February is Black History Month. I love the awesome contributions to music that so many African Americans have made. I wish I could fit them all in my lessons, but it is hard because we have to cover content, so everything has to be with a purpose (or two or three sometimes). Here is a lesson that I love to use with my fourth graders that uses the music of James Brown – Godfather of Soul AND reinforces the new notes we are learning on the recorder: high C and D. Credit for this lesson goes to one of my colleagues, David Levy. (I think he goes into more depth with it than I do, but here is my version of his idea). Thanks for letting me share!
The first thing I do is teach my students the two main patterns they will need to be part of the James Brown band. Pattern 1 looks like this:
This is the part that comes during the refrain (I feel good): d-c-d-c-d-c-d (I knew that I would): d-c-d-c-d-c-d, etc.
Pattern 2 looks like this:
I usually don’t show the kids the rests (you certainly can if you want to). I put them in here so that you can get a feel for when this part is supposed to play with the music. Part 2 is played during the verse (When I hold you in my arms … rest on “your love can’t do me know harm”). Then the words repeat again and you repeat the pattern again.
Then I model for them on recorder how the part fits with the music (I’ve Got You/I Feel Good by James Brown). Once the kids have the idea, we play along with the song.
Now that is pretty much all that I do with the song. You could go on to teach about 12 bar blues and improvisation and such, but I just use it as a quick fun activity to work on high C and D. I love that the first pattern highlights the two newest notes that the kids are working on and the second pattern uses all five of the notes they know so far on the recorder. I also love how cool the kids feel when they play this. They really get into the groove. I even let them do a little recorder dance during the little saxophone groove that comes in-between the refrain and the verse. I also like that the patterns themselves are not too complicated, so it makes it relatively accessible for all students. I would note however that it goes at a decent clip, so some of your students who really struggle on the recorder may not get it at first. But since it is SO repetitive, they use get it down okay by the end. And, after I have introduced the song to the kids, it is a fun one to pop out if we have a few extra minutes during class.
Little Add-ons. During the end of the refrain, I teach the kids note to go with the horn section is doing in the music. It goes like this: “so good” A-A “so good” G-G “i’ve got you” (we do nothing here).
At the end, have students play any note they want during the chord cluster (if you are very brave). Or pick a note and have them trill on it if you want something a little more pretty sounding.
I hope you and your kids get a chance to enjoy this one. It’s one of my favorite with my fourth graders. Enjoy!
If you liked this post, you may also enjoy:
Recorder Karate resource board
Digital Tour of Mrs. Novoselich’s Awesome Music Classroom Website
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