Lesson Folder on The Blues Style as it migrated from New Orleans North to New York, My Personal experience with learning how to improvise Jazz and Blues on the viola (using your own experience to teach improvisation), and How to make your own song.
Objectives:
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Part One; To have students make a connection between the style of the Jazz and Rap Film Clip “Life is a Traffic Jam” and the Blues song by Leadbelly’s song “New York City” in order to trace the uniting elements of musical back to King Oliver’s Jazz Band. Part Two; To have students make a connection to the learning process and the teacher. Part Three; To have students generalize what they have studied in the first two lessons about the relationship of musical form “The Blues” to historical events of Black Americans.
Materials Needed:
Films, CD’s, LP’s, shall be made reference to in each lesson given in this section. Students might use music staff paper for their music compositions.
HISTORICAL FACTS:
Day one: Have a film clip from “Gridlock’d” or the sound track CD “life is a Traffic Jam” set up. (note that if you are using the film that the section that you want is at the end of the film. Warning: I would use this for high school students only, or explain that there is some profanity in this film clip. If you still want to use this section with younger students,stop the film before Tupac starts his section of the song). “Today we are going to compare and contrast two types of musical compositions that have words as well as music. One is from the movie “Gridlock’d” and the other is a song composed and sung by the legendary Huddie Leadbetter “Leadbelly” and his 12-string guitar.(4)
Have students contrast and compare the two works:
“What similarities are there in the two works?”
“What are the differences or contrasts in both pieces?” The Homework Assignment will be to compose a song with words, give them a week and a half to complete this assignment. Have students work on sections of the song which should be due every few days so that you can guide the creative process.
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Day Two: “Today we are going to listen to different types of blues from around the country; mostly the South and the Midwest and the East. The names of the songs tell you what city or place they came from. The recordings to represent the different styles are the following:
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(The St. Louis Blues, sung by Bessie Smith; The Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz)—The St. Louis Blues on the Violin by Papa John Creach; 1971 Grunt Records RCA Victor.
The Mississippi Blues, No 3.: Mansition ( 1926-1937); Origin Jazz Library OJL-17.
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(‘Don’t Lie to Me” New Orleans Blues by Fats Domino {this features the “Bluebird Beat” or the Chicago school of studio-contrived blues in the late 1930’s}; Vol. 1 Urban Blues—Blues Uptown—Legendary Masters Series IR Imperial, Liberty Records),
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(Boozoo Stomp [LA] performed by Boozoo Chavis; Vol. 2 Rural Blues—Saturday Night Function, Legendary Masters Series I R Imperial Records).
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(Memphis Blues written by G. Norton and W. C. Handy performed by Eubie Blake and his friends Edith Wilson and Ivan Harold Browning; Eubie Blake Music EBM-3)
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(Bound No’th Blues words by L. Hughes Performed by Gloria Foster; A Hand is On the Gate Side 3 / Verve Forecast/folkways Records MGM Division.)
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Day Three: Teachers who do not have a back ground in music may use their own major field, I will use my background as an example of what one might share with students: “Today we are going to talk about journals. I thought it might be fun for the class to know about how I became interested in improvisation, thus I have some information such as: before I started to improvise, I played both the guitar and the violin. I used to listen to Bach, Aretha Franklin, Miles Davis, and Sly and the Family Stone. I enjoyed listening to pop music on the radio. One day there was a special on improvisors, such as Johnny and Edgar Winter’s, Jimmy Hendricks, and B.B. King. I had the radio on while I was ’supost’ to be practicing the violin. Suddenly I heard this sound of the electric guitar from the song “Purple Haze” and by accident I hit the same intervals on the violin. From that point on I was on the road to rocking on the strings & bow. I joined a rock group for the fun of it the summer before I went to Interlochen Arts Academy. Over the fall I sought out the Jazz Band Teacher “Dave Sporny”. He liked my original songs on the guitar yet also helped me to learn how to improvise on the violin. He gave me tapes and records of Jean-Luc Ponty, Stephanne Grappelli to listen to. Jerry Goodman was a violinist who could improvise in John McLaughlin’s group Mahavishnu Orchestra. Then I became a fan of this group of musicians for life. In College, I would soon discover teachers, Jaki Byard, Jackie McLean, Walter Bishop, Paul Jeffrey (who let me organize a string section for his Big Band and gave me a solo spot during performance), Willie Ruff, and Dwike Mitchell. I kept a journal of songs that I wrote in high school. My high school teacher Mrs. Sharp encouraged us to keep a log or journal, I’m glad I did. I would encourage all students to keep a journal. It is fun to look at many years on.
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Day Four: “Today we are going to take a poem and turn it into a performance piece.”
