Song Elements Lesson Plan

Isabel Wood (bass), Lindsey, Showalter (rhythm), Emma Guy (melody), Chris Pennington
(harmony), Nathan Childs (improvisation/application)

Objectives:
● Students will describe the melody, bass, harmony, and rhythmic elements of a song.
● Students will find song examples where they can identify and describe each song
element.
● Students will teach their classmates about a specific song element. (Demonstrate
understanding by teaching)
● Students will create melody, bass, harmony, and rhythmic elements through
improvisation.

National Standards:

MU:Cr1.1.H.8a ​Generate melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic ideas for melodies (created over
specified chord progressions or AB/ABA forms) and two-to-three-chord accompaniments for
given melodies.

Anchor Standard #1. Generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work.

Anchor Standard #2. Organize and develop artistic ideas and work.

Anchor Standard #4. Select, analyze and interpret artistic work for presentation.

Anchor Standard #7. Perceive and analyze artistic work.

Procedure:
● Instructors will play music video for “Back Pocket” by Vulfpec and encourage the
students to listen for something that catches their ear and sing/play/body percussion
along with it. After the song instructors will introduce the concept of song elements.
○ 5 minutes
● Students will divide into 4 “Expert” groups for each element of a song (melody, harmony,
rhythm, bass line)
● Each expert group will have one instructor. This instructor will teach their group about
their specific song element and provide them with examples. Instructors will also ask the
students to identify their element in examples.
○ For example, the teacher for the melody group will first show their student an
example of a song with a distinctive melody and explain that it is what drives the
 story/concept of the song. The teacher can then provide another example if more
clarification in a different musical context is needed. Then the teacher will play
some testing examples and ask the student to identify the melody in the songs
they play for them by singing/humming/body percussion. If the student can’t
identify the melody, then the teacher will provide more varied examples within a
musical genre the student feels connected to. Once the student can successfully
identify the melody of 2-3 musical examples, the teacher will instruct them to find
their own musical examples to share with their classmates when they go to teach
in their “Home” groups.
○ 15 minutes
● The students will find a variety of examples for the element they learned about.
○ 5 minutes
● After 5 minutes, the students will return to “Home” groups consisting of one student from
each Expert group. In the Home groups, the students will each have a time slot to teach
the rest of their group members about the song element they learned.
○ 5 minutes per student (20 total)
● At the end of class, the students will come back together and discuss interesting things
they learned and any other feedback they want to communicate.
○ 3 minutes
● The students will then be assigned a song element that one of their classmates taught
them and be asked to compose their own melody/harmony/bass/rhythm in the key of
B-flat major in 3/4 time with a tempo of quarter note equals 100 for the next class
meeting. The composition should be no less than 30 seconds and no longer than a
minute and a half. At the next class, the groups will have about 5-10 minutes to share
their element with their group and adjust each element to create a cohesive song. The
students will then perform their song for the rest of the class and explain their
thought-process and the changes they had to make when they brought the group’s ideas
together.

Assessment:
Largely informal assessment. Instructors ask students to identify song elements they’ve learned
to check their understanding in their expert groups. Instructors will observe students teaching
each other their respective song elements and assess their understanding by how well they
communicate the characteristics of the element to their classmates. Instructors will also assess
students ability to teach what they’ve learned by observing the compositions their classmates
create based on their teaching of a specific element.

Modifications:
● Size: Although the majority of the lesson will be taught and explored without the use of
visuals, in the event that a student needs to write something down in large print, he or
she will be welcome to use the chalkboard. We could also write out
rhythms/harmonies/melodies in large print.
● Color: Different colors for each component of the song. The students could hold up a
certain color when they recognize that part of the song, or use the colors to notate the
melody, harmony, rhythm, and bassline.
● Pacing: In the case of a student progressing faster than the rest of the class, that student
could compose their own song and adjust the song requirements- longer, different key,
more complex rhythm, etc. In the case that a student does not progress at the same
pace as his or her peers, the student could spend more time practicing identifying the
different components of a song before moving on to composing.
● Modality: Body percussion/keeping the beat on the body could appeal to kinesthetic
learners. Most of the lesson will be taught aurally, but each component can be written
out as well.