Basics of Playing in a Band I

Summary

In this lesson, students will have their first experience of playing in a band. They will get to know some of the instruments, most commonly used in bands. Students will learn simple chords, as well as bass and rhythm lines and practice singing and playing along the song.

⏰ Time: 50 min

🎓 Grades: 5-12

🎯 Objective(s): As a result of this lesson, students will be able to...

• Understand the role of different instruments in a band;
• Play simple chords, bass lines and rhythm.

💡 Required Prior Knowledge and Skills:

• Basic notation;
• Basic rhythm values.

💻 Materials:

• Solfeg.io app best used with Chrome browser
• Projector or computer and access to WIFI
• Instruments, such as acoustic or electric guitar, bass guitar, ukulele, piano, drums, percussions

Song suggestions:

Inspire

🕐 5 min - Explore

• Explore the song library and see what will best suit your classroom needs. Rock, pop, folk? Find out what your students like, you’ll definitely find something that will spark their interest!
• Apply filters to find the most appropriate song, for example, select a suitable difficulty level and number of chords.
• You could start with one of the suggested songs - they contain only 2 chords!

Warm-Up

🕐 15 min - Listen, speak, sing

• Introduce the song. You can pick some facts from the song description.
• Listen to the song and have your students come up with one thing about the lyrics that speaks to them, or that they like.
• Practice first by speaking the lyrics in rhythm.
• Sing with the provided vocal track. You can also try it with instrumental tracks only!

Practice

🕐 5 min - Divide the instruments

• Divide up some of the instruments among your students. You will need:
• Harmony section: guitar, ukulele and piano (at least one of them).
• Bass line: bass guitar.
• Rhythm players: hand drums, drumset, shakers, claves or other percussion instruments.

🕐 20 min - Practice the parts

• Practice the harmony!
• If students are not familiar with playing chords, you can divide the harmonic section in two groups (or more, if you have selected a song with more than two chords) and assign one chord to each group.
• Let groups practice their assigned chord.
• When they are ready, try playing along the song. Groups play chords alternately.
• Practice the bass!
• Bass playing will be easy if you have selected 'Motivation' by Normani or 'The Git Up' by Blanco Brown. There are only two notes in the bass part and both are played on open strings - A and E.
• Practice playing the bass line separately, then play along the song.
• Practice the rhythm!
• Divide the rhythm section to play different rhythm lines.
• You can simplify the rhythm part and select only one or two lines to be played.
• Practice the rhythm separately, then play along the song.

Reflection

🕐 5 min - Discuss

• What chords/rhythms/notes have you learned?
• What was challenging in the lesson?
• Are you ready to put the different instrumental parts together?

Beyond the Lesson

Challenge students to go beyond the lesson by...

• Practicing their instruments and parts;
• Playing along the song. For a bigger challenge, they could try muting the track of their instrument.

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