Brianna Beaupre

Brianna Beaupre
Mused 353 Midterm
Nina Simone lived from February 21, 1933 April 21, 2001. She
was born in North Carolina with the name Eunice Kathleen Waymon.
She showed a high level of musicality from an early age when she
played the piano by ear at the age of three. She studied classical music
with Muriel Mazzanovich who was an Englishwoman. Her community
was very supportive of her immense talent and came together to
provide a scholarship for her to go to Julliard where she attended
before having to drop out due to a lack of money. She then applied for
the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, but was rejected.
She then began teaching locally, but was looking for some extra
income and so she began playing in bars. She sang and played the
piano. Her sound started to grow from its classical roots to include
gospel, blues, folk, rock, and pop with classical roots always laying a
foundation for the sound. Soon word grew about her and she signed
onto a record label. This began the start of a more than forty-year
career. She was known as an American Icon, The High Priestess of
Soul, an engaging live performer, and finally as a Civil Rights Activist.
When Civil Rights Activist Medgar Evers and four girls were killed
in Birmingham, Nina Simone was impacted deeply. She wrote
Mississippi Goddam and began her role as an activist. She wasnt
exactly pleased, saying that the business side of music was dirty, and

Brianna Beaupre
the unimaginative chants that were sung in honor of important people
and events werent enough to properly honor them. But she couldnt
stop after Mississippi Goddam and kept fighting.
She eventually grew tired of being labeled as an American Icon
and moved to many different places in Europe at the end of her life.
Her goal was to always get people to feel deeply when hearing her
music. She inspired many and left behind a great legacy as an AfricanAmerican woman in the music industry that made it big.

Brianna Beaupre

Nina Simone Michael Bubl

-lyrics
-similar

high brass
scats
accompanim
repeats more
opening is ent
a
ends with
-meter
capella
-tempo
instruments
low brass
more structured
more piano
in beginning

Brianna Beaupre
Dear Friend,
I was recently listening to Feeling Good by Michael Bubl and
thought about how much I enjoy that song. I decided to look up other
people singing the song to see how they interpreted it. I found a
recording of Nina Simone singing it and was really intrigued. Her take
was a little different.
First of all, Simone started the song A Capella, while Bubl sang
the opening with accompaniment from strings. Both sang the same
lyrics. Simone repeated the last phrase of the intro and added some
vocal runs, but then Bubl repeated more of the chorus at the end of
the song. Bubl also had instrumental interludes between verses while
Simone almost immediately went from one verse to the next. Simone
started to scat at the end of her version of the song, and I wouldnt be
surprised if she improvised the scat section during each attempted
recording of the song.
Nina Simone seemed to use more vocal freedom while singing. It
seemed more impromptu and less rehearsed. Her A Capella opening
didnt keep straight time and was very soulful like the rest of the song.
Michael Bubls version of Feeling Good is slightly more structured in
that all of his singing is right in time the whole time. I feel as though
his version is more rehearsed, but he does use some soul in his
singing.

Brianna Beaupre
The instrumentation between songs is very similar, but not
completely the same. The crescendos are led by the strings in
Simones version, while trumpets lead the crescendos in Bubls
version. Simones version doesnt even include trumoets. Simones
accompaniment includes a more prominent piano part that is almost a
solo, whereas the piano is simply another accompanying instrument
when Bubl is singing.
If I were to teach adolescents using one of these songs, I would
choose Michael Bubls version over Nina Simones. I feel as though
the students will be able to follow along and sing more easily with
Bubls because it keeps very even time and doesnt rubato. Also,
Bubl sings with clearer articulation and diction. This makes it easier
for students to understand the song and interpret it much more easily.
I feel as though adolescents would be much more likely to know
who Michael Bubl is over Nina Simone. They will be much more likely
to want to learn a song when they have heard of the singer and
possibly know other songs that person has sung. It is especially helpful
that Michael Bubl is currently living, so they can feel the connection to
the artist more.

Brianna Beaupre
Glossary
A Capella: Choral or vocal music performed without instrumental
accompaniment.
Accompaniment: The additional but subordinate music used to support
a melodic line.
Chorus: The refrain of a song.
Crescendo: To smoothly increase the volume of a particular phrase or
passage.
Improvisation: Term referring to the spontaneous performance of music
without previous preparation or any written notes.
Instrumentation: Instrumentation is generally used to mean
orchestration, the art of writing music for instruments, or, alternatively,
the actual scoring of a particular composition.
Interlude: In the theatre an interlude performs the same function as an
entr'acte, music between acts or scenes, designed to bridge a gap. It
may also be used to indicate music played or sung between two other
works or two sections of a work
Phrase: A musical unit, often a component of a melody. The phrase
may be regarded as a dependent division of music, such as a single
line of poetry; it does not have a sense of completion in itself. Usually
two or more phrases balance each other, as in a period
Scat: A vocal jazz style that consists of improvised nonsense syllables
sung to an an improvised melody, usually over an instrumental

Brianna Beaupre
accompaniment. This is similar to vocalese where voices replace jazz
instruments with the addition of words.
Solo: A single performer or a passage that is to be performed by a
single performer.
Verse: In poetry or song, a verse is a group of lines, which constitutes a
unit. Often there are several verses in a single text, and usually the
rhyme scheme, rhythm, and number of poetic lines and feet are the
same from verse to verse in a single text.

Brianna Beaupre

Lesson Plan
Content and Achievement Standards
Singing, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music.
c. sing music representing diverse genres and cultures, with expression
appropriate for the work being performed.
Listening to, analyzing, and describing music.
a. describe specific musical events in a given example using
appropriate terminology
c. demonstrate knowledge of tonality and harmonic progressions in the
analysis of music.

Class Goals and Objectives

Reinforce students knowledge of measures and musical form
(verse/refrain).

Reinforce students singing skills

Materials
A recording of the song Feeling Good by Michael Bubl
lyric dictation sheet
Piano

Procedures
1. Students and instructor will discuss how they are feeling.

Brianna Beaupre
QUESTION: How are you feeling? Does the weather ever affect your
mood?
PROMPT: I want you to listen to the song and fill out your dictation
sheets as we hear the song.
2. Students will listen to the song and fill out the lyric dictation
sheet.
QUESTION: What are the lyrics?
PROMPT: This time, I want everyone to listen to the song and figure out
what I am doing while the song is playing.
3. Students listen while instructor sings along only with the chorus
of the song.
QUESTION: What did I do while the song played?
PROMPT: This time I want you all to sing that part of the song with me
whenever it is sung in the song.
4. Students will sing the chorus with instructor as the song plays
and the chorus is sung in the song.
QUESTION: Can anyone tell me what we call the part of the song that
repeats throughout the song at given intervals? What do we call the
other parts of the song?
PROMPT: This time I want us to practice singing (Do, Te, Le, Sol).
5. Students and instructor practice singing (Do, Te, Le, Sol).
QUESTION: Does this happen at all in the song?

Brianna Beaupre
PROMPT: Listen and try to find where this happens in the song and
what instrument plays this line.
6. Students identify the line as the bass line and the instruments
that play the line.
PROMPT: Join me in singing the bass line.
7. Students and the instructor sing the bass line with the song.
8. If possible have some of the students play the bass line on an
instrument and have others keep a steady beat on a drum or
tambourine.
PROMPT: Everyone choose to sing the chorus, sing the bass line, play
the bass line, or keep a steady beat. If you are really daring, you can
attempt to sing the rest of the lyrics.
9. Students choose an option and go through the song with the
instructor as the instructor slowly turns the volume down on the
song.
10.
The students and instructor sing the song one more time,
this time only singing the chorus when it happens.
QUESTION: What is it called when a certain section of the song is
repeated and certain times? What are the other parts called?
11. Students review knowledge and are asked to bring in the choruses
to some of their favorite songs.

Assessment of Goals and Objectives

Assessment will be informal and achieved through question and
answer activities and by having students identify choruses in some of
their favorite songs. Students will also compare the form of the songs
and determine if they are the same or different.

Brianna Beaupre

Follow up Lessons
Future lessons would focus on different forms of songs, such as rondo
form.

Brianna Beaupre

Feeling Good
Michael Bubl

You know how I ____________

It's a new _________
It's a new _________
It's a new ________
_______ me
And I'm ____________ good
Birds flying high, You know how I feel, Sun in the sky, You know how I
feel
Breeze driftin' on by, You know how I feel, It's a new dawn, It's a new
day
It's a new life, For me, And I'm feeling good, I'm feeling good
Fish in the sea, You know how I feel, River running free, You know how I
feel,
Blossom on a tree, You know how I feel, It's a new dawn, It's a new day,
It's a new
Life, For me, And I'm feeling good, Dragonfly out in the sun you know
what I mean,
don't you know, Butterflies all havin' fun you know what I mean, Sleep
in peace

Brianna Beaupre
when day is done, That's what I mean, And this old world is a new
world
And a bold world, For me, For me, Stars when you shine, You know how
I feel, Scent
of the pine, You know how I feel, Oh freedom is mine, And I know how I
feel