Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy

Lesson #8: Musical Tradition

The Spanish Oaks third grade class had a fun time yesterday with this lesson! We began by discussing what a tradition is. The students gave many examples of various Christmas traditions their families have. We established that a tradition is a type of custom that is repeated over time. Traditions have meaning to us, often have some kind of order, may evolve over time, and we sometimes aren't happy when traditions are abruptly changed.

We then talked about some musical traditions. For example: singing "Happy Birthday" at a birthday party, singing patriotic songs around a national holiday, singing church songs at church, and so forth. 

Music as a Tradition (Music History Time):

When people first began writing music, there were all kinds of rules that governed how to write a song. Certain notes could be played together and other notes were avoided. Songs had a specific order (or form) to them. Certain kinds of songs were either sacred or secular. As I explained all of this (on a very simple and general level) to the students, I drew on the board a mini-time line. I drew a box for the 1600's and earlier, for the 1700's, 1800's, 1900's, and 2000's. Each of these different time periods had some different musical "rules" or traditions that composers followed up to the 1900's. But in the 1900's composers got sick and tired of following all the old rules about writing music! So they wrote whatever they wanted. Nowadays in the 2000's we hear music from all of these periods. New music written today is based at least somewhat in musical rules that have been taught in the past.

An Arrangement

I then wrote the word "arrangement" on the board. The students first defined the word in terms of "a flower arrangement" and then applied that knowledge to what a musical arrangement might be (a different version or assembly of a song). In class we would listen to an original song and then an arrangement of the same song.

• Original song: "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" from "The Nutcracker" by Tchaikovsky, written in the 1800's
• Arrangement: "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" sung by Pentatonix, written in the 2000's

Listen, Listen, Listen:

Most of the students immediately recognized this song when they heard it. I gave each student a scarf and modelled how I wanted them to use their scarf whenever they heard a specific melodic motive (the quickly descending wind instrument, or bass voice). The students caught onto this quickly and listened to the whole piece, using their scarf to show when they heard that motive.

Next we listened to the whole song again. This time the students were instructed to move their body to the sound of the music. Move their feet, legs, hands, arms, head, and scarf. If the music was quiet or loud, they should do something with their body that reflects that. If the music is sharp, smooth, fast, or slow they should show that with their body.

We did this activity! Most of the students got pretty into it!

Original Orchestral Recording

After the song was over, the students sat and got to listen to the Pentatonix arrangement. They still did the same motion with their scarfs, but nothing else. They were to raise their hand whenever they heard something musical that was different in this recording. They were very enthusiastic in noticing that they heard something different.

Next we listened to the Pentatonix version again and the students moved around like they did with the original orchestral piece. 

Pentatonix Arrangement Recording

Then we gathered again and had a class discussion about what was similar and what was different between the two recordings. We also talked about why we would write arrangements anyways when we have the original song. Each of the students had insightful observations that showed how they had been active and critical listeners while listening to the two pieces.