Vacation Lesson 2: Verse 1

Summary

In this lesson, students will learn to sing and play Verse 1 of the song “Vacation” by Dirty Heads. The lesson consists of a short warm-up which will equip students with the necessary skills needed in the verse, a song practice session where students will learn to play and sing different instrumental and vocal parts in groups, a band practice with the whole class and a homework assignment.

_{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 and add additional activities (see 'Activities' section). 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: 50 min

🎓 Grades: 5-12

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

• Combine four simple chords
• Play a bass part consisting of four notes (optional)
• Clap or play a rhythm consisting of half, dotted quarter, eighth, dotted eighth and sixteenth notes
• Sing a melody with a range of one octave (from C4 to C5)
• Play together in a band
• Collaborate in groups and learn independently
• Understand the building blocks of the song

💡 Required Prior Knowledge and Skills:

• Basic chords
• Basic rhythm
• Basic notation

💻 Materials:

• Solfeg.io web app best used with Chrome browser
• Ukulele and guitar tuner on Solfeg.io mobile app
• Projector or computer and access to WIFI
• Computers or tablets
• Ukuleles, guitars and/or pianos
• Percussion instruments

Song suggestions

Inspiration

🕐 5 min - Explore the song structure

- Open the song “Vacation”.

- Listen to Verse 1.

- Take a look at the song structure and discuss it with the class.

• How many choruses, post-choruses and verses are there? (Four)
• What's the difference between Verse 1 and the song sections you learned in the previous lesson?

Which one is more catchy?

Which one is more difficult to sing?

Are instruments playing something different?

Are lyrics covering a different topic?

Which one is longer - the verse, the chorus or the post-chorus?

Warm-up

🕐 10 min - Get ready!

• Divide students in groups, the same as the previous lesson. There should be 4 percussion groups, at least one group playing the chords (ukulele, guitar and/or piano), one group playing the bass and one singing (optionally, some of the students playing instruments could also sing).
• Distribute the instruments to the students. If you don't have enough percussion instruments, students can do body percussion, tap the rhythm on tables or other everyday objects.
• Show a short warm-up exercise for each group. Alternatively, all groups could do the singing and percussion exercises together (as well as the instrumental part, if there's enough instruments).

Vocal: sing this line using a chosen syllable, for example, “ah”, “oh”, “lah” or “dah”, like this:

Percussion: play or clap this rhythm from the 2nd rhythm line:

Guitar, ukulele, piano: play these two chords in this rhythm:

Bass: play these notes like this:

• Mute all the tracks except the 4 rhythm tracks under “Controls” - “Volume” .
• Loop the Post-Chorus 1 by pressing the “Loop” button on the right side of the “Play” button and selecting it on the dropdown menu.
• Press “Play” and invite the groups to take turns to do their exercise. Groups change every eight bars.
• You can also invite one student to conduct - show which group should play next.
• Do a couple of rounds until the class has warmed-up and is ready to play the song!

Practice

🕐 5 min - Recap Chorus 1 and Post-Chorus 1 (optional)

• Invite the class to play along to both sections they did in the previous lesson and as homework.
• Hit the “Play” button and have fun!
• Shortly discuss how they were doing.

Did they practice at home?

Did they manage to learn their part by heart?

How did it sound compared to the previous lesson?

‍

🕐 15 min - Verse 1

- In this activity, students will work in groups to learn their assigned instrumental / vocal part of Verse 1.

- Each group should have one device - either a computer or a tablet.

- Each group should select the corresponding visuals under “Tools” - “Visuals”.

• To play the rhythm tracks, “Notation” should be selected.

- Show them how to loop Verse 1 on their devices (the “Loop” button on the right side of the “Play” button) and where to slow the song down (the “﹣” button on the left side of the “Play” button.

- Explain the steps for learning Verse 1 to each group. First, give every group just the first task from the below mentioned lists. Only when students are ready to move on, explain the next step.

• Vocal:

First, listen to Verse 1 and read the lyrics.

Repeat Verse 1 speaking the lyrics out loud.

Sing the melody with syllables of choice, for example, “lah-lah”, “dah-dah” or just vowels - “ah”, “oh” or other.

Sing the melody with lyrics.

If comfortable with the slower tempo, you can try singing the verse at a faster speed and try to reach the original speed!

Try singing Verse 1 with the vocal track muted - you can mute it under “Controls” - “Volume”.

• Ukulele, guitar, piano:

Listen to Verse 1 and establish if there are any new chords they haven't played yet.

Recap the three chords you played in the previous lesson, following the chord diagrams.

Play only three chords in Verse 1 - C, Am and Em.

Learn (or recap) the fourth chord - G.

If there are at least 4 people in the instrumental group, they can take turns to play chords - each person chooses one of the chords and plays it when the corresponding symbol appears at the red line on the screen.

Try to combine all four chords one after another. To practice at an even slower speed, mute all tracks except the four rhythm tracks under “Controls” - “Volume”, loop Post-Chorus 1 and play a new chord every 8 beats without looking at the chord symbols on the screen. When you're comfortable with this speed, you can gradually reduce the amount of beats between chords.

If comfortable with the slower tempo, you can try playing the verse at a faster speed and try to reach the original speed!

Try playing Verse 1 with the piano and synth tracks muted - you can mute them under “Controls” - “Volume”.

• Rhythm:

Mute all the tracks except the rhythm tracks under “Controls” - “Volume”. Listen to the rhythm section.

Split into the same 4 groups you did in the previous lesson and choose the same rhythm track.

Play Verse 1 again and try to play or clap along.

Take turns learning the rhythm - you can mute the other three tracks when learning your track.

If comfortable with the slower tempo, you can try playing the verse at a faster speed and try to reach the original speed!

• Bass:

Listen to Verse 1 and find the four notes of the bass line on your bass guitar.

Play along to Verse 1.

If comfortable with the slower tempo, you can try playing the verse at a faster speed and try to reach the original speed!

Walk around the classroom and check how students are doing in different instrumental stations. Guide them by suggesting the next step from the above-mentioned step-by-step learning process when you see that students are ready.

Play together

🕐  5 min - Put it all together

• Invite students to play Verse 1 chorus together.
• Find a suitable tempo for all, slow the song down if needed.
• Have “Notation” selected under “Tools” - “Visuals”. If the piano, guitar or ukulele players are not comfortable with playing just from chord symbols without the diagrams, repeat Verse 1 with the necessary visuals selected.
• Invite students to play a longer part - from the beginning of Verse 1 until the end of Post-Chorus 2.

Reflection

🕐  5 min - Discussion

• What was the most challenging in their instrumental/vocal part?
• How was the experience of playing together (both in smaller instrument groups and the class as a whole)?
• Was Chorus 2 and Post-Chorus 2 any different from Chorus 1 and Post-Chorus 1 you learned in the previous lesson?

Beyond the lesson

• Assign homework:

Ask students to practice their part of Verse 1 at home.

Encourage them to learn their part by heart.