Musical Time Period the Present. (The Song Was Written in 2005.)

SONG ACTIVITY #3

Dan Hanczar

Audience...This lesson would be used in secondary social studies classrooms. It would probably work best in the intermediate grades.

Background... This musical activity could be used as part of a unit on the War in Iraq. Possibly it could be used in the study of other wars as well.

Musical Time Period....The present. (The song was written in 2005.)

Learning Styles Used...This would be an auditory learning experience. Obviously it would use Gardner's Musical Intelligence but also some Personal Intelligences as well.

The Song..."Soldier Side" by System of a Down.

......

The Lesson

As we were instructed, this is actually only part of a lesson. This could be used in a unit studying the War in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Inform the students that today's lesson will be concerned with the idea of What would it feel like to be a soldier serving away from home in a war?

I would instruct the students to concentrate only on the musical sounds of the song at this time. The lyrics will be analyzed later. I would give the students a simple graphic organizer to jot down their thoughts as they listen to the "sounds of the song." The graphic organizer would have the title of the song at the top and some simple categories down the side asking these questions:

What instruments are being used in the song?

What is the tone of the vocals?

What visual images appear in your mind while listening?

How does this music make you feel?

What happens with the music near the end of the song? Why?

I would play the song for the students. Then I would play it again instructing the students to listen even more carefully the second time. ( I heard new sounds the more I listened.)

We would discuss what the students heard in the song before going on to the lyrics. (When I started this lesson I thought it would be only part of a period, but I can see that with discussion it could likely encompass an entire class period of 45 minutes.) ......

Postscript

The next step of the lesson could be to analyze the lyrics of the song. A possible follow-up activity could be to bring in an actual soldier who has served as we live in an area with two army bases nearby. I now realize there's a lot to be done with just the sounds of a song before you even get to the lyric.