Introduction To Bluegrass - Music Worksheet

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Introduction to Bluegrass
Introduction to Bluegrass
Summary
In this activity, students will be introduced to bluegrass music, then encouraged to demonstrate
what they learned and to highlight the facts that they found most interesting through the
completion of a worksheet and a K-W-L chart.
Objectives
At the end of this lesson, students will be able to:
• identify some of the founding musicians of the bluegrass sound
• list the instruments most frequently used to play bluegrass
• explain how bluegrass music changed and evolved over the years
Time
1 period
Background
Bluegrass is one of America’s great musical traditions. It originated in the 1930s and 1940s in
the Southern Appalachians, where it was played most notably by Bill Monroe and his famous
Blue Grass Boys. A melding of traditional mountain music, jazz, blues, gospel and country
music, bluegrass is almost always played on acoustic stringed instruments, primarily the fiddle,
mandolin, banjo, guitar, dobro and stand-up bass. The music is often very fast and the musicians
play with great skill, taking turns at improvising on each song or tune. Bluegrass vocalists often
sing very high in very tightly-arranged harmonies.
Teacher’s Notes
This lesson utilizes the instructional technique known as K-W-L, which allows teachers to
activate students’ prior knowledge by asking them what they already Know. After students have
the opportunity to share what they already know, they can collaborate as a whole class or in
small groups to set goals specifying what they Want to learn. After reading the content on the
website, students then have the opportunity to discuss what they have Learned and to evaluate
whether or not some of their initial questions have been answered by their readings.
The K-W-L activity allows students to apply higher-order thinking strategies which help them to
construct meaning from what they read and to monitor their progress toward their goals. At the
completion of the eight-week Bluegrass Live! unit, you may want to revisit the K-W-L chart that
you began in this first activity, in order to add to the Learn column and then evaluate again
whether or not the initial questions were answered. Any subsequent unanswered questions can be
submitted to the website or answered through additional student research.
Since this is the first lesson of an eight-week unit, you may want to make folders where students
can keep all of their Bluegrass Live! information and worksheets. These folders will make it
easier for students to reflect on their learning at the end of the unit.
Vocabulary
Bill Monroe, acoustic, rural
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Introduction to Bluegrass
Introduction to Bluegrass

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