Creation Blog
25/4/16
I began my assignment by writing down exactly what I needed to do exactly for the assignment, so ensure I didn't miss any parts.
I began with part 1, looking at what pieces I would like to choose for the 5 pieces that need to be studied in the mandatory.
I began by choosing Arvo Part as my international composer, just because I've always enjoyed his music and have found it very interesting. So I found a piece he wrote called L'abbe Agathon written for 8 cellos and soprano. I chose this piece because it has very interesting interaction between the instruments, interesting harmonies and performance techniques.
Then, I chose Koori Dreaming from A Little Book of Hours from Peter Sculthorpe, as it is important to have music influenced by Indigenous Australian music included in the HSC study. This piece would allow for an indepth study of the pieces influences.
Then, I listened to a variety of music by Carl Vine, and came across the score for Pipe Dreams.
The piece I have decided to focus this unit of study on is Eliza Aria from Wild Swan Suite by Elena Kats-Chernin. I chose this piece because of its ease to be arranged into a mix bag arrangement, this is demonstrated really in the amount of arrangements that Kats-Chernin has released herself. The piece has also been strongly incorporated into popular culture through influencing pop songs, and being used in commercials.
I still need to choose another piece that is not 'art music', the syllabus says that this can be:
- popular music
- music in radio, film, television and multimedia
- jazz
- music for theatre
I then began to plan out what I want to achieve in the 6 weeks of lessons, and began to sketch out ideas for what kind of activities could be included in each lesson.
You can see the beginnings of my ideas below.
I decided that as I went along, I would put my ideas straight into a unit of study document into the sequence of learning section, to make sure I included every activity.
For my first week, I decided that the students would:
- Complete a melody dictation, then perform what they dictated
- Perform a mixed bag arrangement of the opening
- Look at the background of the ballet
- Research the influences of the piece
- Examine the creative process of creating the work
- Research some other works by the composer.
I then had to think about how I would deliver the resources for this unit. I was going to make an iBook, but I really wanted it to be able to be accessible on different devices, so I have decided to make an interactive website, which will have all the lesson sequences available for the students, and will be accessible on iPads, laptops, phones etc.
On the right is an idea of what the website will look like. Students will click through to each weeks activities, where they will find all the resources they need to complete their work.
Right now, I'm trying to figure out a way to be able to host a "chat room" on the site so that student can comment ideas and post questions as they go through the work.
Because all the work will be readily available to the students, if they finish their work early, they can go on to the next weeks work, or can choose some extra work to do.
26/4/16
Today I continued planning activities for my unit of study.
I found it easier to make the activities on my website, then I will transfer those activites into the written unit of study, and then transfer them into lesson plans.
I created an idea of what activities are going to be done over the six weeks now. These are probably going to change as I go through, but here is an idea for now, why the activities were chosen, and what is involved:
Week 1
- Melody dictation of the first melody of Eliza Aria
Students first interaction with the piece will be notating the main melody in groups. Students will provide peer feedback.
- Mixed bag arrangement of Eliza Aria
Students will then perform the melody they previously transcribed as a mixed bag arrangement.
- Listen to the piece (no score)
Students focus on what they can hear, and listen to the differences in sound.
- Background of the piece
Students gain an idea on what the piece is about, they guess what kind of work it is, learn the storyline. Students watch a behind the scenes view of the production at the Sydney Opera House, and watch a clip of the performance with the dancers. This provides students with insight into the performance as a whole.
Week 2
- Sight singing from Eliza Aria
A melody they will have heard in the previous week, but it will be interesting to see if they remember it.
- Score reading (focus on structure)
Looking at the big picture, major differences between the sections of the score ie. different melodies, tonality, instrumentation.
- Compositional influences
Students read the composers notes, then look at Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake identifying similar motivic material.
- Creating a motive
Students use an idea from Eliza Aria to create their own motive.
Week 3
- Sight singing from deep sea dreaming
This is the first piece that Kats-Chernin and her choreographer worked on, a melody will be selected from this work for sight singing.
- Melodic and harmonic analysis of Eliza Aria
Students look in depth on what has been done with melody and harmony.
- Short answer question
A short answer, builds students up to working on essay, about how melody and harmony affect the structure.
- Create a harmony for motive
Students use their knowledge of harmony from Eliza Aria to create harmony for their motive they created in the previous week.
Week 4
- Melody dictation from The Journey Continues
Students complete a melody dictation, this song samples Eliza Aria.
- TV Ad
Introduction to this song being used in a popular context.
- The Journey Continues
This pop / dance song used Eliza Aria samples.
- Remix
Use of motive and harmonic ideas used in previous composition activites to create a remix in ableton.
Week 5
- Play by ear (informal jam session)
Students jam to The Journey Continues. How to connect art music and pop music.
- Sight singing (material TBA)
- Comparisons of performances
Comparison between The Journey Continues and Eliza Aria.
Week 6
- Looking at arrangements by Elena
Allows students to hear the different instrumentaton makes. I found a great video where Elena herself plays a solo piano version.
- Composition activity - instrumentation
Students change the instrumentation of their composition, thinking about expressive techniques to change the sound.
- Final analysis and summary
Summary of the piece.
While I have come up with an outline for the activites, I haven't put in complete details and instructions for each activity yet, but I have created pages on my website so that I can add to each page when I can. This is what my website looks like right now, I have completed the instructions and details until about half way through week 2:
3/5/16
Today I continued creating resources for my unit of study.
The last time I worked on this I had completed the resources until about halfway through week 2.
Today I added in:
Week 2 Motive Activity
Students create a motive usingan idea from Eliza Aria, I also completed a sample version that I uploaded. View it below.
Then I moved onto creating my Week 3 resources.
My chosen sight singing piece was an excerpt from another movement of the Wild Swans Suite Darkness in the Forest.
Then I created a step-by-step guide to analysing the harmony of the piece, because the piece is so repetitive, I assigned key places that need to be analysed, then included a quiz at the end (a fillable .pdf) to assess whether the students have understood the chordal progressions.
Once students have completed the harmony analysis, they then need to create their own harmonic accompaniment for the melody they created in the previous week. Once again, I created my own as a demonstration.
I changed the order of the activities for week 4-6 to something I felt scaffolded better. The activities now look at arrangements that Elena Kats-Chernin has created, with a close look at the difference instrumentation makes to the sound, and the way that the pieces were adapted to the different instruments. Then students look at The Journey Continues the second "focus" piece for this unit, an electronic pop song from the UK that samples Eliza Aria before creating their own remix of the piece.
The new order is (with the activities I have now created):
Week 4
Students listen to a variety of different arrangements and answer focus questions.
(I found a great video of Elena playing the solo piano version)
Students watch the TV ad that inspired The Journey Continues
Students listen to The Journey Continues and create their own remix.
Once again, I created my own demonstration for the remix, you can video the loops I've used, and then the final product below.
I changed the order of the activities for week 4-6 to something I felt scaffolded better. The activities now look at arrangements that Elena Kats-Chernin has created, with a close look at the difference instrumentation makes to the sound, and the way that the pieces were adapted to the different instruments. Then students look at The Journey Continues the second "focus" piece for this unit, an electronic pop song from the UK that samples Eliza Aria before creating their own remix of the piece.
The new order is (with the activities I have now created):
Week 4
Students listen to a variety of different arrangements and answer focus questions.
(I found a great video of Elena playing the solo piano version)
Students watch the TV ad that inspired The Journey Continues
Students listen to The Journey Continues and create their own remix. I also included a video that Sarah Cracknell (the vocalist) made which is an acoustic version of the song.
Once again, I created my own demonstration for the remix, you can video the loops I've used, and then the final product below.
So now the activities below, I still need to create resources for:
Week 5
Students continue working on their remix.
Students are going to perform The Journey Continues by ear, and play it as a group on their chosen instruments.
Students do a comparison between The Journey Continues and Eliza Aria.
Week 6
Sight singing activity
Composition activity - arranging for instruments
Essay question
Then I the resources will be complete and I will need to:
- Transfer that information into a unit of study document
- Finish choosing my 5 Australian focus pieces (1 left!)
- Choose pieces for my imaginary class
- Make sure all the links on my website actually work and fix up the mobile version.
9/5/16
Today I continued making resources, tidying up my unit of study, and created lesson plans.
I filled in instructions for week 5 and 6.
Week 5 begins with students continuing to work on their remix projects..
Then students perform The Journey Continues by ear, because this is meant to be an informal activity, instructions have been left to a minimum, I just mentioned to make sure they think about who does what in the group.
Then students post ideas on what other ways, aside from the obvious sample in The Journey Continues has it taken influence from Eliza Aria, this would be then turned into an indepth class discussion.
For Week 6, I chose a melody from the Nutcracker which was another compositional influence of Eliza Aria.
Then, students develop their composition even further by arranging their composition for different instruments. For my demonstration example, I rewrote my melody and harmony for string quartet, I chose an instrumentation that I am very well familiar with, and would encourage students to do the same. I also included detail on how I created the arrangement.
Now that all my activities were in, I went back and added them all into my unit of study. After that, I started creating my lesson plans, which to do, I went through my website and made sure I included each activity, then added in timing for the activities.
Upon reading through the syllabus again, I decided to add some things throughout the unit in the activities, this included:
- In week 1, when students listen to the piece for the first time, add in a point to think about the musical concepts.
- In week 2, when students when students listen to the piece with the score, add in a point to think about musical concepts.
- In week 3, add in that students have to document their progress in a composition portfolio.
- In week 3, create an additional quiz where students have to write short paragraphs about concepts in Eliza Aria, this will help scaffold towards their essays.
11/5/16
Today I went through and tidied up the website, made sure all the links work properly, and then finished off my unit of study.
I realised that I hadn't chosen my non-Western Art Music repertoire, and I found a jazz piece called Nectar Spur by Barney McAll. I found it to be quite an interesting piece of music.
You can find more about my reasoning for choosing repertoire in my final submitted assignment.
14/5/16
Today I went through the mobile version of my website to make sure that that all the link buttons were in the right place (which not a single one was), so now a working mobile version is available which means it is accessible on any devices that students could have.
I have also decided to include lesson plans for all 6 weeks, to make sure that my activities are easily understandable.
15/5/16
Aaaaaaaaaaaand IT'S DONE!
Check out the links below to see all the final components: