Experience Design: Popular Music Arrangement

Designer(s): Mitchell Evans

Summary/Overview:
Students are to choose a song composed in the last 5 years that they like to listen to. They will
then arrange this song for an ensemble that they can form from the members of their classroom.
Students are also expected to analyze the chosen song and make up an interpretation of the
original music and decide what they are going to change for their arrangement. The
arrangement doesn’t have any requirements other than the song has to be recognizable, the
arrangement has to have a clear style, and the music is appropriately written for the players.

Rationale:
This experience is designed for a “standard” band or orchestra classroom where most of the
music making comes from printed pieces purchased from a publisher. Allowing students to
choose which song they want to arrange and providing them with resources will allow them to
discover and explore a deeper level of music making. This will also be fun for the students
since it is a song that they like.

Standards:
8.1 The student will read and notate music, including
1. identifying melodic patterns, using specific interval names (e.g., third, fifth); and
2. reading and notating rhythmic patterns of increasing complexity
MIB.20 The student will analyze and evaluate music by
1. describing the importance of cultural influences and historical context for the interpretation of
works of music;
2. describing and interpreting works of music, using inquiry skills and music terminology;
3. describing accepted criteria used for evaluating works of music;

Anchor Standard #4. Select, analyze and interpret artistic work for presentation.
Anchor Standard #6. Convey meaning through the presentation of artistic work.

I Can Statements:
8.1 I can notate the melody of my chosen song and write accompanying parts.
MIB.20 I can think about the song I chose and interpret the meaning. I can also use appropriate
music terminology and figure out what criteria I need to include in my arrangement.
#4 I can make my own interpretation of my song to present.
#6 I can take a song that is already created and change it to convey meaning in my own way.

Materials and Visual Aids:

● Online Music Theory resources for effective arranging
● Finale or a free program like Musescore
● Keyboard

Detailed Process:
● Students will start by researching and listening to several songs that they know. They
will then choose their song and get it approved by the teacher, who is making sure the
popular song is actually something that can be arranged.
● Teacher will go over some examples of arrangements and point out some positives and
negatives about them. This will hopefully get the students thinking about what to do.
● Students will have several class periods in front of a computer and a keyboard to make
their short arrangement of this tune. Teacher will be walking around making sure
everyone is on task and answering any questions the students might have.
● After several class periods, there will be one or two class periods to form small
ensembles and work on the pieces that were written.
● Students will perform all of their pieces for the class and maybe even on a concert.

Assessment:
● No matter what they quality is of their arrangement, they were discovering what to do on
their own with me guiding them. Assessment will be based on the completion of the
assignment as well as the three basic guidelines I described earlier. As long as the
student worked with notation software and did their best I think they learned plenty.

Extensions:

I would say that they could expand their arrangement to include more instruments or even start
a new arrangement in a different style. I could also make some edits to their pieces and have
them go back and start fixing things I think are not musical.

Adaptations:
 ● Size:
○ Students with physical limitations may need to use paper instead of notation
software, or have a specialized keyboard.
● Color:
○ If the color of the notation software bothers a student they can do it on whatever
color notation paper won’t bother them. Contrast on the computer monitors can
also be adjusted.
● Pacing:
○ After the first class, the teacher could give the student the melody if they have
made no progress. This way the students will all finish at the same time without
taking away from the learning aspect.
● Modality:
○ Student may not be able to hear or see, which is pretty essential to the initial
project. If a student has visual impairment someone might just match the pitches
of the melody by ear and someone notates it for them. Auditory impairment is a
bit trickier, and would most likely need a whole separate project. Maybe the
student could write for a percussive instrument where they could feel the
vibrations and informally notate different types of sounds that they experiment
with.

Winding: [You will complete this after Dr. Hammel visits class on Thursday]

● Back:
○ This activity relies on a few basic skills like pitch matching, reading notes, and
rhythmic accuracy. For pitch matching, winding it back might be checking to see
if the student can sing a pitch they hear. If not, then you can wind it back further
to see if they can sing high and low with their voice. If you want to wind that all
the way back, it would be to see if the student can recognize that a pitch is
changing. If a student can’t name notes on a staff, someone will have to go over
it or provide a guide for the student. Winding it back for this might just look like
reteaching the notes completely. For rhythm, winding it all the way back would be
if a the student can hear a difference in a rhythm. The next step would be the
student can keep a steady beat with a metronome. After that, the student would
try two different rhythms. This process would continue until the student can
recognize certain rhythms from their song.
● Forward:
○ To wind this forward I would want to take the same three skills that I identified
and push the students knowledge of these. For the pitch matching, we might
move from a melody to hearing the harmony and all of the other parts at once.
Then the student can decide how they want to alter it. For the notation, maybe
they can use more advanced techniques in the accompaniment. They could also
use dynamics and articulation markings instead of just notes and rhythms. The
rhythm maybe a bit difficult to wind forward because the rhythm of the piece can’t
change too much or else it wouldn’t be recognizable. You could probably alter
the rhythm of the accompaniment part to make that a bit more difficult.