Lesson 8: Kandinsky Part 1

For this integrated lesson sequence, Dr. May, my faculty adviser, assisted me in planning and teaching the lessons.

Lesson Plan:

Gerilyn: Hello Song

Dr. May: Art and music comparisons

• Music influence on art Boogie Woogie
• What about the music do you think inspired the artist?
• Patterns in art—repetition in music
• What about the large blocks?
• Etc.

• Art influence on music The Twittering Machine
• Let’s make predictions, what do you think the music is going to sound like? Why?
• Dynamics—loud or soft?
• Tempo—fast or slow?
• Timbre—what kinds of instruments?
• Articulation—long or short?
• Any other ideas?
• Listen and see if any of their predictions were correct

Today we’re going to look at another artist who was influenced by music. His name is Kandinsky, and he was a really famous artist that used wonderful colors and shapes to create abstract art. We are going to use his art to make music of our own! Before we do that, however, I want to see what kind of art we can create with our bodies by making shapes! In order to do that we are going to need to move around a lot, which means we need to establish a couple of rules:

• Hands to yourself
• Mouths quiet
• When you hear my drum playing you can move
• When you my drum stop you need to freeze and don’t move a muscle!

Let’s practice making some shapes—I put some shapes up on the board for inspiration.

• High, low, big, small, curvy, straight, shapes with friends?

Gerilyn:

Now that we’ve talked about making shapes with our bodies, I want to talk about making sounds with our voices. I brought four of my favorite instruments that make funny sounds. Let’s see if we can make these sounds with our own bodies.

• Vibraslap
• Double Bell
• Rachet
• Ocean drum

Dr. May:

Let’s look at a piece of art by Kandinsky. What are some of the things you notice about Kandinsky’s artwork?

Exploring the artwork together:

• Let’s choose one of these shapes
• Can you make your body look like this?
• What sound can we make look like this?
• What if half of the room makes this shape and creates a sound and the other half makes this shape and creates a sound. What would they sound like together?
• Everyone choose a different shape, don’t tell me keep it a mystery shape and as I go across the picture make your shape and sound but only when I am touching your shape.

Gerilyn:

• How did we use art to make music?
• How did we bring our painting to life with our bodies and sound?

Dr. May:

As we’re leaving I want everyone to choose a final shape and when we come tap you, you are going to say the special name we taught you, do you remember it? We won’t see you next week but we’ll be back the week after and when we come back we want to see how many of your remember the special name!