Conductors Name: Alexa Kleiman Zimmerman Ensemble Name: Choir

Title of Piece: Blue Skies (Hal Leonard Corporation) Grade of Piece: 7th
Composer/Arranger: Words and Music by Irving Berlin and Arranged by Roger Emerson


Learning Goals (Objectives):

What singers will:

Be able to do (behavioral): By the winter concert singers of the seventh grade chorus
will be able to accurately perform Blue Skies by Irving Berlin in tune with a success rate
of 80%.

Understand (cognitive): The students in the seventh grade chorus will be able to apply
the elements of the jazz style to their rehearsals by analyzing a professional
performance of Blue Skies by Irving Berlin.

Encounter (experiential):

Construct meaning (constructivist): Members of the seventh grade chorus will be able
to realize how they have a crucial factor in how well rehearsals can ow.


Technical Skills (Intonation, Posture, Breath, Phonation, Balance, Bowing, Sticking for
Percussion, Diction for Singers)

Balance between the three parts, open vowels with specic attention to the word, blue
but keeping it stylistically correct during the scat section, keeping focus on long connected
phrases like, blue skies smilin at me, blue birds all of them gone, blue days all of them
gone, etc.

Musical Concepts (Melody, Rhythm, Harmony, Form, Timbre, Texture)

Appropriate timbre of the jazz style, challenging dissonant chords in the melody with
moments of unison, straight forward form with a bridge in the middle as a scat solo, jazz style
rhythmic patterns

Empowering Musicianship (Historical Perspective, Stylistic Integrity, Musical Artistry)

By learning to sing this piece with the reciprocal teaching model, the singers will be able
to learn how to use their own musicianship to enhance the rehearsal process for an artistic
performance.




Process
Warm Up

Stretches:
- Stretch arms up and reach the sky.
- Slowly bring the arms down but keeping the rib cage up (try again)
- Roll shoulders: forward, backwards, one forward and one backwards
- Lightly pat your arms and wake them up
- Massage your neck up to your jaw muscles
- Give yourself a big hug
- Feet shoulder width apart
- Imagine a string attached to the top of your head and while keeping your feet at on the
oor, someone or something is slightly pulling the string upwards. The string isnt pulled so
much that it strains anything, but just enough to elongate your back and posture
- We do this so our body remains open enough for our breath to be easily supported for
great sounding music

Vocal Warm ups:
- i love to sing (1, 8, 5, 3, 1/do, do, so, mi, do)
- Pretend to hold a hammer and a nail and act like you are hammering the nails
- ming ming ming ming ming (5, 4, 3, 2, 1/ fa, so, me, re, do)
- Pretend to pull a ropeonce from the right and once from the left
- me-eh-me-eh-me-eh-me-eh-me (5, 3, 4, 2, 3, 1, 2, 7, 1/so, mi, fa, re, mi, do re,
ti do)
- Simple vowel major third ascending and descending
-Blue skies/Blue birds/Blue days (1, 5, 1/do, so, do)

Teach song by sections:
-Measure 13 to Measure 20, Measure 29 to Measure 35, Measure 69 to Measure 80 (theme/A)
Have students snap beats 2 and 4 of a 4/4 pattern and teacher sing the main melody so
the students can have a feel for the jazz/swing style
-Measure 21 to Measure 28, Measure 53 to Measure 66 (B)
-Everyone learn solo sections before auditions.
-Put piece together

Scat section:
-Scat singing is vocal improvisation with wordless syllables. Does anyone know what it means
to improvise?
-Scat singing allows singers to be harmonically and rhythmically improvisational without the
concern of destroying a lyric. It doesnt have to be lyrically correct, because it includes
nonsense syllables.
-Show YouTube video on Scat Singing, Ella Fitzgerald: One note Samba (scat singing) 1969
from 0:45.
-Youtube video, Beyonce - Freestyle Scatting - Jam Session 2004 from 2:44-3:33.



Partner (Differentiate instruction by collaborating with ensemble members predicting the
performance challenges. Pose problems and brainstorm solutions together. Encourage students
to respond).

Singers in the seventh grade chorus will take out the musical selections of Blue Skies
by Irving Berlin. The students will listen to a professional performance of the piece, and in
groups brainstorm ideas on what they think makes this selection a jazz piece as well as what
makes this different from other pieces they have done in the past. The students will also discuss
amongst their groups and predict the challenges of the piece and what they think the group
would have to do to achieve those stated challenges. As the students listen to the piece, they
will also be asked to write down what they think the song is about, and how they think we can
convey that meaning to the audience in their concert. Then, the students will be asked to
individually write down what they know, and what they want to know about the music of the
1920s. Their assignment will be to look up other jazz pieces on the Internet, and bring in a title
and/or artist that they found to be their favorite.

Present (Sequence of the rehearsal steps. Present the steps to scaffold and allow time for
students to practice independently on their own. Differentiate instruction through questioning,
clarifying, summarizing, and connecting).

Singers will decide as a group where to take breaths throughout the piece after hearing
the selection of the professional choir. The students will go through their score and mark the
sections that we have collectively decided are considered the challenging sections to be aware
of and our brainstormed solutions. As the piece starts to form, the conductor will make note of
diction, phrasing, and vowel sounds on the word, Blue. The students and conductor will work
together to try to bring the piece to a performance, yet artistic level. The group will pay attention
to articulation, and also swung rhythms.

Personalize (Make the learning personal to the players. Provide opportunities for ensemble
members and their conductor to collaborate as musicians to create a musical experience and
add value to their lives).

Midway through the rehearsal process, the conductor will audio record the students
singing the piece in its entirety. The teacher will lead a discussion about what they need to do as
a group to try to get the piece to where they want it for the performance.

Perform (Demonstrate teaching music when students perform).

The seventh grade chorus will perform the piece, Blue Skies by Irving Berlin at their
winter concert.


Assessment:

Formative: Students will show an ability to work in groups to make their performance a
success as a community of practice. They will work together, along with the conductor, to gure
out the musical techniques to enhance the overall performance.

Summative: The students will show their mastery of the jazz/swing genre with musical
concepts as they perform the piece, Blue Skies by Irving Berlin.

Integrative: Teacher reects on the following questions:
1. As the conductor, was I efcient in helping students realize that they have a huge role in
how their rehearsals ow towards their concert?
2. In what ways did I use reciprocal teaching as a way to have students become the teacher?
3. In what ways did the students come to understand and perform the piece after studying the
jazz/swing style and scat singing?
4. How did the students nd value in working together to improve the overall performance of
the piece?
5. Having worked on the piece, what have I noticed that could help improve my future teaching
as a conductor?