Transcript Music at the Movies

Music at the Movies
An After-School Adventure
Music at the Movies
We spent three weeks at South
Elementary watching movies in afterschool and learning about the use of
music in each.
 Anybody could teach this after-school
program; the only musical skill you need is
the ability to recognize repeating
melodies.
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Introduction
We started by learning about vocabulary
such as the “soundtrack” and “score” of a
film.
 We talked about the difference between
the “score,” where music plays beneath
other action and dialogue, and a
“musical,” in which the characters do the
singing themselves.
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Introduction
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It turns out that we love
classical music, but the
place most of us hear it
most often nowadays is
at the movies.
We compared the film
music of Henry Mancini
and John Williams and
asked, “Are you on Team
Henry or Team John?”
Fantasia
Before watching Walt
Disney’s “Fantasia,”
we talked about how
music and art used to
follow similar trends.
 We looked at art and
listened to music from
the Baroque, (Neo)Classical, Romantic,
Impressionist, and
20th Century periods.
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Fantasia
We discussed how Walt Disney’s
aim in “Fantasia” was to get the
public to take animation seriously
by pairing it with music that they
took seriously.
 Though the music fit into three
categories (“programmatic” music
that tells a story, music that
suggests certain indefinite themes,
and “absolute” music that exists
for its own sake), the Disney
artists did not always follow the
story suggested by the composers,
nor did they always pair the
artwork of the animation with the
art of the time period in which the
music was composed.
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Fantasia
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We incorporated other content
areas into our study of the
film. We read the original story
of “The Nutcracker” by E.T.A.
Hoffmann and explored the
creation of Stravinsky-like beat
patterns by coming up with
math equations that added up
to a certain number of beats
and clapping and holding
accordingly (example:
1+2+5=8, so Clap + Clap
(Hold) + Clap (Hold Hold Hold
Hold) to get eight beats with
claps that do not all fall on the
downbeat).
Fantasia
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Also, we discovered
that we all REALLY
want our very own
Pegasus.
The Wizard of Oz
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Next, we watched “The Wizard
of Oz” and looked for
“leitmotifs,” pieces of music
that recur in association with
the same character or theme.
For example, “Over the
Rainbow” reappears
throughout the score in
strategic places to remind the
viewer of Dorothy’s desire to
get home. The same piece of
music is played whenever a
“bad witch” is on-screen,
whether that is the Wicked
Witch of the East’s feet, the
Wicked Witch of the West, or
Miss Elmira Gulch.
The Wizard of Oz
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Throughout the film,
we considered
whether the music
met Walt Disney’s
definition of what
music should do in a
good musical: either
move the story
forward or tell you
something about a
character.
The Wizard of Oz
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We learned about musical
styles used in the movie, such
as “operetta” style, where
spoken dialogue is mixed in
with singing, and the use of a
“chorus” (in the Greek
dramatic sense) to provide
information about other
characters.
After watching the movie, we
also saw a clip from “The Wiz”
and explored the possibility of
telling the exact same story
with a different style of music.
The Wizard of Oz
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“Yeah, I like Michael
Jackson, but I don’t
like this.” –R.
Beauty and the Beast
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We put our new understanding
of leitmotifs to the test by
exploring how they were used
differently in Walt Disney’s
“Beauty and the Beast.” For
example, music does not recur
with a single character as it
does in “The Wizard of Oz”
(you don’t hear “Belle” or
“Gaston” every time you see
those characters), but instead
repeats to bring back a theme,
such as the music associated
with the enchantment backstory at the beginning of the
film.
Beauty and the Beast
We again looked at how music
was meeting Disney’s own criteria
of moving the story forward or
telling us about characters.
 We thought about questions such
as, “Why are there two love songs
(“Something There” and “Beauty
and the Beast”) almost back-toback in the film? (Because they
express the transition from the
beginning of the romantic
relationship to a deeper emotional
attachment in a shorter period of
time than it would take to show
those events transpiring naturally)
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Beauty and the Beast
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We finished our study of
the film by choosing a
story that Disney has yet
to tell in animated form,
“Rumpelstiltskin.”
We wrote out a sketch of
the main story points,
then went back and
discussed where we
might put songs to make
our story into a musical,
and even who would play
the parts of the
characters.
Beauty and the Beast
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“You could play the
girl. I want to be
Rumpelstiltskin.” –D.
The Sound of Music
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We ended our program by watching
“The Sound of Music” and thinking
about what music can do in the lives
of real people.
We journaled our thoughts on a
graphic organizer while watching the
movie. In the first column of the
organizer, we wrote our own names
and an anecdote about what role
music plays in our lives. In the middle
five columns, we took notes on how
music impacted the lives of Maria, the
Captain, the children, Max, and the
Austrian people. After watching the
movie, we chose a group to which we
belong and wrote it in the last column
along with what music can do to help
us as members of that group
(examples: our families, our school,
Lakota culture, American culture).
The Sound of Music
“Music helps [my
family] when we are
sad because we just
put on happy music.”
–M.
 “The drum song helps
you learn to talk
Lakota and learn
about how you sing it
and the story it tells
you.” –R.
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The Sound of Music
To add some historical context,
we discussed the role played by
the Nazi takeover of Austria in the
lives of the Von Trapp family and
what it would have meant if the
family had not been able to use
performing as a means to escape
the country.
 Fittingly, we ended our afterschool program on December 7,
so we were able to tie our
discussion into our knowledge
about how and why the United
States decided to enter World War
II. Comparing Pearl Harbor Day
and September 11 to the Austrian
Anschluss helped us connect on a
more meaningful level to how the
citizens of Austria must have felt.
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Music at the Movies
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This after-school program meets the following national standards for music:
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Students demonstrate perceptual skills by moving, by answering questions
about, and by describing aural examples of music of various styles representing
diverse cultures.
Students use appropriate terminology in explaining music, music notation, music
instruments and voices, and music performances.
Students devise criteria for evaluating performances and compositions.
Students explain, using appropriate music terminology, their personal
preferences for specific musical works and styles.
Students identify similarities and differences in the meanings of common terms
used in the various arts.
Students identify ways in which the principles and subject matter of other
disciplines taught in the school are interrelated with those of music.
Students identify by genre or style aural examples of music from various
historical periods and cultures.
Students identify various uses of music in their daily experiences and describe
characteristics that make certain music suitable for each use.
Students identify and describe roles of musicians in various music settings and
cultures.
Music at the Movies
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This after-school program also incorporates the following Common Core standards:
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Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats, including visually
and quantitatively, as well as in words.
Compare and contrast the adventures and experiences of characters in stories.
Describe in depth a character, setting, or event in a story or drama, drawing on specific
details in the text (e.g., a character’s thoughts, words, or actions).
Analyze how visual and multimedia elements contribute to the meaning, tone, or beauty of a
text (e.g., graphic novel, multimedia presentation of fiction, folktale, myth, poem).
Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are
appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
Prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with
diverse partners, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.
Recount or describe key ideas or details from a text read aloud or information presented
orally or through other media.
Add drawings or other visual displays to descriptions as desired to provide additional detail.
Acquire and use accurately a range of general academic and domain-specific words and
phrases sufficient for reading, writing, speaking, and listening at the college and career
readiness level.
Decompose numbers in more than one way, e.g., by using objects or drawings, and record
each decomposition by a drawing or equation (e.g., 5 = 2+3 and 5 = 4+1).