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Lesson

Melting Pot: Becoming the Blues

Listen What I Gotta Say: Women in the Blues (6th–8th) / Melting Pot: Becoming the Blues

Lesson Components & Learning Objectives

  1. Before the Blues: Spirituals

    • Identify some common characteristics of spirituals.
    • Explain how spirituals influenced the development of the blues.
    • 20–30 minutes

  2. Combining Influences: Fife and Drum

    • Describe connections between West African polyrhythmic music, European fife and drum corps music, and the style of country blues (fife and drum blues) that became an important part of African American community life in the Mississippi Delta.
    • 20–30 minutes

  3. Fife and Drum: A New Generation

    • Actively participate in the music-making process by demonstrating rhythmic and melodic patterns on instruments commonly used in the fife and drum blues tradition.
    • Understand the minor pentatonic scale through performance.
    • 30+ minutes

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