Developing Engaging, Enriching, Empowering, and
Creative Composition Projects for Your Classroom
ILMEA Summer Learning Series
Jesse Rathgeber
Narrative Projects
Humans are natural storytellers (Hickey, 2012) and this is very apparent in many of the world's most favorite musical works. From the Nutcracker to The Spongebob Squarepants Theme Song, composers often base their work on narratives.
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Spark: A familiar, currently being studied, or student-created poem. Example poems include: “Crocodile” (Carroll), “Caterpillar” (Rossetti), "Hug O’War," "The Porky," "Rain," "Sarah Cynthai Silvia Stout," "Where the Sidewalk Ends" (all by Silverstein), and “The Land of Nod” (Stevenson).
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Prompt: Discover a fun and interesting way to read your poem aloud. Notice its meter and/or repeated rhythmic patterns. How might you play it? Which words are important? What sounds work well to represent those words? Practice putting the ostinato pattern together along with a reading and a playing of your poem.
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Extension: Have a class poetry slam to share the works.
How does a Poem Sound?
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Spark: A familiar short story, fairytale, folklore, or a student-created short story. Example stories include: The Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf, the Bremen Town Musicians, Hansel and Gretel, the Gypsy Queen, Abiyoyo, Stone Soup, etc.
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Prompt: How can you set a story to music?
- Option 1: Create sound effects and other atmospheric sounds to
accompany the story. -
- Option 2: Select instruments to portray each character or important
plot element.
- Option 3: Make use of strategies from both options 1 and 2. Create
an introduction, exposition, climax, and resolution that
highlight moments throughout the story. How will you
transition from each section to the next? How will you
create tension and resolution?
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Extension: Record the works. Include this along with student-created animations depicting their story. Possible tools include: Toontastic, Scratch, GoAnimate, ABCYa, and Puppet Pals.
Playing the Plot
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Spark: A recorded section of a video game or movie without the sound. YouTube is filled with recordings of single levels from old and new video games as well as scenes from movies. Think about how important the soundtrack of a movie is in telling the story. Take a look at this video to hear the difference music can have on a scene like the “Boat Scene” from Pirates of the Caribbean.
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Prompt: Select a clip from a video game or movie and create a fitting soundtrack to accompany it. Consider how elements of expression (articulation, dynamics, etc.) can help set the mood along with timbre and texture. Time your music to go along with your clip.
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Extension: Record the music and combine it with your video using iMovie, Movie Maker, or CombineVideo. Movie marathon night to share the works with family and friends.
My Soundtrack
Based on the work of both J. O'Leary & C. Anderson
Remix of "Pirates of the Caribbean"