Teach or review procedures

Teach or Review Music Rules (or jump ahead if this is your 2nd or 3rd week)

Choose instruments, body percussion, or desk drumming to play the rhythms.

Space students out in a circle. The teacher creates a movement and everyone copies it. Whenever the teacher likes, point to student on your right who becomes the next leader. When leader #2 has had a turn, they point to the person on their right who becomes the next leader. The song is usually long enough for everyone to get one turn.

Reference the 2020 movie SOUL, produced by Pixar Animation Studios and Walt Disney Pictures, by asking students if they have heard of it, seen it, or know anything about it. Based on the feedback, discuss the plot of the movie, which follows the story of a middle school music teacher whose body and soul are separated in an accident on his way to an important gig as a jazz musician. He tries to reunite them and learns some lessons about himself and others in the process.

Without getting too heavy, begin and lead a discussion on the meaning of a soul. A soul is the part of human beings that is separate from the physical body and is thought of as the center of feeling, thought, and spirit. Many people believe that music brings out, or enhances, a soul, because music is sometimes felt from the inside. Ask students if they agree or disagree with this.

Play the full performance recording of “It’s All Right” and ask students to place their hands on their chest and tap to the quarter note or half note beat to see if they can feel their soul connect with the music.

Once students are comfortable with the rhythms, melody, and lyrics of the song, introduce the movements. Using the choreography video by John Jacobson, play the entire video performance for the class. Then teach and rehearse the movements section by section.

Reinforce ´√ meter. Song 62. "An Austrian Went Yodeling" is a student favorite. Teach the song by rote and add actions as indicated by the words of the song. In the second section, add the following ostinato: pat, clap, snap. This really reinforces that there are three beats in each group in this song. When you teach this section, stop and ask them how
the music is moving. (in twos, threes or fours) Invite the students to create new three beat ostinatos to accompany the B section.

This song is a good song for learning about accented beats. The process below is given as a projectable in the Concept Slides for the song. Give each student a tennis ball and have them bounce and catch as they sing. When they bounce the ball, the beat feels stronger than when they catch the ball.

"Plainsies, Clapsies" is a ball bouncing game. While you sing, you try to bounce a ball and do all the actions that are indicated by the words of the song.

Playing and Creating: Have the students create a speech interlude to say between repetitions of the song. (If you don’t want to repeat the entire song, just repeat the first four measures) Have them think of 4-8 different kinds of balls. For example: basketball, volleyball, beach ball, soccer ball. They could do body percussion or play non-pitched instruments with their speech.