Tara Foley Dr.

May MUS-M344 Warm-up Lesson Plan at Batchelor Middle School Playing a G major and C major scale Class Setting: Middle school orchestra; most students have been playing for two years, but most are at a very beginning level. Most of the time, students are unable to play in tune together. Goals: National Standards: MU.IN7.2 2007 - Performing Music: Playing an instrument alone and with others Objectives: The goal for the students is to learn what intonation is, how to play in tune, and how to listen to their stand partners and across the orchestra. Materials: Instruments for all students

Procedure: 1. Students will be asked to define intonation a. Intonation being in tune, having a unison sound across the orchestra 2. The teacher will ask each section what the finger patterns are for each instrument on each string for a G major scale. The teacher also asks what sharps and flats are in the key signature (only F-sharp) a. Violins/violas: i. G string 2nd and 3rd finger close ii. D string 2nd and 3rd finger close b. Celli: i. G string open position

ii. D string open position c. Basses: i. G string ii. D string 3. The class will play a G major scale in half notes with a single pitch for each bow. 4. The teacher explains the tuning exercise: a. When the teachers hands are together, palm to palm, the students will play the given note i. Students are told that they will do this exercise for the first five notes of the G major scale. b. As the teacher moves her hands apart, the students will move the finger the notes is on up the fingerboard. i. Students can move this finger as fast or slow as they would like, but it will always be causing the pitch to become sharper. c. At a certain point, the teacher will begin to move her hands closer together, at which point students must start moving their finger back down the fingerboard i. Student must move their finger back to the original position of the given pitch. ii. The teacher will remind the students to watch her hands as she moves them back together d. The teacher will tell the students to listen to their neighbor as the pitch gets closer to the original pitch i. As their fingers come closer to the pitch, the students must listen to their neighbor to find a pitch center ii. If the pitch center is totally lost, the teacher can either play a drone (on an instrument or through a sound system) throughout the exercise or at the end of the exercise e. The exercise will be repeated for a few of the notes of each scale. It will be clarified that if the fingering for the note is a 2nd finger, the students will slide their 2nd finger, and the same with their 3rd finger. 5. Students will a G major scale again

a. The teacher will listen to the scale closely to figure out what pitches need to be altered. b. If there are major problems with a certain note, the exercise can be repeated for individual notes. 6. Next, the teacher will have the students play a C major scale twice a. The teacher will review the differences between a G major scale and a C major scale (change the F-sharp to an F-natural) b. The students will play the scale once all the way through with a half note for each pitch c. The teacher will evaluate a scale of 1-5 (5 being the best) according to intonation d. The students will play the scale again i. The teacher will remind the students to listen to the instruments around them e. The students will evaluate their own playing by the same rating scale according to intonation i. The teacher will evaluate the students as well and decipher if the ratings were similar 7. The teacher will reiterate that the purpose of the lesson was to teach the students to listen for intonation across the orchestra Assessment: Evaluating that the students are able to define intonation Evaluating the ability of the students to listen to their neighbors to be in unison Evaluating the ability of the students to watch the hand motions of the conductor Students will assess their own improvement after an initial assessment by the instructor as a benchmark Instruction Strategies to Consider: Questioning to facilitate student discourse Guided practice