesson is designed to engage all students.
Making Connections:
The students will connect the new music to music with which they are already familiar. This may include songs they hear on the radio/TV/video games as well as music that we listen to in class. It may also connect to songs they have heard through this listening scenario.
This scenario will allow students to discover what they like and dislike about music, separate from the mainstream media’s bias.
This scenario will yield a website that will be available online for anyone to view and learn from. The students will be communicating their understanding of music to each other and to their peers outside of the class as well as the worldwide community.