Lesson 1 || Lesson 2 || Lesson 3 || Lesson 4 || Lesson 5 || For Teachers

Teacher's How-To -- In a Nutshell

1. Teachers, review each activity. If you like, print out the activities.
2. To introduce Ellington's music to your students, we suggest that you use available recordings of the music mentioned in the activities.
3. Ask your students to use this Web site--either at your school's resource center or on their home computers. Have them go to the interactive activities where they will answer each question in turn. When they finish, they can print out answer pages to hand in to you. This will document their completion of the assignment.

The audio clips used in the lessons require the RealPlayer software, which can be acquired free from Real Networks web site.

Note to Teachers: How to Use These Lessons

The lessons in this guide are aimed at students in middle-school grades. The lessons will be easiest to implement in general music classes, but also can be useful for teachers of ensemble classes for teaching to the National Standards. You will find four interactive lessons and one listening lesson you can use in your classroom. Each of the four should help you guide your students in the goals set forth in the National Standards for Music Education. For these interactive lessons, students will need to go to your school's resource room for Web access, or visit the Web site using their home computer. There are print-outs showing the student's answers to each lesson's multiple choice questions, plus space for them to answer short essays. Each lesson should take no longer than 30 minutes. Classroom follow-up activities should also take about 30 minutes.

Lesson One: The Color of Ellington's Vision addresses National Standards six and seven.

Objectives: Students will listen and respond to some of the distinctive sounds used in Ellington's arrangements and will describe their ideas about the meaning of "color" in music.
Evaluation: Use students' responses to the multiple-choice questions to determine the depth of their ability to listen for different instrumental and vocal timbres. If students have difficulty in answering these questions, try playing the entire pieces in class, prompting volunteers from the class to identify the instrumentation at key points in each piece. In evaluating students' responses to the essay question, look for responses that show a grasp of the idea of creating color through various combinations of instrumental sounds rather than just the juxtaposition of instrumental sounds. Also look for responses that reveal an understanding of the sophistication of Ellington's orchestrations.

Lesson Two: The Colors of Ellington's Band addresses National Standards one, two, four, and six.

Objectives: Students will learn about the exact instrumentation and personnel that Ellington used to create "Concerto for Cootie." They will evaluate different possible instrumental combinations and will create their own arrangements.
Evaluation: Look for responses to the essay question that justify students' choices of arrangements on musical grounds (that is, something like, "The three reed instruments--clarinet and the saxophones--blend more successfully than the arrangements that use mixtures of instrumental families") rather than simple statements of personal taste. If possible, tabulate the students' choices in class and lead a class discussion of the merits of the various arrangements. Follow the same group-evaluation process when you sing and play the arrangement in your ensemble. In evaluating student's MIDI arrangements, accept any arrangements for which the students can justify their chosen instrumental combinations on similar musical grounds.

Lesson Three: Coloring in a Chart addresses National Standards three and five.

Objectives: Students will demonstrate their ability to read short notation examples and distinguish between correct and incorrect rhythmic charts. Students will learn to improvise rhythmic accompaniments and notate the rhythm they created.
Evaluation: Look for accuracy of notation and a balance between originality and coherency of rhythmic invention. If students develop rhythms that are too simple, challenge them to develop rhythms that have a higher level of interest (by, for example, anticipating beats rather than always playing on strong beats or by using more than one rhythmic timbre in the line).

Lesson Four: Carrying the Color of Culture addresses National Standards six and nine.

Objectives: Students will learn to draw connections between music and the culture and history of an era that produced the music. They will also learn to describe the elements of the musical style and express how it reflects the culture.
Evaluation: In evaluating students' essay questions, look for insights into the ways that musical content beyond the lyrics might reflect relations between races or cultural groups. And be certain to use the "oral history project" as a way to help your students understand the immense cultural value of musical expression and the breadth of Ellington's use of this expressive range. Teachers, if your students prepare a research report on the living music around them, you can submit them to be posted in the student gallery.

While there are selections of Ellington's musical works to listen to within each of the first four lessons, you may want to bring in or refer your students to the Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz, CD 1987 (CBS RC 033 P5T-19477) and Beyond Category: The Musical Genius of Duke Ellington, (Smithsonian Institution Press, compilation 1994 by BMG Music DMC2/DMK2-1141.)

We encourage you to print out Lesson Five, the listening exercise written by Luvenia George, program coordinator for the Duke Ellington Youth Project at the Smithsonian Institution. For this, you'll need a recording of Ellington's "Ko-Ko", found on either of the Smithsonian recordings mentioned above. You'll find this listening lesson, along with an article, "Duke Ellington, The Man and His Music," also written by Dr. George, in the May 1999 issue of Music Educators Journal.

The National Standards for Music Education

1. Singing, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music.
2. Performing on instruments, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music.
3. Improvising melodies, variations, and accompaniments.
4. Composing and arranging music within specified guidelines.
5. Reading and notating music.
6. Listening to, analyzing, and describing music.
7. Evaluating music and music performances.
8. Understanding relationships between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts.
9. Understanding music in relation to history and culture.

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