[revised lesson plan]

Brian Tillman
Title of Lesson: Good Composers Borrow, Great Composers Steal (Stravinsky)
Grade Level: 9-12
Objective: to get students composing music and evaluating performances and use
technology to influence the way they compose. The concepts being taught are
composition, organization, notation, and aural skills.
Materials:
Students will need markers and a sheet of paper with 5 widely spaced lines,
provided by teacher.
[section omitted]
Procedure:
Begin by explaining borrowing and stealing in music by using audio
examples ranging from classical and jazz to sampling in modern pop and
hip-hop music.
Each student will be composing a 4-beat, one measure composition.
Teacher will provide each student with a piece of widely spaced, landscape
oriented, staff paper and a marker or crayon.
Students are asked to draw any combination of pitches and rhythms totaling 4
beats (yes, it can include accidentals.) into a pleasing piece. The range of the piece
can be from the first ledger line below the staff to the first line above the staff.
Each composition should start with a bar-line. (This is so that when lined up side
by side they will look like one continuous piece.)
Only notes can be written on the paper - no clef, key signature, or time signature.
(When composing, students can have a clef in mind, but they cant put it on the
paper.
Once the students have composed their 4-beat compositions, they will, one at a
time, come up to the SMARTBoard and put their notes on the staff while
other students are finishing. Initials next to each measure will indicate whose
measure is whose.
Once everyone has put their composition on the board, each student will chose 4
of them to form a longer 16 -beat piece.
The students will chose which 4 short compositions they will make into one
longer piece by notating the initials of the 4-beat pieces they like.
After a little time, the teacher will call the students up, one-by-one, to make their
4 choices.
[section omitted]
The piece will then be played through the notation software on the computer.
Students will also have a choice to change the sound or effects of the
composition. Or, someone will play the pieces on the piano.
Students will then evaluate each piece.
Each student should be ready to explain his/her choices.

If time allows, the piece that was performed can also be recorded either
internally through the notation software or externally through microphones
and recording software. The student then can either have a CD burned of the
piece or have the 16-measure collaborative composition emailed to them.
Students can be assessed on a reflective writing that explains their choices,
illustrates how borrowing and stealing work within music and explores how
their decisions were influenced by limitations, conceptual aspects and
technological aspects.

Acceptable alterations to lesson:

Composition can be any length, for instance 8 beats instead of 4. This same lesson
could be done with just rhythms.