Teaching East Asian Music in the Elementary Classroom

Lesson Plans from 2005 Workshop

“Lunar New Year Celebration”
(Sixth Grade, 35 minutes each class period.)

Teacher: Eva Yin Ling Kwan

Overview

This unit is designed for sixth graders. There are seven lessons in this unit. The theme of this unit is: Lunar New Year Celebration. Each class period is 35 minutes. This unit is designed to use around Chinese New Year (usually late January or early to mid February). The first two lessons will be about Japanese music. The third lesson will be about Korean music. The fourth and fifth lessons will be about Chinese music. The sixth lesson will be a review of all the songs, music, and knowledge about Japan, Korea, and China that the students learned over the last six lessons. The seventh lesson will be a “celebration” of the Lunar New Year and Japanese New Year. If there are any students in the class of Chinese, Japanese, or Korean ethnicity, invite their parents to join the celebration too. Parents and students of Japanese, Korean, and Chinese ethnicity will be invited to share stories of their New Year tradition during the celebration.

Lesson One: Music of Japan

Objectives:

Location of Japan in a world map.
Some differences between Japan and U.S.
Festivals in Japan
One of the festivals is Hanami: Flower viewing (late March to early April), flower in this case means cherry blossoms (Sakura).
Learn a Japanese folk song: Sakura
Listen to an instrumental duet recording of Sakura: instruments are koto and Shakuhachi.
Introduction of two Japanese instruments: Koto and Shakuhachi.

Procedures:

Bring in a world map and ask the class if anyone know where Japan is.
Ask the class if they know any difference between living in Japan and the U.S.
Discussion focus on the differences in culture, food, festivals etc.
Introduce one of the festivals: Hanami
Play a recording of the melody of Sakura and ask if that sounds familiar to them.
Teach Sakura (in Japanese) by rote.
Introduce two Japanese instruments: Koto and Shakuhachi. Show pictures too.
Play the recording of the Sakura: duet ensemble of Koto and Shakuhachi

Evaluation:

Sing Sakura in Japanese again, then a short discussion of what they learn this day. This is a way to assess their learning in singing the song Sakura, the two instruments, Hanami etc.

Lesson Two: Music of Japan

Objectives:

Review of what they know about Japanese festivals.
Focus on another festival: New Year
Learn a Japanese folk song: Counting Song (Kazoeuta).
Listen to a Koto recording of the melody of Kazoeuta
Introduction of Taiko.

Procedures:

Teacher leads a discussion of Japan festivals to help students to review what they learned during the last lesson.
Introduction of another Japanese festival: New Year. Japanese celebrate New Year's Day on January 1 since the late 1800s. Japanese generally do not celebrate the Chinese (Lunar) New Year.
Teach a Japanese folk song (Kazoeuta) by rote. This song is about the New Year and is appropriate to sing during New Year.
Play a Koto recording of Kazoeuta.
Focus on New Year Celebration in Japan. Introduction of Taiko and Taiko performance during the New Year Celebration.
Play a video clip of Taiko performance.

Evaluation:

Teacher leads a short discussion on Japanese New Year Celebration to assess what the students learned during this class.
Sing Kazoeuta one more time. Teacher can assess if the students learned the song well.

Lesson Three: Music of Korea

Objectives:

Learn about Pungmul or Nongak –folk performance genre (everyday activities and during festival: such as the new year-Seol-nal)
Learn about the instruments of the Pungmul/Nongak ensemble.
Listen to a recording of Nongak music.
Nongak performance and Korean New Year Celebration

Procedures:

Play the first 2-3 minutes of a CD recording of Nongak.
Teacher leads a brief discussion by asking the students what they noticed about the music (how difference is the music from western music). Some sample questions: What did you hear? What type (kind) of instruments were used? Did the tempo stay the same? What else did you notice? How is the music different from Western music?
Ask the students if they know where Korea is located. Teacher leads a brief discussion about the differences of living in Korea and the U.S.
Introduce the instruments in a Nongak ensemble. Show pictures to students.
Introduce the meaning of “Nongak” and mention that kind of farmer's music is part of the Korean New Year celebration. Show the pictures of Nongak performance from the website: http://www.lifeinkorea.com/cgi-bin/pictures.cfm?FileName=perform1

According to the website, contact for permission (of using those pictures) first.

Show a video clip of Nongak performance.
Play the CD recording of Nongak again (this time the whole piece).
Introduce Korean Lunar New Year.

Evaluation:

Teacher asks questions about Korean Lunar New Year and Nongak ensemble to assess how well the students learned from this lesson.

Lesson Four: Music of China

Objectives:

1. Learn to play the Luogu percussion instruments.

2. Learn the mnemonic chant for “Shi Wu 1” (Lion Dance No.1)

3. Learn to read the notation for Luogo percussion and play as an ensemble.

4. Learn about Chinese (Lunar new Year) celebration

Procedures:

1. Teacher leads a discussion to review Korean percussion instruments.

2. Introduce the percussion instruments (cymbals, small gong, large gong, and drum) of a Luogo ensemble.

3. Play the video recording of “Lion Dance” performance (either the recording from our performance in the summer workshop or a video clip from Chinese New Year celebration with Luogo and Dragon/Lion Dance: http://www.chcp.org/mpeg/index.html ).

4. Listen to Lion Dance 1 (sound track no. 2)

5. Teach the mnemonic chant for “Shi Wu 1” (Lion Dance No.1) p. 26 of “The Lion's Roar”.

6. Teacher instructs the students to clap the pattern or body percussion of the rhythms of different parts (with the mnemonic chant).

7. Students take turns playing the Luogo ensemble while others doing body percussion and saying the mnemonic chant at the same time.

8. Teacher leads a discussion about Chinese New Year's Celebration. Tell the students that the Luogo ensemble and the Lion Dance or the Dragon Dance are part of the celebration (even in China towns all over the world).

9. Teacher also makes a point to emphasize how the Chinese influence on Korea and Japanese cultures, words, musical instruments.

Evaluation:

All the students will play the rhythm patterns for the Lion Dance 1 (p. 26). One group of students gets to play on the Luogo instruments, and the others with body percussion.

Lesson Five: Music of China

Objectives:

1. Review of Luogo for Lion Dance 1.

2. Learn a Chinese folk song about Chinese New Year.

3. Add the Luogo pattern for Lion Dance no. 1 to the performance of the Chinese folk song.

Procedures:

1. Review the pattern for Lion Dance 1 by asking students to say the mnemonic chant.

2. Then ask some volunteers (as a group) to play the Lion Dance no. 1 on Luogo instruments.

3. Teach a Chinese folk song about Chinese New Year (in Mandarin) by rote.

4. Half of the class plays the rhythm patterns for the Lion Dance while half of the class sings the Chinese folk song.

5. Have one group of students play the Lion Dance no. 1 pattern on the Luogo ensemble and the rest of the class sing the folk song.

6. We can have several groups of students taking turn to perform on the Luogo ensemble. We can arrange the song in this way: Luogo as the introduction to the song, then the class sings with the Luogo, and the Luogo alone (ABA form).

Evaluation:

A final performance of the folk song and Luogo as an assessment.

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