National Standards:

● (Cn.3.8.1): Identify, describe, and apply through performance distinguishing

characteristics of musical works from a variety of genres, styles, historical periods, and
cultures.
● (LR.5.8.2): Identify elements of music and analyze and describe how they manifest in
the musical example.
● (LR6.8.3): Identify and express age appropriate music concepts including form,
phrasing, expressive qualities, and timbre through movement in listening examples,
singing games and simple folk dances.

List Your Long Term Musical Goals for Students (what major goals will you accomplish)

● Students will have a better understanding of middle eastern musical traditions

Short Term Musical Goals for Students (what immediate goals will you accomplish)

● Students will be able to aurally identify quarter tones

● Students will be able to recall Syrian instruments from the lesson

List all the Materials You’ll Need to Run Your Lesson (both for you & the student)

● Speakers
● Powerpoint

Script Your Lesson Sequence in Order

1. Thanks for having us back to talk to you about a different culture! Last time Demi and
Ben talked to you about about music of a different country. What country was that
again?
a. Burma or Myanmar
2. Good! Today we’re going to be talking about music from Syria. Can everyone say Syria?
3. Syria is located in the middle east. It’s this country right here that’s just west of Iraq,
north of Jordan, and south of Turkey. Those are probably some countries we’re more
familiar with.
a. Syria actually gets a lot of musical influence from Turkey
4. One thing that you might not associate with the Middle East is Christianity. I know this
can be a bit of a sensitive subject, but in order to talk about the music we need to talk a
bit about the background, but just know I’m not trying to preach at you.
a. Approximately 11% of the Syrian population is Christian. There have been
Christians there since Biblical times, and you can see here there are some
churches from around the 4th century. Does anyone know what year that is?
(300).
 b. Yes! That’s old. That was so long ago, that it’s been a part of their culture for
almost 2000 years. This means that the religion has had some impact on their
culture and their music.
c. Play Orthodox chant
d. (I’m going to talk over the first 10 or so seconds) One thing that we hear is one
person singing a melody line, or multiple voices singing the SAME melody line,
with or without accompaniment.
5. (Once I stop it) Now, one interesting thing that we hear in this music is called a “quarter-
tone.”
a. This is an Eastern music tradition that is not practiced in Western culture.
Quarter-tone theory says that you split two notes in half (i.e.: there is a note
between F and F#). If you do this for all 12 notes, that means they get 24 notes in
the same space.
b. Let’s have another listen and see if you can pick out the quarter-tones.
c. (Play it again)
d. If you didn’t hear it in that listen, don’t worry. We’re going to be hearing some
more examples of it soon.
6. Talk about the 5 instruments and play the clip after introducing each (MAKE SURE to tell
them that this is not necessarily authentic in performance, and this is solely to
demonstrate how the instrument sounds)
a. Oud
i. The oud looks kind of like a guitar and is played similarly--the player
fingers notes on the neck of the instrument and strums over the sound
hole
b. Kamanja
i. The kamanja can look like a violin, but there are other designs; it’s a
string instrument and because the neck is 100% chromatic it allows the
use of quarter-tones, which we will hear in this video
c. Quanun
i. The Quanun is a harp that you lay in your lap (or you stand/sit over it in
some fashion) and you pluck the different strings.
d. Ney
i. This is a wind instrument that is similar to a flute
e. Darrabukka
i. This is a percussion instrument that you play in your lap and you can get
all kinds of interesting sounds by hitting different parts of the head in
different ways
7. Now that we know a little bit about Syrian instruments and some musical concepts
specific to Syrian culture and religion, I’m going to teach you about how they are utilized
in other performance settings.
8. Probably the most common form of secular (non-religious) music is called the
muwashshah. This type of music typically uses 4 instruments, which we will talk about
and listen to, and also contains singing- usually performed by the people playing the
instruments.
1. The muwashshah is also a form of poetry, and usually is where the lyrics for the musical
form comes from.
2. Let’s listen to 4 instruments that are very common in muwashshahs. The oud, which is a
string instrument similar to a guitar *play audio*, the kamanja, another string instrument,
but this one is more similar to a violin *play audio*, the quanan, yet another string
instrument, but this one is unique in that it’s not necessarily comparable to anything
we’re familiar with. *play audio* The last instrument we’ll talk about is a simple lap drum,
called the “darbuka” *play audio*
3. So, here we’ll see what a typical set-up and performance would look like for the
muwashshah. *play video*
4. Now we will look at different types of secular Syrian music. Again, “secular” just means
non-religious; non-sacred. I’ll be introducing you to some Folk and Popular Syrian music.
5. First we’ll go over their folk music, which is primarily instrumental. The three instruments
primarily utilized are the ney, a wooden flute-like instrument, and the Oud and the
Darbuka which we mentioned earlier. Again, the Oud is a stringed instrument that the
player strums, and the Darbuka (or Darrabuka or Darbekkah- I’ve seen a lot of spellings
and pronunciations) is a lap drum.
6. Again, what instrument do we know well that is similar to the Oud? (Lute or guitar would
be good answers)
7. We already heard the oud and the darbuka, but we’ll listen to the Ney since it’s new.
KEEP IN MIND- these examples are not necessarily a good display of Syrian folk music.
They are just good quality audio of each instrument so that you can get an idea of what
they might sound like. *play example of ney*
8. Okay, so those are the instruments separately. See if you can recognize any of them
when we listen to some Syrian folk music. Again, Syrian folk music is primarily
instrumental. Additionally, they have prevalent melodic lines and focus less on
harmonization. *play audio*
9. Alright, in that example we heard a fairly long intro with just one singular instrument.
Someone raise their hand and tell me what instrument that was? (Oud)
10. Yes, it was an Oud. You’ll find that the oud is the primary instrument usually when it
comes to Syrian folk music. Also, usually Folk music is played by smaller ensembles
where it’s just one or two of each instrument.
11. Next we’ll talk about Syrian popular music. This type of music is more focused on vocals
and lyrics than instruments; contrasting what is typical of Syrian folk music.
12. It’s certainly similar to Western pop (what we’re used to hearing), only they keep more
true to their traditional instrumentation and folk influence whereas our western pop music
tends to be more electronically produced and contain simpler melodies and harmonies.
13. We’re going to listen to a pop artist named Assala Nasri to get an idea of what their pop
music might sound like. Before I play the video, I want to call attention to the photos I’ve
inserted on this slide just to point out her dress. This is a good example of modern
Syrian formal dress. Okay, here’s the pop music. *play audio*
14. Even in this type of Syrian music, you can hear the quarter tones that Kaitlyn explained.
In terms of percussion/rhythmic tendencies, usually a simple pattern gets repeated for
most of the song.
 15. To show you an example of a simple repeating rhythm, we’re going to learn a pattern
that comes from a traditional Syrian song called “Almaya” which means “to the water.”
The version we’ll be learning has more of a modern sound, so you’ll be hearing sort of a
mix of Folk and popular music.
16. First, let’s learn the rhythm. Can you keep a steady beat for me? Tap this tempo with
your fingers like this *demonstrate a tempo* Keep it going, and I’ll demonstrate the
rhythm.
17. Okay, I want to do it again, but this time can you only tap the macro-beat? That will
sound like this: *demonstrate* Okay, so keep this going. *demonstrate pattern while they
tap the macrobeat* Thank you! We do it like this because that’s more true to the feel in
the actual song which we’ll hear shortly.
18. Now, let’s switch parts. I’ll clap the macro beat while you guys pat the pattern and say
the syllables on the screen. I’ll help you get started. Here we go *clap, 1, 2, ready go-
Taka…*
19. Thank you! Let’s do it to the song. *play audio* *help them get started*
20. So, as you can see, the rhythm repeats throughout most of the song. In this recording,
there’s actually a section where the darbuka is somewhat featured just soloing this
rhythm.
21. Alright, that’s actually all we have for you. Hopefully this lesson was somewhat
informative and interesting and you learned some things about Syrian music that will
stick with you throughout your music classes. Thanks for having us!

Evaluation

● Frequent checkpoints like having students answer small questions throughout the
lesson.
● Having students repeat new vocabulary.