The Strings Family

WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION
This Curriculum Guide is designed to prepare, reinforce, and extend learning

concepts and ideas from the MPR Class Notes video Finding the Right
Instrument for You: The Strings Family.
The information and activities in the Guide are intended to make music come
alive and to align with Minnesota Standards in Music Education. We hope you
will personalize, modify, or adjust content to meet the needs of your unique
classroom.
This video is the first of four that introduce and describe the instrument families.
PREPARING TO WATCH THE VIDEO

Just as literacy teachers use pre-reading strategies, music teachers can use
pre-listening/pre-watching strategies. This helps students create a mental
framework to organize new ideas, relate new content to prior knowledge, and
make connections. What you bring to a listening experience will affect what you
hear and take away from that experience.
1. Use adjectives to describe the sound of individual instruments. Connect
with language arts teachers to incorporate and reinforce content from
literacy units. Create a chart to structure

and organize this activity. Use this as an opportunity to introduce unfamiliar
instruments. Select instruments for the chart to suit your own needs. Feel free
to customize and create one for each instrument family.
CELLO
resonant
OBOE
mysterious
HORN
buttery
GLOCKENSPIEL CYMBALS
glistening
splashy
FLUTE
airy
2. Listen to strings music. Continue to use adjectives in classroom

discussions before, after, and during viewing/listening.
a. Lyre
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHmPNtdSGC0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=177LRoosZco
b. Zither
Here are two versions of the same piece. Each video gives a
different angle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8jN1treRKQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KKQDotECdg
c. Violin
Heres a lyrical example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvlTuBnpKpc
And the same violinist, Joshua Bell, playing something more
aggressive:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laGT9IB2bFo
d. Viola
As with many of these examples, the featured instrument plays with
others, but we can clearly see and hear the unique features and
qualities of the instrument:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7a_sZTZnRI
e. Cello
Here is solo cello playing some virtuosic Paganini:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d26dZGdXnq0
For something a little different

and unexpected, here is a
multi-cello arrangement of Michael Jackson:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0Ps7zgKs_k
f. Double bass
Some jazz-inflected Edgar Meyer, all pizzicato:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrqq5L96reE
g. Harp
The unique sound of Alice Coltrane:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYLpz2HPk0U
Or the indie rock stylings of Joanna Newsom:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XMJl-HCO7A
Or something a little more traditional:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oIskg5V1hU
Continue and extend this exercise by finding combinations of string instruments
playing together, or additional string instruments that fall outside the traditional
symphony orchestra, such as the mandolin, banjo, or guitar.
REINFORCE IDEAS AND CONCEPTS FROM THE VIDEO THROUGH ACTIVE
LEARNING
1. Play Pin-the-Instrument-on-the-Orchestra.
Start by posting an orchestra chart, like this one from Wikimedia
Commons. Find pictures of individual instruments that students can
literally cut and post onto the correct place on the diagram. Focus on
string instruments to align with video content.
(Orchestra chart follows on the next page.)
(Pin-the-Instrument-on-the-Orchestra,
continued.)
2. Have a Pizzicato and Double Stops listening party.

Explain that string instruments can perform a special techniquepizzicato
which is means that they pluck their strings instead of using the bow.

Introduce the double stop technique, which is when string players play two
strings simultaneously. Listen to a few examples of each (good examples
listed below).

Create these index cards

Pizzicato
Double stops

then play random examples from the list below and ask students to flash
the appropriate card based on what they hear.

Pizzicato

Pizzicato Polka, Johann and Josef Strauss:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CAXpuPqfv0

Humming Chorus from Puccinis Madame Butterfly. Make sure to listen to a
version with orchestral accompaniment, like this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBO94mIQqtY

The Largo movement of Winter, from the Four Seasons, by Vivaldi. This one
is sort of a trick question because the melody is bowed (arco) but the
accompaniment is pizzicato:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNeAbvvmwxI&list=RDGNeAbvvmwxI

And the very fun Plink, Plank, Plunk by Leroy Anderson:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzS2HiV_aUo

Double Stops

Partita no. 3, Gavotte en rondeau, J.S. Bach:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gb3LAzCABsM

Chaconne for Solo Violin, J.S. Bach:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bVRTtcWmXI

Fiddle music and bluegrass uses a lot of double stops. Sometimes the music
goes so fast its hard to pick out the double stops, but this version of
Wayfaring Stranger by Alison Krauss starts out with a couple of obvious,
easy-to-hear double stops:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brAXHYv-JYc

3. Explore with rubber bands.

Find a wide variety of rubber bands
of various thickness and size. Use a piece of cardboard and line up
some push pins so that you can stretch the bands to various lengths and
levels of tautness. Pluck the bands and listen to the sounds. Adjust the
lengths/tautness of the bands, pluck again, and compare.
Extend this by finding a cardboard with all four sides closed off. Cut a hole
in the top and string the rubber bands across the hole. Pluck and listen
to the sound now that a resonator box is in place. Introduce vocabulary
words such as resonate and amplify and use these terms when
watching and listening to string instruments.
EXTEND LEARNING WITH PROJECTS AND ACTIVITIES
1. Play String Charades.
Remind students that string instruments can perform a special technique

pizzicatowhich is means that they pluck their strings instead of using the
bow. Watch a few examples so that students understand what pizzicato looks
and sounds like. Heres Allegro Pizzicato from Bla Bartks String Quartet
No. 4.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBs53SlEkso

Note that when string players use the bow, its referred to as arco. Watch a
contrasting example, the American Quartet, by Antonn Dvok.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pV-kbAydcwk

Create two index cards, labelled pizzicato and arco, respectively. Use them as
a prompt for students to act out playing each technique.
Ask students to volunteer to come up and pretend/pantomime playing
pizzicato or arco while other students guess.
2. Interview a string player. Find someone in your community who plays a
string instrumenta teacher, a student, a parent, a friend. Ask how he or
she got started playing an instrument. How often do you practice? Whats
fun about playing the instrument? Whats challenging? Whats a favorite
piece to play and why?
STANDARDS
The content of Finding the Right Instrument
for You: The Strings Family deals most
directly with identifying tone color/timbre,
which aligns with the following Minnesota Standard in Music Education.
1. Grades 4 5. 1. Artistic Foundations. 1. Demonstrate knowledge of the
foundations of the arts area. Music. 4.1.1.3.1. Describe the elements of
music including melody, rhythm, harmony, dynamics, tone color, texture,
for and their related concepts.
The comparison of sounds and pieces of music aligns most closely with the
following Minnesota Standard in Music Education.
1. Grades 4 5. 4. Artistic Process: Respond or Critique. 1. Respond to or
critique a variety of creations and performances using the artistic
foundations. Music. 4.4.1.3.1. Justify personal interpretations and
reactions to a variety of musical works or performances.

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What are some examples of string instruments mentioned in the document?

What are some techniques unique to string instruments discussed in the document?

WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION

This Curriculum Guide is designed to prepare, reinforce, and extend learning

PREPARING TO WATCH THE VIDEO

literacy units. Create a chart to structure

2. Listen to strings music. Continue to use adjectives in classroom

For something a little different

2. Have a Pizzicato and Double Stops listening party.

3. Explore with rubber bands.

Remind students that string instruments can perform a special technique

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