Patrick Peters

Peters-MUS149-Assignment 4.2
Social Foundations of Music Education
Dr. Talbot

Lesson Plan: Do & Sol Relationship

Context/Prior Knowledge
6th Grade General Music Class
Students will have learned the names of notes in the staff (from E on the bottom line to F on the
top line).
Students will have been introduced to the sound of a major scale (through singing) and are in
the process of learning the solfege and hand signs.

Essential Question
What makes moving from 5 (Sol) to 1 (Do) a Cadence?

Materials
● DrumGenius phone application
● Speaker
● Piano or Pitch Pipe
● Computer or phone with access to Internet
● Classroom with space to circle up and for some movements
● Chalkboard & Chalk
● Extra Notebook Paper and Pencils for students who forget supplies
● “Duke’s Place”1 Recording (found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ol-
AvCEdRQw)

Glossary of Terms2
● Staff - A set of five, equidistant, horizontal lines joined together by a brace. The staff
(also called stave) is used to clearly communicate musical notation. Note symbols,
dynamics, and other performance directions are placed within, above, and below the
staff.
● Downbeats of 2 and 4 – In a bar of 4/4 (4 beats), whenever you would tap your foot on
the 2nd an 4th of those 4 beats.
● Root – the first or fundamental note in a chord [or scale].
● 5th – the 5th tone in a Major Scale. Also known as the ‘Dominant.’
● Eighth Notes – a note having 1/8 the duration of a whole note.
● Dotted Quarter Note - A note that has a dot placed to the right of the notehead,
indicating that the duration of the note should be increased by half again its
original duration. [A dotted quarter is equivalent to a quarter note + an eight note.]

1 Ellington, D. (1942). Duke’s Place [Recorded by Ella Fitzgerald]. On Ella at Duke’s Place [MP3 file].
Santa Monica, California: Verve Records. (1965).
2 OnMusic Dictionary. (2015). Retrieved September 30, 2018, from https://dictionary.onmusic.org/
 ● Solfege – a musical education system designed to explain the tones of a major scale in
relation to one another by substituting short sounds in place of the scale degrees. [Do =
1st scale degree/root, Sol = 5th/dominant].
● Cadence - A stylized close in music which…brings it to a full conclusion.

National Standards
MU:Cr1.1.3a: Improvise rhythmic and melodic ideas, and describe connection to specific
purpose and context (such as personal and social).

MU:Pr5.1.3b Rehearse to refine technical accuracy, expressive qualities, and identified

performance challenges.

MU:Pr6.1.3a Perform music with expression and technical accuracy.

MU:Re7.2.3a Demonstrate and describe how a response to music can be informed by the
structure, the use of the elements of music, and context (such as personal and social).

MU:Cn10.0.3a Demonstrate how interests, knowledge, and skills relate to personal choices and
intent when creating, performing, and responding to music.

Learning Outcomes
1. Students will identify and define a cadence.
2. Students will sing Sol and Do of a scale within a melody (“Duke’s Place”).
3. Students will use the notes Sol and Do to improvise their own musical ideas.

Procedure
1. Start lesson by playing the DrumGenius app drumbeat.
a. To find correct beat:
i. Go to ‘Styles’
ii. Then to ‘Jazz – Medium Swing’
iii. Select the ‘Swing medium 01.’ Beat
iv. Select download (3 beats can be downloaded for free)
2. Clap along with the drumbeats on the downbeats of 2 and 4 (the second and fourth
beats of each bar).
3. Once students are all clapping along, move over to piano and set them (and yourself) in
a key (Eb Major). Only the root and 5th need to be played, though playing all the notes of
the chord may be helpful in grounding the students.
4. Now the teacher begins singing the song. Repeat as needed until students begin to
participate. Motion for them to circle up in the middle of the room.

a. Lyrics, performed by Ella Fitzgerald:

i. Baby, take me down to Duke's Place.

 ii. Wildest box in town is Duke's Place.
iii. Love that piano sound in Duke's Place.3

b. Recording can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ol-AvCEdRQw

c. Sheet Music attached (not for use of students).
5. Look for problem spots and begin using ‘my turn, your turn’ hand motions.
a. Sing one line at a time (as distinguished in lyrics above in 4a.)
i. Likely will need to do multiple times until students are singing words
correctly and in unison
b. Likely problem spots:
i. Failure to sing the eight notes
ii. Holding the dotted quarter (Duke’s) for too long or too short
c. Solutions
i. Repetition of examples for students to hear
ii. Emphasize claps so students can hear where the words fall in relation to
the claps.
iii. Accentuate that the second beat of each little phrase comes on the
offbeat. Show using finger pointing to represent up and down beats (at
ground is down beat, in air is offbeat).
iv. Take one bar of lyrics and repeat it (one bar of music, then one bar of
rests)
6. After problem areas have been addressed, go around in a circle, with each student
singing the next line of the song.
7. When song goes all the way around, sing the song as a unit again, before dropping out
and allowing students to sing song on their own.
8. Stop students and introduce the solfege and hand symbols for the song (every word will
be Sol, except for ‘Place’ which is Do.)
a. Hand Symbols
i. Do = Closed fist held out in front of your body with knuckles pointing
across to other arm.
ii. Sol = Open hand with Palm towards you ad fingers pointing towards other
arm.
9. Write the word “Cadence” on the board. Underneath that, write “Sol” and “Do” with an
arrow from Sol to Do.
10. When students are singing on their own, begin improvising over the bar of rest between
each line (the 4th, 8th, and 12th bar of the sheet music).
a. Make sure to use only the 1 and 5 of the chord in your improvisation.
11. After a couple choruses, motion to students that they will now improvise. We will again
go around in a circle, but this time we will go around the circle the other way.
12. When everyone is done, have them return to their seats and take out a piece of paper.
a. Add exit questions to the chalkboard:
i. Why do you think each musical line ended in ‘Do’?
ii. How did you feel when we were sang ‘Do’ as opposed to when we sang
‘Sol’?
b. Give students 5 minutes to answer. Feel free to pull up the audio of Ella
Fitzgerald’s version of “Duke’s Place.”
Assessment

3 Ellington, D. (1942). Duke’s Place [Recorded by Ella Fitzgerald]. On Ella at Duke’s Place [MP3 file].
Santa Monica, California: Verve Records. (1965).
 1. Teacher will assess the students’ identification of a cadence through an exit ticket and
collect answers from the students seeing how they conceptualize the relief of tension
from Sol to Do.
a. Exit Ticket Questions
i. Why do you think each musical line ended in ‘Do’?
ii. How did you feel when we sang ‘Do’ as opposed to when we sang ‘Sol’?
iii. What do you think a cadence is?
2. Teacher will aurally assess students’ performance of Sol and Do within the melody of
“Duke’s Place.”
a. This will be done as the melody gets passed around the circle.
b. Graded on a Check+ to Check- scale.
i. Check +: student performs melody and rhythm correctly
ii. Check: student performs melody and rhythm correctly after one or two
slip ups.
iii. Check -: student performs incorrectly 3+ times before succeeding.
3. Teacher will aurally assess students’ improvisation using the notes Sol and Do.
a. Yes – Student correctly and successfully improvises over one bar using only Sol
and Do.
b. No - Student does not correctly or successfully improvise over one bar using only
Sol and Do.

Further Learning/Extension
The next step would be to add a harmony line to sing with the main melody.
1. The harmony line would replace the ‘Sol’ in the melody with ‘Mi.’ It would also replace
the ‘Do’ with ‘Sol.’
2. Now that Do-Mi-Sol are all known, we can expand that into explaining the essence of a
triad and chord.

Honor Code
I affirm that I have upheld the highest principles of honesty and integrity in my academic
work and have not witnessed a violation of the Honor Code.

________________________Patrick Peters________________________________________