Mix and match activities to create a fun lesson about the baroque period in music. Integrate Solfeg.io in teaching about baroque composers and analyzing their pieces.
🎲 What's included in the activities:
💻 Materials:
🕐 Time: 10 min
🎯 Objectives:
🎶 Recommended Songs:
🎲 Activity:
-Play Johann Sebastian Bach's Air from Orchestral suite No. 3 in D major, BWV 1068 on Solfeg.io web app with muting the synth and rhythm lines (find them in Controls - Volume).
-Discuss the piece:
It has been cited in other songs, used in films and adverts. Here are some examples (you can play excerpts from them, if you wish):
'A Whiter Shade of Pale' by Procol Harum, a rock song from the 1960s;
'Everything's Gonna Be Alright' by Sweetbox, a hip-hop song from the 1990s;
French pianist Jacques Loussier did a jazz interpretation of the piece;
Film composer Hugo Montenegro used the piece in his 'Love Theme' in the movie 'The Godfather';
The piece was interpreted on a Moog synthesizer by the American electronic music composer Walter (later Wendy) Carlos and included in the groundbreaking album 'Switched-On Bach' (1968).
🕐 Time: 15 min
🎯 Objectives:
🎶 Recommended Songs:
🎲 Activity:
-Bach's Orchestral suite No. 3 and thus its 2nd movement - the air we just heard - was written around 1731, so almost 300 years ago.
-Probably at least some of the students will have heard the piece somewhere before and there are different versions and interpretations of the piece made in different times, so you could assume it's popular. Discuss it with the class!
-The Air could be considered the most famous piece from the Baroque era.
An era in the Western art; a style of architecture, music, painting, sculpture and other arts.
Its time frame is usually considered from 1600 until 1750.
The word 'baroque' derived from the Italian word 'barocco', used during the Middle Ages by philosophers to describe an obstacle in logic and later came to denote anything absurdly complex. Another possible source of the word is the Portuguese word 'barroco' which means a flawed or imperfectly shaped pearl.
In general, the baroque art is characterized by complexity, the desire to evoke certain emotional states, dynamism, movement, tension, grandeur and sharp contrasts.
Mention the most famous composers of the Baroque era, for example, George Friedrich Handel, Antonio Vivaldi, Henry Purcell, Domenico Scarlatti, Barbara Strozzi etc. And of course, Johann Sebastian Bach!
-The piece is composed by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 - 1750) - a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist and violinist.
🕐 Time: 15 min
🎯 Objectives:
🎶 Recommended Songs:
🎲 Activity:
What instruments play in this movement?
What time signature is the movement in?
How long is the movement (how many pages)?
What does the name of the movement mean?
How would you describe the character and the mood of this movement?
🕐 Time: 15 min
🎯 Objectives:
🎶 Recommended Songs:
🎲 Activity:
-As you might have noticed in the previous exercise, Air is quite a contrast to the other movements (be reminded of contrasts as a characteristic of Baroque art!).
Arias are most commonly associated with opera (a drama in which the actors sing throughout), a musical genre which developed during the Baroque era.
It's an example of 'walking bass' (In Baroque music, a term used informally for a bass line that moves steadily and continuously in contrasting (usually longer) note values to those in the upper part or parts. - Grove Music Online)
If you follow the notation, you'll see that it moves in steps of a scale interspersed with octave leaps.
The bass line gives the sense of perpetual movement to Air. Remember that dynamism, movement and tension is characteristic to the Baroque art in general.
In the original score, the bass line is marked as 'basso continuo' - it's an instrumental line, over which the player improvises a chordal accompaniment (in the video you watched earlier, it was done on harpsichord).
These are marked as 'ripieno' in the score, meaning they fulfill the role of harmonic 'stuffing' or ripieno in Italian.
Explain to students how polyphony works in this piece and how the lines of simultaneous independent melodies interact - point the students' attention to the melodies in violin and viola parts, played during the long notes of the 1st violin part.
Almost 150 years after Bach's Orchestral suite No. 3 was written, the violinist August Wilhelm arranged its 2nd movement for violin and piano. He changed the key of the piece so that it could be played on one string - the lowest, also called G string - of the violin.
What was different about this arrangement?
Which instruments did you hear?
How did you like it?
🕐 Time: 5 min
🎯 Objectives:
🎲 Activity:
🕐 Time: 5 min
🎯 Objectives:
🎲 Activity:
Challenge students to go beyond the lesson by...
In this lesson, students will learn about the characteristics of Baroque music, exploring in depth a masterpiece of the era - the 2nd movement from the Orchestral suite No. 3 by Johann Sebastian Bach, also known as 'The Air on the G String'. The class will hear different versions of the piece and discuss its popularity. Students will learn the characteristic movements of the Baroque dance suite and get to know how Baroque polyphony works, exploring the relations of different instrumental lines of the piece.
The timing and pacing of the exercises in this lesson plan example are approximate and will differ depending on your students' skill level. If the pace of this lesson plan is too fast for you, divide it into several lessons. If the pace of this lesson plan is too slow for you, explore the 'Beyond the lesson' chapter at the end of this lesson plan for additional activities.
⏰ Time: 60 min
🎓 Grades: 5-12
🎯 Objective(s): As a result of this lesson students will be able to...
💡 Required Prior Knowledge and Skills:
💻 Materials:
🕐 10 min - Air on the air
-Play Johann Sebastian Bach's Air from Orchestral suite No. 3 in D major, BWV 1068 on Solfeg.io web app with muting the synth and rhythm lines (find them in Controls - Volume).
-Discuss the piece:
It has been cited in other songs, used in films and adverts. Here are some examples (you can play excerpts from them, if you wish):
'A Whiter Shade of Pale' by Procol Harum, a rock song from the 1960s;
'Everything's Gonna Be Alright' by Sweetbox, a hip-hop song from the 1990s;
French pianist Jacques Loussier did a jazz interpretation of the piece;
Film composer Hugo Montenegro used the piece in his 'Love Theme' in the movie 'The Godfather';
The piece was interpreted on a Moog synthesizer by the American electronic music composer Walter (later Wendy) Carlos and included in the groundbreaking album 'Switched-On Bach' (1968).
🕐 15 min - What's baroque about Baroque?
-Bach's Orchestral suite No. 3 and thus its 2nd movement - the air we just heard - was written around 1731, so almost 300 years ago.
-Probably at least some of the students will have heard the piece somewhere before and there are different versions and interpretations of the piece made in different times, so you could assume it's popular. Discuss it with the class!
-The Air could be considered the most famous piece from the Baroque era.
An era in the Western art; a style of architecture, music, painting, sculpture and other arts.
Its time frame is usually considered from 1600 until 1750.
The word 'baroque' derived from the Italian word 'barocco', used during the Middle Ages by philosophers to describe an obstacle in logic and later came to denote anything absurdly complex. Another possible source of the word is the Portuguese word 'barroco' which means a flawed or imperfectly shaped pearl.
In general, the baroque art is characterized by complexity, the desire to evoke certain emotional states, dynamism, movement, tension, grandeur and sharp contrasts.
Mention the most famous composers of the Baroque era, for example, George Friedrich Handel, Antonio Vivaldi, Henry Purcell, Domenico Scarlatti, Barbara Strozzi etc. And of course, Johann Sebastian Bach!
-The piece is composed by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 - 1750) - a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist and violinist.
🕐 15 min - Exercise 1 - Explore the Baroque dance suite
What instruments play in this movement?
What time signature is the movement in?
How long is the movement (how many pages)?
What does the name of the movement mean?
How would you describe the character and the mood of this movement?
🕐 15 min - Exercise 2 - The Air under the microscope
-As you might have noticed in the previous exercise, Air is quite a contrast to the other movements (be reminded of contrasts as a characteristic of Baroque art!).
Arias are most commonly associated with opera (a drama in which the actors sing throughout), a musical genre which developed during the Baroque era.
It's an example of 'walking bass' (In Baroque music, a term used informally for a bass line that moves steadily and continuously in contrasting (usually longer) note values to those in the upper part or parts. - Grove Music Online)
If you follow the notation, you'll see that it moves in steps of a scale interspersed with octave leaps.
The bass line gives the sense of perpetual movement to Air. Remember that dynamism, movement and tension is characteristic to the Baroque art in general.
In the original score, the bass line is marked as 'basso continuo' - it's an instrumental line, over which the player improvises a chordal accompaniment (in the video you watched earlier, it was done on harpsichord).
These are marked as 'ripieno' in the score, meaning they fulfill the role of harmonic 'stuffing' or ripieno in Italian.
Explain to students how polyphony works in this piece and how the lines of simultaneous independent melodies interact - point the students' attention to the melodies in violin and viola parts, played during the long notes of the 1st violin part.
Almost 150 years after Bach's Orchestral suite No. 3 was written, the violinist August Wilhelm arranged its 2nd movement for violin and piano. He changed the key of the piece so that it could be played on one string - the lowest, also called G string - of the violin.
What was different about this arrangement?
Which instruments did you hear?
How did you like it?
🕐 5 min - Discussion
Challenge students to go beyond the lesson by...
In this lesson, students will learn about the characteristics of Baroque music, exploring in depth a masterpiece of the era - the 2nd movement from the Orchestral suite No. 3 by Johann Sebastian Bach, also known as 'The Air on the G String'. The class will hear different versions of the piece and discuss its popularity. Students will learn the characteristic movements of the Baroque dance suite and get to know how Baroque polyphony works, exploring the relations of different instrumental lines of the piece.
The timing and pacing of the exercises in this lesson plan example are approximate and will differ depending on your students' skill level. If the pace of this lesson plan is too fast for you, divide it into several lessons. If the pace of this lesson plan is too slow for you, explore the 'Beyond the lesson' chapter at the end of this lesson plan for additional activities.
⏰ Time: 60 min
🎓 Grades: 5-12
🎯 Objective(s): As a result of this lesson students will be able to...
💡 Required Prior Knowledge and Skills:
💻 Materials:
🕐 10 min - Air on the air
-Play Johann Sebastian Bach's Air from Orchestral suite No. 3 in D major, BWV 1068 on Solfeg.io web app with muting the synth and rhythm lines (find them in Controls - Volume).
-Discuss the piece:
It has been cited in other songs, used in films and adverts. Here are some examples (you can play excerpts from them, if you wish):
'A Whiter Shade of Pale' by Procol Harum, a rock song from the 1960s;
'Everything's Gonna Be Alright' by Sweetbox, a hip-hop song from the 1990s;
French pianist Jacques Loussier did a jazz interpretation of the piece;
Film composer Hugo Montenegro used the piece in his 'Love Theme' in the movie 'The Godfather';
The piece was interpreted on a Moog synthesizer by the American electronic music composer Walter (later Wendy) Carlos and included in the groundbreaking album 'Switched-On Bach' (1968).
🕐 15 min - What's baroque about Baroque?
-Bach's Orchestral suite No. 3 and thus its 2nd movement - the air we just heard - was written around 1731, so almost 300 years ago.
-Probably at least some of the students will have heard the piece somewhere before and there are different versions and interpretations of the piece made in different times, so you could assume it's popular. Discuss it with the class!
-The Air could be considered the most famous piece from the Baroque era.
An era in the Western art; a style of architecture, music, painting, sculpture and other arts.
Its time frame is usually considered from 1600 until 1750.
The word 'baroque' derived from the Italian word 'barocco', used during the Middle Ages by philosophers to describe an obstacle in logic and later came to denote anything absurdly complex. Another possible source of the word is the Portuguese word 'barroco' which means a flawed or imperfectly shaped pearl.
In general, the baroque art is characterized by complexity, the desire to evoke certain emotional states, dynamism, movement, tension, grandeur and sharp contrasts.
Mention the most famous composers of the Baroque era, for example, George Friedrich Handel, Antonio Vivaldi, Henry Purcell, Domenico Scarlatti, Barbara Strozzi etc. And of course, Johann Sebastian Bach!
-The piece is composed by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 - 1750) - a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist and violinist.
🕐 15 min - Exercise 1 - Explore the Baroque dance suite
What instruments play in this movement?
What time signature is the movement in?
How long is the movement (how many pages)?
What does the name of the movement mean?
How would you describe the character and the mood of this movement?
🕐 15 min - Exercise 2 - The Air under the microscope
-As you might have noticed in the previous exercise, Air is quite a contrast to the other movements (be reminded of contrasts as a characteristic of Baroque art!).
Arias are most commonly associated with opera (a drama in which the actors sing throughout), a musical genre which developed during the Baroque era.
It's an example of 'walking bass' (In Baroque music, a term used informally for a bass line that moves steadily and continuously in contrasting (usually longer) note values to those in the upper part or parts. - Grove Music Online)
If you follow the notation, you'll see that it moves in steps of a scale interspersed with octave leaps.
The bass line gives the sense of perpetual movement to Air. Remember that dynamism, movement and tension is characteristic to the Baroque art in general.
In the original score, the bass line is marked as 'basso continuo' - it's an instrumental line, over which the player improvises a chordal accompaniment (in the video you watched earlier, it was done on harpsichord).
These are marked as 'ripieno' in the score, meaning they fulfill the role of harmonic 'stuffing' or ripieno in Italian.
Explain to students how polyphony works in this piece and how the lines of simultaneous independent melodies interact - point the students' attention to the melodies in violin and viola parts, played during the long notes of the 1st violin part.
Almost 150 years after Bach's Orchestral suite No. 3 was written, the violinist August Wilhelm arranged its 2nd movement for violin and piano. He changed the key of the piece so that it could be played on one string - the lowest, also called G string - of the violin.
What was different about this arrangement?
Which instruments did you hear?
How did you like it?
🕐 5 min - Discussion
Challenge students to go beyond the lesson by...
In this lesson, students will learn about the characteristics of Baroque music, exploring in depth a masterpiece of the era - the 2nd movement from the Orchestral suite No. 3 by Johann Sebastian Bach, also known as 'The Air on the G String'. The class will hear different versions of the piece and discuss its popularity. Students will learn the characteristic movements of the Baroque dance suite and get to know how Baroque polyphony works, exploring the relations of different instrumental lines of the piece.
The timing and pacing of the exercises in this lesson plan example are approximate and will differ depending on your students' skill level. If the pace of this lesson plan is too fast for you, divide it into several lessons. If the pace of this lesson plan is too slow for you, explore the 'Beyond the lesson' chapter at the end of this lesson plan for additional activities.
⏰ Time: 60 min
🎓 Grades: 5-12
🎯 Objective(s): As a result of this lesson students will be able to...
💡 Required Prior Knowledge and Skills:
💻 Materials:
🕐 10 min - Air on the air
-Play Johann Sebastian Bach's Air from Orchestral suite No. 3 in D major, BWV 1068 on Solfeg.io web app with muting the synth and rhythm lines (find them in Controls - Volume).
-Discuss the piece:
It has been cited in other songs, used in films and adverts. Here are some examples (you can play excerpts from them, if you wish):
'A Whiter Shade of Pale' by Procol Harum, a rock song from the 1960s;
'Everything's Gonna Be Alright' by Sweetbox, a hip-hop song from the 1990s;
French pianist Jacques Loussier did a jazz interpretation of the piece;
Film composer Hugo Montenegro used the piece in his 'Love Theme' in the movie 'The Godfather';
The piece was interpreted on a Moog synthesizer by the American electronic music composer Walter (later Wendy) Carlos and included in the groundbreaking album 'Switched-On Bach' (1968).
🕐 15 min - What's baroque about Baroque?
-Bach's Orchestral suite No. 3 and thus its 2nd movement - the air we just heard - was written around 1731, so almost 300 years ago.
-Probably at least some of the students will have heard the piece somewhere before and there are different versions and interpretations of the piece made in different times, so you could assume it's popular. Discuss it with the class!
-The Air could be considered the most famous piece from the Baroque era.
An era in the Western art; a style of architecture, music, painting, sculpture and other arts.
Its time frame is usually considered from 1600 until 1750.
The word 'baroque' derived from the Italian word 'barocco', used during the Middle Ages by philosophers to describe an obstacle in logic and later came to denote anything absurdly complex. Another possible source of the word is the Portuguese word 'barroco' which means a flawed or imperfectly shaped pearl.
In general, the baroque art is characterized by complexity, the desire to evoke certain emotional states, dynamism, movement, tension, grandeur and sharp contrasts.
Mention the most famous composers of the Baroque era, for example, George Friedrich Handel, Antonio Vivaldi, Henry Purcell, Domenico Scarlatti, Barbara Strozzi etc. And of course, Johann Sebastian Bach!
-The piece is composed by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 - 1750) - a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist and violinist.
🕐 15 min - Exercise 1 - Explore the Baroque dance suite
What instruments play in this movement?
What time signature is the movement in?
How long is the movement (how many pages)?
What does the name of the movement mean?
How would you describe the character and the mood of this movement?
🕐 15 min - Exercise 2 - The Air under the microscope
-As you might have noticed in the previous exercise, Air is quite a contrast to the other movements (be reminded of contrasts as a characteristic of Baroque art!).
Arias are most commonly associated with opera (a drama in which the actors sing throughout), a musical genre which developed during the Baroque era.
It's an example of 'walking bass' (In Baroque music, a term used informally for a bass line that moves steadily and continuously in contrasting (usually longer) note values to those in the upper part or parts. - Grove Music Online)
If you follow the notation, you'll see that it moves in steps of a scale interspersed with octave leaps.
The bass line gives the sense of perpetual movement to Air. Remember that dynamism, movement and tension is characteristic to the Baroque art in general.
In the original score, the bass line is marked as 'basso continuo' - it's an instrumental line, over which the player improvises a chordal accompaniment (in the video you watched earlier, it was done on harpsichord).
These are marked as 'ripieno' in the score, meaning they fulfill the role of harmonic 'stuffing' or ripieno in Italian.
Explain to students how polyphony works in this piece and how the lines of simultaneous independent melodies interact - point the students' attention to the melodies in violin and viola parts, played during the long notes of the 1st violin part.
Almost 150 years after Bach's Orchestral suite No. 3 was written, the violinist August Wilhelm arranged its 2nd movement for violin and piano. He changed the key of the piece so that it could be played on one string - the lowest, also called G string - of the violin.
What was different about this arrangement?
Which instruments did you hear?
How did you like it?
🕐 5 min - Discussion
Challenge students to go beyond the lesson by...
