Title: Notable American Composers
Teacher: Aaron Kirchhoff
School: Blackburn Elementary
Grade Focus: 6th grade
Time Frame: two 40 minute class periods

Show Me Standards: FA5, FA3

Introduction: Throughout history, Europe has been the center of Western Music. Most well known classical composers (i.e. Beethoven, Mozart, Handel) have been from Europe. During the 20th Century, American composers have gained notoriety. In this lesson students will become familiar with four notable American composers, George Gershwin, Amy Beach, William Grant Still, and John PhilipSousa.

Goals or Objectives:

1. Students will visit web sites for each of the composersand listen to selections of each composer's music.

2. Students will place important dates of the composers into a pre-printed time line including birth and death dates,dates of at least two compositions, and dates of at least two other events in each composer's life.

3. Students will choose a piece by a composer that most intereststhem and describe in detail, and with appropriate musical vocabulary what theyheard in the piece and/or what it reminds them of.

Procedure: Bookmark the following web sites:

Beach: http://www.wnet.org/archive/ihas/composer/beach.html
Sousa: http://plato.digiweb.com/~dlovrien/sousa/
Still: http://odyssey.lib.duke.edu/sgo/start.html

Students should be given a worksheet with a blank time line which they are to fill inwith dates and information from the web sites above. There should also be space for the student to describe their favorite piece of music by one of these composers.

Time will be allowed for class discussion of the music and the composers. Also,other recordings can and should be played both during the discussion time and at the beginning of the second class period.

Assessment:

Students will hand in their time line worksheet after discussing in class what they found in the web sites.

Resources and Technology Used:

Computer lab
Search engine: Netscape Navigator
Recordings of music by George Gershwin, Amy Beach, Wm. Grant Still and John Philip Sousa.

American Composer Time Line:

Name:
Teach

Fill in birth and death dates, dates of two important compositions, and the dates of two in the life of each composer.

( 1850 ) ( 1860 ) ( 1870 ) ( 1880 ) ( 1890 ) ( 1900 ) ( 1910 ) ( 1920 ) ( 1930 ) ( 1940 ) ( 1950 )

George
Gershwin

Amy
Beach

Wm. Grant
Still

John Philip
Sousa

On the back, pick your favorite piece by one of these composers and describe in detail w. piece using good music vocabulary.

[an error occurred while processing this directive]