LESSON PLAN: 2 & 3 Note Solos on Keyboard
Objective
Students will be able to improvise a keyboard solo using a step by step procedure that simplifies the process.
Resources
Jam Card 4a (Major Pentatonic)
Procedures
- Ask students to take Jam Card 4a and place the “start arrow” behind the note C. Have them play all of the notes that the Jam Card is pointing to.
- Ask students how they can remember where those notes are located if they take the Jam Card away. They may need to compare the jam card to the keyboard several times before this becomes obvious. Lead them in a discussion about how the group of two black keys is in the center of the three white notes in a row (C, D, and E), and that the group of three black keys has the group of two white keys in it’s center (G and A). (Figure A)
- Using the group of 2 black keys as a marker, have them play the three white keys (C, D, and E) up and back down the keyboard in different octaves.
- Demonstrate how you can use these three keys to take a solo using your own name. Make up a rhythm to saying your name as you improvise a solo. You can do this in different octaves with different rhythms if you wish.
- Play a piano comping pattern over a classic progression and invite the students to do the same exercise using their own names as the basis of their three note solos.
- Repeat this same process for the two white keys, G and A. Practice associating them with the group of three black keys, find them up and down the keyboard, and then make a solo out of them using a name. For fun you can use the name of their favorite athlete or movie star.
- Use the group of three notes (C, D, and E) or the group of 2 notes (G and A) to improvise solos made by call and response, where you play a short melody and they make something up as an answer. Ask for volunteers from class to lead the call and response.
- After students feel comfortable with the groups of notes that make this scale lead them into using all of the notes in their solos.
National Core Arts Standards (Music)
Anchor Standard 1: Generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work. Example: General Music MU:CR1.1.2 a. Improvise rhythmic and melodic patterns and musical ideas for a specific purpose. Example: Harmonizing Instruments MU:Cr1.1.H.Ia (HS Proficient) Generate melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic ideas for improvisations, compositions (forms such as theme and variation or 12-bar blues), and three-or-more-chord accompaniments in a variety of patterns (such as arpeggio, country and gallop strumming, finger picking patterns). Common Core Correlations: CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.4.OA.C.5 Generate a number or shape pattern that follows a given rule. Identify apparent features of the pattern that were not explicit in the rule itself. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.1.2 Demonstrate understanding of spoken words, syllables, and sounds (phonemes). CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.2.4 Describe how words and phrases (e.g., regular beats, alliteration, rhymes, repeated lines) supply rhythm and meaning in a story, poem, or song.