New Feature! Study Guide
Claude Debussy, La Mer (The Sea)*
Composed in 1903
De l’aube a midi sur la mer (From Dawn to Midday at the Sea)
Jeux de vagues (The Play of the Waves)
Dialogue du vent et de la mer ( Dialogue of the Wind and the Sea)
Concept:
To understand and appreciate how impressionist music paints pictures for the audience through the different instruments in the orchestra. How visual paintings can help aid the understanding of music and how they are related. To experience imagery through music by describing the music through words.
Objective:
- To help enhance the ability to develop imagination skills through relating music and art.
- To help students understand and appreciate impressionist music through interrelation with paintings of the time.
- To teach students how to describe certain feelings experienced and felt in music into words.
Materials:
Recording of La Mer
Paintings by Tanner
Other impressionist paintings: sea paintings, oriental paintings
The Great Wave by Katsushika Hokusai
The Shipwreck by William Turner 1805
A Storm by William Turner 1823
Chichester Channel by William Turner 1828
Sequence:
Example:
Skipping
adventure
the ocean waves
questioning
uncertainty
excitement
early morning mist
conquering
Places or concepts might also be encouraged:
strange lands
unfamiliar sights and sounds
animals in the forest
what awaits in the next corner?
dancing of fairies
After describing what they feel or imagine, have students paint or draw what they experienced.
2. Students will observe paintings of the sea while listening to the music. Help from an instructor or written instructions will include asking the students if they can hear how Debussy has used different musical instruments to portray the waves of the ocean and how that is interrelated with the waves in the painting.
3. Explain to students who Claude Debussy was and that Debussy had always admired the ocean and the adventures that the ocean presented. Debussy’s father was a sailor and as a little boy, Debussy would have heard about all of the sea voyages that his father would have taken.
A short biography might be appropriate for an introduction of the composer (the wording might be changed for a younger group of students)
Example:
Claude Debussy exercised widespread influence over later generations of composers, both in his native France and elsewhere. He was trained at the Paris Conservatoire, and decided there on a career as a composer rather than as a pianist, his original intention. His highly characteristic musical language, thoroughly French in inspiration, extended the contemporary limits of harmony and form, with a remarkably delicate command of nuance, whether in piano-writing or in the handling of a relatively large orchestra.
Source: http://www.naxos.com/composerinfo/259.htm
4. Ask students to try to imagine what it might have been like to go to a completely unknown place across the ocean. Question students if they have ever been to a new and unexpected place that was more exciting than they had originally thought of. This may include a trip with the family to the mountains, the ocean, or even to a theme park. What were some of the sounds, smells and sights that they experienced? Ask if the students can relate to Debussy’s creation of emotions.
5. Try to identify as many different instruments that are found in the orchestra:
Strings
Drums
Clarinets
Flutes
Triangles
Cymbals
Harp
Trumpets
Ask Students: What does each instrument make you feel like? Does it excite you? Confuse you? Make you scared? Does it make your heart beat faster because you are in suspense? Does Debussy try to imitate birds or animals in the music?
Closure/Questions: How does seeing or drawing paintings help to understand the music better? What was it like to describe what you heard in words or imaginary places?
Extensions: Explain the different sections of the orchestra so that students will learn the placement on the stage to better experience and appreciate going to a concert. Specific introductions of instruments and how they are played could also be explored for better understanding and appreciation.
Resources for seating and instruments in the orchestra
Dallas Symphony: http://www.dsokids.com/seatingChart/index.html
New York Philharmonic Kids http://www.nyphilkids.org/lab/main.phtml?
Information gathered from:
http://www.mcs.csuhayward.edu/~malek/Musician/Debussy.html
National Arts Standards for Arts Education, Grades K-4
http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/teach/standards/standards_k4.cfm
Content Standard #6: Listening to, analyzing, and describing music.
Achievement Standard:
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Students identify simple music forms when presented aurally
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Students demonstrate perceptual skills by moving, by answering questions about, and by describing aural examples of music of various styles representing diverse cultures
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Students use appropriate terminology in explaining music, music notation, music instruments and voices, and music performances
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Students identify the sounds of a variety of instruments, including many orchestra and band instruments, and instruments from various cultures, as well as children's voices and male and female adult voices
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Students respond through purposeful movement (e.g., swaying, skipping, dramatic play) to selected prominent music characteristics or to specific music events (e.g., meter changes, dynamic changes, same/different sections) while listening to music
Content Standard #8: Understanding relationships between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts.
Achievement Standard:
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Students identify similarities and differences in the meanings of common terms (e.g., form, line, contrast) used in the various arts
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Students identify ways in which the principles and subject matter of other disciplines taught in the school are interrelated with those of music (e.g., foreign languages: singing songs in various languages; language arts: using the expressive elements of music in interpretive readings; mathematics: mathematical basis of values of notes, rests, and time signatures; science: vibration of strings, drum heads, or air columns generating sounds used in music; geography: songs associated with various countries or regions)
Content Standard #9: Understanding music in relation to history and culture.
Achievement Standard:
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Students identify by genre or style aural examples of music from various historical periods and cultures
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Students describe in simple terms how elements of music are used in music examples from various cultures of the world
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Students identify various uses of music in their daily experiences and describe characteristics that make certain music suitable for each use
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Students identify and describe roles of musicians (e.g., orchestra conductor, folksinger, church organist) in various music settings and cultures
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Students demonstrate audience behavior appropriate for the context and style of music performed
Oregon Arts Content Standards
Content Standard |
Benchmark 1 |
Benchmark 2 |
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Grade 3 |
Grade 5 |
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Common Curriculum Goal: Understand the interrelationships among art forms. |
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Identify the disciplines used in an integrated work of art. |
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Common Curriculum Goal:
Apply critical analysis to works of art.
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Common Curriculum Goal:
Respond to works of art and give reasons for preferences.
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Identify and describe personal preferences connected with viewing or listening to a work of art using terminology that conveys knowledge of the arts. |
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