How do you take a performance of a wind band standard to the next level? Inevitably, the answer involves phrasing, dynamics, and musicality. Of course, teaching these musical concepts can be difficult. You can make it easier by helping your students take ownership of their own musical decisions.
Using differentiated instruction in your lesson plan can also help. This can ensure that your rehearsal techniques are reaching every student, honoring their learning needs, and keeping them engaged.
We’ve built a lesson plan to help you do exactly that with SmartMusic TEACH.
This lesson plan uses SmartMusic TEACH alongside in-class rehearsal techniques. The learning objective is to improve student dynamic contrast, phrasing, and breathing in the piece On A Hymnsong of Philip Bliss.
The Free Lesson Plan Includes:
- Tie-ins to National Core Arts Standards.
- Space for you to take notes and customize the plan (including a spot for your state standards).
- In-class activities to help students take ownership of their musical ideas, including a warm-up exercise that relates to the day’s learning objectives.
- Small and large group activities to promote differentiated instruction.
- Activities that involve critical listening and musical decision making by every student, ensuring that they stay engaged throughout the rehearsal.
While the plan doesn’t include instructions for creating a custom rubric in SmartMusic, we can help with that, too. Here’s how to easily build a custom rubric.
Don’t have SmartMusic? Get started with TEACH Free. We even have a lesson plan to help teach dynamic contrast that you can use with the free version.
If you’re already using TEACH Free, upgrading to TEACH (and using this lesson plan) can transform your students’ practice by adding access to full repertoire library. What’s more, it can help you have more efficient rehearsals by letting you apply differentiated instruction to the repertoire you’re performing.