Master the Rhythm

Summary

This lesson is about basic rhythm notes, their shapes and values - students will use the online class ‘Get to know the ‘rhythm pyramid’’ with robot chatbot guidance as home assignment. Students will learn about the whole, half, quarter, eighth and sixteenth notes by exploring the ‘rhythm pyramid’ and testing themselves in the quizzes. This class is based on listening, counting beats and recognizing note shapes - no need to use rhythm instruments. Lesson consists of setting up the online class, inspiring part, home assignment with explanation what will happen in the chatbot class and knowledge test (the test can also be held in the beginning of the next lesson).

⏰ Time: 45 min

🎓 Grades: 5-12

🎯 Goals:

• Bar (measure)
• Beats in the bar
• Basic note names, shapes, values
• Rhythm pyramid - relation between notes
• Understanding different musical elements and building blocks;

🎼 Cross-curricular element: Instrument groups; Math;

💡 Prior Knowledge: Bar; Beat;

💻 Teaching aids:

• Solfeg.io app best used with Chrome browser
• Computer and access to WIFI

!!! If this is the first online setup lesson for your class, we recommend starting with an onboarding lesson using this presentation explaining how solfeg.io works. Download it here. If the class is more than 10 students, this might take some 30 minutes to register and go through the app.

🤳 Video conference call provider:

• We recommend Google Hangouts, you can read how to set it up and download it here.

Visual presentation

Song suggestions:

A cover of
Riptide
VANCE JOY

A cover of
No Money
GALANTIS

A cover of
Rescue Me
ONEREPUBLIC

Start of your lesson

🕐 10 min - Setting up an online classroom

• Send a video conference call link to the students and encourage them to make this call via mobile device for optimal sound management. Make sure that everyone can hear and see you;
• Ask students to log into Solfeg.io on their desktop devices for the optimal experience.
• After it’s done, ask students to mute their microphone on devices to hear you clearly. If they want to ask something, they should unmute.

Inspiration

🕐 5 min - Starting class with inspiration

Teacher (student microphones are on mute)

• Choose a song from the ‘Song suggestions’ list. For example, ‘No Money‘ by Galantis. Tell your students about the song! You can pick some facts from the song description.
• Share the screen, click ‘Play’ and ask students to pay attention to the sound of rhythm instruments.

Students unmute microphones, while answer

• Discuss the song, for example,
  What rhythm instruments do they hear in the song? Do they recognize any rhythm notes in the player? Do some of the notes look familiar? Etc..
• Select one student for each question to answer

Home assignement

🕐 10 min - Tell about the ‘rhythm pyramid’ (also called ‘note tree’) and hierarchy of basic rhythm notes

• Share the screen - show the GIF of the ‘rhythm pyramid’ and explain to students what are the functions of rhythm and basic elements of it (Rhythm is everything pertaining to the temporal quality (duration) of the musical sound. /Harvard Dictionary Of Music/)

• Discuss about note names in the U.S. and U.K. (In this chatbot class will contain the U.S. names).

• Explain what the bar (measure) is. Show the Gif of it:

• Explain that this song has 4 beats in the bar. Show the video of it:

🕐 15 min - How to give home assignment

• Show the ‘Classes’ section and find the class  ‘Get to know the rhythm pyramid'

• Tell students that chatbot will ask them questions and they should click on the answers, watch the videos and repeat exercises that robot Sol gives.
• Share the screen and show how the chatbot class works;

Knowledge test

(would be done at the beginning of the next class)

🕐 10 min - Test your students knowledge

• Select any of the students and ask to unmute their microphone when performing.
• Select students one by one for each performance.
• Discuss, how did they do with chatbot class?

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