Teaching literacy in Music: Stage 4

Unit: Experimenting with sound

Part A: About percussion instruments

Lesson outcomes

Students:

understand the difference between melodic and non-melodic percussion instruments
aurally and visually identify percussion instruments
describe the tone colours of percussion instruments
compose percussion pieces demonstrating contrasts in pitch, duration, volume and tone colour.

Melodic and non-melodic percussion

Play the rhythm pattern of Happy Birthday to You on a tambourine and ask students to name the tune. Play the same again on another non-melodic instrument and ask the same question.

Play the rhythm and melody on a xylophone or glockenspiel and ask students to identify the tune.

Ask students: Which instrument was different? Why? Why was it difficult to identify the tune on the first two instruments, but not on the third one?

Explain the difference between melodic and non-melodic percussion instruments.
Ask students to name other melodic and non-melodic percussion instruments. Which category contains the most instruments?

Tone colour of percussion instruments

Display a list of words to describe the tone colour of different percussion instruments, for example: metallic, jangling, reverberant, vibrant, piercing, hollow, booming, rattling, brittle, rasping, shimmering, tinkling, shattering, silvery.

Demonstrate different tone colours by playing different instruments. Name each instrument as it is played and describe the tone colour.

Distribute a variety of instruments. Ask students to play their instrument to demonstrate an adjective from the list, for example, play your instrument if it makes a tinkling sound. Repeat for a variety of adjectives.

Student handout 8: Percussion instruments
Play taped examples of percussion instruments and ask students to name each instrument heard. Identify whether the instrument belongs on the non-melodic or melodic percussion chart. Use correct spelling to write down the name of each instrument in the left-hand column of the handouts.

In the second column write a brief description of its tone colour. For example: triangle - very high-pitched, metallic sound which reverberates for a long time.

The third column is for students to paste the appropriate picture of each instrument from Student handout 9: Percussion instruments picture sheets. Listen to half the musical examples this lesson, and the other half in the next lesson to prevent aural "burn-out".

Spelling strategies

Try these activities to explicitly teach students how to spell music vocabulary.

Ask students to draw a coloured circle around the letters in a word which may cause spelling difficulties e.g. tambourine, glockenspiel.
Ask students to close their eyes and visualise a TV screen in their mind. Visualise a word they are trying to learn to spell printed across this screen in their favourite colour. Keep looking at the word, spell it aloud, then spell it backwards (this can only be done if the word can be seen in their heads), then spell it forwards again. Tell students that whenever they hear this word it will always appear in their mind spelt like this.
Draw students’ attention to the patterns of letters in a word, e.g. the h in the middle of each syllable of rhythm. Have students spell the word aloud, accenting the repeated letter, e.g. r H y – t H m.
If the word comes from another language, explain which language and what it means: e.g. xylophone comes from the Greek words xylo meaning "wood" and phonos meaning "sound", therefore the word literally means "wood sound". This will help students remember that a xylophone has wooden bars.
Glockenspiel comes from the German words glocken, meaning "bells" and spiel, meaning "play", therefore a glockenspiel sounds like bells playing. This will help students remember this instrument has metal bars.
Draw attention to difference in meaning and spelling between the words cymbal and symbol (homonyms), as both words are used in this unit.
Rather than a spelling list give each student a blank vocabulary list Student handout 13: Music vocabulary list. Encourage students to write each new word, its meaning and a sentence using the word in an appropriate way.

Cloze activity

Student handout 10: Additional percussion activities provides information for students about two percussion instruments as a cloze activity. The passages focus on concepts and language related to this unit.
Cloze passages can be designed to reinforce other concepts or knowledge about language, such as tense, singular or plural, noun or pronoun referencing.

Composition activity

As an introduction to the composition activity, revise the ways Jon Appleton created contrast in Times Square Times Ten. Discuss the meaning of contrast and its importance in creating interesting music. Discuss the ways contrast could be created in class percussion compositions.

Ask students to form groups of four. Select four percussion instruments, including at least one wooden, one skin and one metal instrument. Specify a time limit in which students compose a piece that contains contrasts of pitch, duration, dynamics and tone colour.
Tape these compositions as each group performs them for the class. These recordings will be a resource for the following lesson.

Follow–up

Students visit library to complete a research assignment on a pitched percussion instrument. See Student handout 11: Library research project.

View an example of student research.

Students should have developed an understanding of the musical concepts covered in the research assignment through participation in the preceding lessons.

Information skills strategies to support students to complete the research

Try some ideas below to support students to use the library resources effectively. Work through the Information skills process with students by naming each step and asking questions.

Identify student needs in developing information skills.

See linked "sample activities". These are designed to assist students with the information skills process.

For further ideas see: Information skills in schools (1989) NSW Department of Education, Sydney.

Resources

Student handout 8: Percussion instruments
Student handout 9: Percussion instruments picture sheets
Student handout 10: Additional percussion activities
Student handout 11: Library research project
Student handout 13: Music vocabulary list

Student work sample 2

Teacher information sheet 1: Information skills process
Teacher information sheet 2 : Information skills
Teacher information sheet 3: Sample activities to develop information skills

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