STP Lesson 3

Name Doug Nanzer
Lesson # 3/3
Date (including day of week) Thursday 12/29/2023
Grade Level & Class Title 8th Grade Band
Period or Block (# of minutes) 20
Instructional Context
o What do I know about my students that will inform this lesson? Are there any
particular student strengths, interests, background, needs related to the
lesson?
I know that I will have a range of familiarity with improvisation. Some students are
in Jazz Band, and some are not.
o How does this lesson connect with and build on the previous lessons?
We will be using the blues scale, chord tones and licks that we learned in the
previous lessons to improvise.
Central Focus
o What is the central focus or “big idea” for the content in this lesson?
The central focus of this lesson is to transcribe a melody and improvise over the 12
bar blues
Standards
o List state, national, and/or Common Core standards addressed in the lesson.
ART.M.II.8.3
ART.M.III.8.3
Learning Objectives and Assessments

List the specific content learning objectives for the lesson. What do I want my
students to know, understand and do? How will I assess these objectives?
Learning Objectives Assessment Plan
Students can improvise over the blues I will use a checklist to see what
using the concepts we have learned over concepts the students are using. This will
the past two lessons. help show me what the students
gravitate towards and what I may need
to spend some more time on.
Students can transcribe the melody to I will have students try to play and give
SonnyMoon For Two by Sonny Rollins feedback in the moment based on what I
am hearing
Instructional Strategies and Learning Tasks (Procedures & Timelines)
o Launch/Hook—How will you start the lesson to engage and motivate
students in learning?
Time Instructional Strategies/Learning Rationale/Research &
Tasks/Questions to Ask Theory
5 To start the lesson we will review the Performing:
materials we learned the last couple This gets the students
of lessons, such as the blues scale, brains back into the blues
progression, chord tones and some and helps reinforce what
licks. they learned the day prior
o Middle of the lesson—What will you do to engage students in developing

understanding of the lesson objectives?
6 After this I will have the group listen Assessing/Creating
Sonny R… to the head of SonnyMoon For Two Transcribing is a great
SonnyMoon Again and try to learn how to play it way to get students to use
For Two by by ear. their ears. This idea of
Sonny Rollins listening to a recording
and trying to learn how to
play it is great for
improvisation as it puts
the focus on the aural
aspect of music and less
on just reading notes and
rhythms.
8 For the last chunk of class I will try to Creating/Performing:
have as many people improvise over This gives students a
the blues progression as possible. chance to experiment with
The goal is to play the head of all of the things that they
SonnyMoon For Two and then go into have been learning over
a solo section for improvisation. I will the course of three lessons
have a checklist to be able to assess and put it into practice.
what concepts the students are using
o Closing the lesson—How will you end the lesson?
1 The last minute will be designated I like to give students time
for packing up and questions. to ask questions and I find
if I don’t give them time at
the end to pack up the end
of class is hectic.
Lesson 3 Reflection
The two main things that my students learned in this lesson was how to
transcribe a melody and how to apply what we have learned about improvisation
over the blues. I thought about writing out the melody for SonnyMoon For Two,
but I know that these students are very good at reading music so I wanted to
challenge their ears instead. The goal was to have them listen to the head a few
times and then try to figure out how to play it on their instrument. This was more
natural for some than others, but it was fun to get to see them working in a way
that they aren’t used to. I tried to read the room and nudge them in the right
direction when it seemed like they were stuck. A few ways I did this is by giving
them their starting note and directing them to use the blues scale, as the melody
is heavily influenced by the scale. I could tell some students were learning when
they would try to play the melody, play something slightly wrong and then notice
that it wasn’t right and try to fix it. One thing that I wish I did differently in this part
of the lesson is have them try to sing the melody first. Singing is a great in
between when it comes to transcribing a melody onto an instrument. If you can
sing the melody it makes it easier to find the notes you have to play and I wish I
had my students sing.
The second part of my lesson didn’t quite go to plan so I had to make
some adjustments. Because of circumstances out of my control we got started a
couple of minutes late. On top of that the transcription took longer than I
expected. I had hoped we were going to be able to perform SonnyMoon For Two
and then open it up for multiple solos, but we didn’t have time for that. Because
of this I asked for one volunteer to try and improvise a solo over the 12 bar blues.
I made a checklist to keep track of the different concepts that were used in the
solo. The one girl that did get to solo did a very nice job under the circumstances.
I was able to listen back to the recording and give some written feedback using
the checklist I made. A few things that stuck out to me was her use of the blues
scale and her ability to take one of the licks we learned and change it slightly to
make it her own. This shows me that the licks and blues scale were two things
that at the very least this student understood well, and felt comfortable using
while improvising. If I were to teach more lessons I would probably choose to
focus on other concepts or skills to further the students improvisation tool box.

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Name Doug Nanzer

Learning Objectives and Assessments

o Middle of the lesson—What will you do to engage students in developing

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