LP+-+Collaborative+Arts+Based+Lesson+Plan

====The lesson that I developed was made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The media center at my school was one of the recipients of the grant in which we received posters of Americana artwork including famous paintings, photographs, architecture and sculptures by American artists. This lesson was used for a high school technology based music appreciation class. This project can be adapted for K-8 as well and you may select your own pictures to use. ====

====**__Objective__ **: The objective of this collaborative lesson was for students to learn the importance of the connections between music and art. In music, we learn broad concepts of form, timbre and texture. These concepts also relate to visual art in which texture and form defines a visual element. Color in visual art expands the color spectrum; in music color refers to timbre, the unique characteristic of each sound. The evolution of sound cards in music software programs have provided the full spectrum of the sound palette for students to explore. ====

====**__Materials__ **: The music students composed music using software programs such as GarageBand from the iLife Suite (MAC) or Audacity (WIN). Sibelius and Finale, music notation software, may also be used. After the students completed their music compositions, the music pieces were saved as mp3 files and shared with each other on iTunes. For the art classes, there are a variety of programs available including Studio Artist (MAC), Pizarra TwistedBrush (WIN), or ArtRage, which is a free program for Windows and Mac OS. **__Steps__**: Each student selected one of the posters in which they were asked to compose an original piece of music that reflected the images in the poster. To allow the students to explore their own creativity, it is important to provide minimal parameters with enough guidance so they will have success. The two parameters set for this project were that the music composition was to be at least two minutes in length and final product must be saved as an MP3 file. A continuation of this project involved sharing a CD of the student's music compositions with the art department. Their task was to paint or draw a digital picture visually representing the music that was created by the students in the music technology course without seeing the original artwork. When completed, both the original artwork and the new artwork along with the musical composition that bridged the two visual artifacts were put on display in the media center. ====