How AmPopMusic Can Help You Meet
Your Music Standards: "Responding" and "Connecting"
For high school music teachers, meeting the National Music Standards of Creating and Performing are part of what you do every rehearsal – every day – every semester.
But, what about those two other National Standards – “Responding” and “Connecting”? Are you finding the time, resources, or assistance to have your students in choir, band, orchestra, guitar, or other ensembles meet them on an advanced level?
We can help!
ampopmusic.com can help you meet the “Responding” and “Connecting” Standards. With hundreds of chapters, quizzes, practice tests, and printable materials, and over a thousand audio and video examples, music teachers and students have the resources necessary to read, listen, view, evaluate, analyze, gain knowledge, and develop their critical thinking skills.
Here are some sample activities of how teachers are using AmPopMusic with their music students to achieve “Responding” and “Connecting” success. Email us for more ideas. Or check out other “Features for Teachers”.
Anchor Standard #7:
“Perceive and analyze artistic work.”
Essential Questions: How do individuals choose music to experience? How does understanding the structure and context of music inform a response?
Sample Activities to Meet
Anchor Standard #7
Assign AmPopMusic chapter reading (e.g., 19th century America, early jazz, ’50s rock ‘n’ roll, beginnings of rap/hip-hop, etc.) and supporting audio/video examples of each.
- How was the music available to the consumer and musicians built on the music of the immediately preceding decade(s)?
- What was the purpose of the music and how did it fit into or challenge the existing culture?
- How was the musical structure or instrumentation unique from music 20, 50, or 100 years later?
- How did the music meet a need in that time and with that demographic group that could not be met in any other way?
Essential Questions: How do we discern the musical creators’ and performers’ expressive intent?
Sample Activities to Meet
Anchor Standard #8
Assign AmPopMusic reading of the life of one whose contributions reshaped popular music in America (e.g., Louis Armstrong, Stephen Foster, John Philip Sousa, Elvis Presley, Sean Combs, Ella Fitzgerald, Bob Dylan) and supporting AmPopMusic audio/video examples of each.
- What was the genre, sub-genre, and time period in which they contributed?
- How was their contribution different or unique from those preceding or their contemporaries?
- How were those musicians following them influenced by their artistic decisions?
- In what ways is their impact still felt in popular music today?
Anchor Standard #8:
“Interpret intent and meaning in artistic work.”
Anchor Standard #9:
“Apply criteria to evaluate artistic work.”
Essential Questions: How do individuals choose music to experience? How does understanding the structure and context of music inform a response?
Sample Activities to Meet
Anchor Standard #9
Assign AmPopMusic listening/viewing examples (e.g., bebop, Sousa marches, ’50s doo-wop, bluegrass, etc.) and the supporting chapters for each of the examples.
- How were there similar characteristics in each of those performances?
- How were there common elements of structure?
- Was there common or similar instrumentation?
- What performance techniques reoccured in each example?
- What innovations were brought about by this style or these artists?
- How did these examples build on previous works?
Essential Questions: How do musicians make meaningful connections to creating, performing, and responding?
Sample Activities to Meet Anchor Standard #10
Assign AmPopMusic reading from chapters surrounding time periods of cultural change in America (e.g., ’50s & ’60s rock, rap in the ’80s, jazz in the 1910s through the 1950s, etc.) and supporting AmPopMusic audio/video examples of each.
- How did jazz musicians like Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, and Dizzy Gillespie play a role in the evolving relationship of races in America with their music?
- How were early rock pioneers like Elvis Presley and Little Richard instrumental in reshaping the culture of the first generation of teenagers?
- What role did street musicians in cities like Philadelphia and New York City play in the emergence of rap music and a hip-hop culture?
- What role did Stephen Foster play in establishing the popular music industry in America?
Anchor Standard #10:
“Relate artistic ideas and works with societal, cultural, historical
context to depend understanding”
Anchor Standard #11:
"Synthesize and relate knowledge and personal experience to make art."
Essential Questions: How do the other arts, other disciplines, contexts, and daily life inform creating, performing, and responding to music?
Sample Activities to Meet Anchor Standard #11
Assign appropriate chapters/sections in AmPopMusic relating to specific periods of cultural change in America (e.g., jazz in the ’20s and ’30s, rock in the ’50s and ’60s, rap in the ’80s and ’90s, country & western in the ’40s and ’50s) and supporting AmPopMusic audio/video examples of each.
- How did styles of dance reflect the musical styles evolving during this period in this genre?
- What literary examples influenced or were influenced by this period and genre?
- How was the performance of these examples presented and in what venues?
- What technology aided in the popularization of these examples?