Riptide lesson 5: Combine Sections

Summary

In this lesson, students will consolidate the skills and knowledge from the previous four lessons and get ready for the final performance. The class can split into smaller groups where each member plays a different part, or continue rehearsing together.

⏰ 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 simple bass part consisting of four notes
• Clap or play a rhythm consisting of quarter, eighth and sixteenth notes
• Sing a melody with a range of one octave (from A3 to A4)
• 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 (optional)
• Projector or computer and access to WIFI
• Computers or tablets
• Ukuleles, guitars and/or pianos
• Percussion instruments

Song suggestion

Tuning

🕐 5 min - Tune the guitars and ukuleles

• Distribute the guitars and ukuleles to students.
• Ask them to open the Solfeg.io tuner. You can find it in the home section on the Solfeg.io mobile app.
• Tap on a letter to hear how the string should sound, find the corresponding peg on your guitar or ukulele and turn it to tune the string.
• When the encircled letter turns green and reaches the middle of the screen, the string is in tune.
• Repeat the actions with the other strings one by one until all of them are in tune.

Warm-up

🕐 10 min - Get ready!

• Divide students in groups, the same as in 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.
• You can suggest to do a round of warm-up exercises students liked the best in the previous lessons, for example:
• Vocal: sing this short part from Verse 2:

• Percussion: play this short exercise that mixes the 1st and the 4th rhythm tracks. The rhythm tracks can be seen if “Notation” is selected under “Tools” - “Visuals”.

• Piano: play this bass line with your left hand and these chords with your right hand simultaneously :

• Guitar, ukulele: strum these three chords in this pattern:

• Bass: play these notes like this:

• If you choose to do this warm-up round, play the 4 rhythm tracks as previously and have students take turns to do their exercise. Groups change every 4 bars.
• All groups can do their exercises together too.
• Alternatively, invite all groups to warm up by playing the bridge at a slower speed (press “﹣” on the left side of the “Play” button).
• Shortly discuss how they were doing.

Did they practice at home?

Did they manage to learn their part by heart?

How did the bridge sound compared to the previous lesson?

Inspiration

🕐 5 min - Dive into the song structure

• Take a look at the timeline at the top of the screen and discuss it with the class.

How many verses are there?

How many choruses are there?

Do you know other songs with a similar structure?

• Explain to the class that this is a very common structure in pop songs.

Practice

🕐 15 min - Band practice

• Split students into smaller bands where each member plays a different part. If you prefer, the class can rehearse together.
• If you opt for smaller bands, each group should have one device - either a computer or a tablet.

Have “Notation” selected under “Tools” - “Visuals” or an instrument if a player is not comfortable with playing the chords without diagrams.

If needed, slow the song down by pressing “﹣” on the left side of the “Play” button.

• Invite students to practice longer parts of the song

Intro, Verse 1 and Chorus 1

Verse 2 and Chorus 2

Bridge, Chorus 3 and Chorus 4

• Give feedback and help with any difficulties students might have with the rhythm, chords, melody etc.

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🕐  10 min - From the beginning till the end

• When students are familiar with the song structure and playing longer parts without stopping, do a run-through of the whole song.
• Invite the class to do this together or select smaller bands to perform one after another.

Reflection

🕐  5 min - Discussion

• How did it go with playing the whole song for the first time?
• Give some positive and encouraging feedback to the fellow players. What did you like most in their performance?
• What would you do to improve the performance?

Beyond the lesson:

Assign homework:

• Ask students to practice playing the whole song at home.
• Optionally, they could learn their part by heart.

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