Paradoxical Birthday

Everyone loves a dynamic performance, but singing with emotion is hard. Check out this lesson from Teaching Music to Students with Exceptionalities, where students will develop their emotional range, leading to more believable and relatable performances. 

Here’s how it works:

1. Choose a familiar song (ex. Happy Birthday).
2. Ask your students to sing or play the song with a particular emotion. For instance:
   • Sadly, as if leaving your friends on the last day of camp
   • Cautiously, like walking a tightrope
   • Frightened, as if walking through a forest at night
   • Confused, like you’re without directions
   • Caring, like singing to a kitten your family just rescued
   • Assertively, like your ordering dinner in a loud pizzeria
3. Connect the emotion to your student’s experiences.
4. Explore skills like inflection, dynamics, and non-verbal cues

Variations:

Level Down

• Students mirror the instructor rather than performing on their own
• Offer the Emotion Choice Board

Level Up

• Place students into pairs. Assign a different emotion to each student and then ask them to sing the song as a duet.

Download the lesson plan to follow along.