Greetings!! Welcome to this installment of Mr. Severino Presents. I think you’ll have fun going through today’s music lesson.
Look at the picture.
The lion is known as “the King of Beasts”. Kings and lions can be described with the word MAJESTIC. Majestic describes things that are grand and noble or stately and dignified.
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Of course, we have a picture of a turtle. Turtles do not move very fast. In fact, because they are so slow, people may express things as being as slow as a turtle. If you are on a trip and caught in traffic you may say a turtle is moving faster than this traffic. We characterize turtles as being slow. Or, maybe we could say it like this … S___L___O___W ! ! !
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How would you describe a monkey? Did you ever go to a zoo and observe the monkeys? If you went to the zoo and saw the monkeys how did you react? Did you ever see monkeys in cartoons? Did the monkeys make you happy? We can describe monkeys very well with the single word PLAYFUL!
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Finally, what is being described in our fourth animal card? The butterfly! Butterflies are a favorite part of summer. Their beautiful colors make them very fun to watch. A very good word to describe the butterfly is to say they are FLIGHTY. They fly from place to place, from flower to flower. They move to each destination with grace and motion.
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We described each of our four animal creatures with a characteristic word.
Lions are MAJESTIC.
Turtles are SLOW.
Monkeys are PLAYFUL.
Butterflies are FLIGHTY.
Music also can be described with words because music also has character.
We are now going to listen to 4 examples of music that can also be said to be MAJESTIC, SLOW, PLAYFUL and FLIGHTY. Your job is to tell me if we are listening to …
LION MUSIC (majestic)
TURTLE MUSIC (slow)
MONKEY MUSIC (playful) or
BUTTERFLY MUSIC (flighty)
There will be two short quizzes.
QUIZ ONE will have 4 questions. QUIZ TWO will have 4 questions.
Before beginning, print out the Character in Music QUIZ SHEET [Click HERE] Play each musical example. Decide what animal creature best fits with the musical example. Put the example number in the upper right hand corner of each creature you decide upon. If you wish, color each animal creature on the QUIZ SHEET.
To do the second quiz print out a second copy of the Character in Music QUIZ SHEET [Click HERE]
QUIZ ONE
QUIZ ONE – EXAMPLE 1
QUIZ ONE – EXAMPLE 2
QUIZ ONE – EXAMPLE 3
QUIZ ONE – EXAMPLE 4
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QUIZ TWO
QUIZ TWO – EXAMPLE 1
QUIZ TWO – EXAMPLE 2
QUIZ TWO – EXAMPLE 3
QUIZ TWO – EXAMPLE 4
Would you like to know how you did? Click HERE for the Character in Music ANSWER SHEET.
Listening for character in music asks us to use our imagination in ways that most of our school work does not. Yet, this is the daily work of composers and musicians. YOUR JOB, as a music student, is to use your imagination to best express the character that is found in every composition you perform.
Thanks for participating in Mr. Severino Presents. ‘TILL NEXT TIME — KEEP PRACTICING!!
Oddly enough I find that LISTENING is perhaps the most difficult skill for many piano / music students to develop. It would seem that because music is all about what you hear, music students would be eager to listen! Instead they just want to play music without listening – and we know that music played this way is not very musical. Thanks for this resource. I think it will make learning to LISTEN to music more fun!