MUED4602 Task 3 Week 2 – Lesson 4: Eliza’s Aria ‘Mini Composition/Arrangement Project’

The introductory sight-singing activity not only helps students practice their sight-singing which is an integral part of the unit, but also preludes the idea of arranging music by moving musical ideas around in a different order. In the cut outs, I used C major 4/4 time; there is a lot of logical steps and leaps to the melody but if they are rearranged a certain way, intervals such as a 6th can appear. This makes for an interesting activity as students can anticipate difficulties that may occur and distinguish between good and poor phrasing. The ‘Compositional techniques’ sheet was designed to scaffold the process of applying the techniques of fragmentation, augmentation and retrograde to music material. There are clear demonstrations/examples and a small activity at the end where the students can explore innovative approaches to complete the task; the activity can be used in their mini-project which can be a good starting point. A fun extension would be for a student to project their finished arrangement and have other students work out what techniques they used and where. In ‘Eliza’s Aria Arrangement Guide Sheet’ the students are carefully guided through a step by step process to ensure maximal success. It is differentiated so there are a few approaches to completing the task:

• You can adhere closely to an original arrangement e.g. string quartet version and write a new section e.g. use compositional techniques to write a new ‘B’ section
• You can arrange it for a different instrumental ensemble that hasn’t been done before
• Use DAWs like soundtrap/garageband to use the arrangement (the video below was listed in resources for the ‘listen to arrangements’ section of this lesson; this would be a good example of how it can be done)

So there are many ways to complete the task, the more innovative the better. The good thing about the ‘Arrangement Guide Sheet’ is that it simplifies the composing/arranging process and when they are done planning I can review it and make sure they are on track to a successful arrangement. There will be a few lessons to complete this and some teacher guidance so students won’t feel overwhelmed.