Using the Academy Awards music nominees in your classroom

The Academy Awards nominations were announced recently and it’s another great way for you to be topical with your music education topics, introduce new careers in music, and help students experience the music around them that they interact with on a consistent basis.

Best original score

Given for the best underscoring of a motion picture, movie scores are the closest thing we have to full-fledged orchestral music in the national consciousness. The first 4:30 of this video explains how music can shape a scene of music (though I wouldn’t use it with elementary kids):

Here are the nominees in 2016:

• Bridge of Spies – Thomas Newman
  (Listen on Spotify)
• Carol – Carter Burwell
  (Listen on Spotify)
• The Hateful Eight – Ennio Morricone
  (Listen on Spotify)
• Sicario – Johann Johannsson
  (Listen on Spotify)
• Star Wars: The Force Awakens – John Williams
  (Listen on Spotify)

Note 1: Williams has been nominated for more Oscars than any living person. This is his 50th nomination and he has won five times.

Note 2: The Revenant had a widely-praised score but was left off the list since three different composers contributed to it. (It was my favorite score of the year.) Listen to it on Spotify and hear the isolation the main character experiences.

Best original song

The Best Original Song category is for songs that were written specifically for a movie. These songs sometimes play vital roles in the film themselves but often are written for the credits and not used in the film at all. Past winners have included “Lose Yourself,” “My Heart Will Go On,” and a host of famous Disney songs beginning with “Chim Chim Cher-ee” from Mary Poppins.

Here are the nominees in 2016:

• “Earned It” by The Weeknd from Fifty Shades Of Grey
  (Listen on Spotify)
• “Manta Ray” by J. Ralph from Racing Extinction
  (Listen on Spotify)
• “Simple Song #3” by David Lang from Youth
  (Listen on Spotify)
• “Til It Happens to You” by Lady Gaga (and Diane Warren) from The Hunting Ground
  (Listen on Spotify)
• “Writing’s on the Wall” by Sam Smith from SPECTRE
  (Listen on Spotify)

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Using The Academy Awards Music In Your Classroom

The Academy Awards were on Sunday night are in the news and minds of the public. Time magazine said the music “saved the broadcast” and a number of performances were stellar. Here’s how you can use each of the music and sound winners in brief lessons with your students.

Best original score: The Grand Budapest Hotel – Alexandre Desplat (Listen on Spotify)

Given for the best underscoring of a motion picture, movie scores are the closest thing we have to full-fledged orchestral music in the national consciousness. There are a multitude of ways to interact with movie scores. Use this YouTube video to show the importance of the score in Jaws:

You can also give students a chance to compose their own score to a short video clip (lots of clips are in the public domain for you to use like this Charlie Chaplin clip you can trim to whatever length you’d like.

Best original song: “Glory” from Selma – music and lyrics by John Stephens and Lonnie Lynn (Listen on Spotify)

The Best Original Song category is for songs that were not written before the movie. Lots of movies use music, but these songs are written specifically for the movie. These songs sometimes play vital roles in the film themselves but often are written for the credits and not used in the film at all.

A powerful song for equality, “Glory” takes inspiration from Dr. Martin Luther King’s speeches and, like the movie it comes from, talks of a day when we won’t worry about race anymore. It’s a great song to dissect lyrics or watch the stirring performance from the Oscar telecast.

Sound editing: American Sniper — Alan Robert Murray and Bub Asman

This award is given to sound editors, who create the sound components in the film. In a movie like American Sniper, you have elements of dialogue, special effects and gunfire, and orchestral music all required to make the sound aesthetic of the film.

Sound mixing: Whiplash — Craig Mann, Ben Wilkins and Thomas Curley

The mixing award is given to the folks who ultimately decided how loud or soft each of the sound components should be throughout the movie. When that dialogue, special effects, and other sounds are all thrown together it can be a jumbled mess. It’s up to the sound mixer to bring out the more important elements at any given time.

Read this to get a better understanding of the difference in the two categories. Here’s a handy YouTube video from the Les Miserables to exemplify what sound editing and mixing can do:

More Oscars Musical Performances:

– Lady Gaga crushed a performance of songs from The Sound of Music. A traditionally trained singer, Gaga sang in a beautiful head voice with excellent vowels and articulation. Being so rare on today’s radio, it is a great example to show your voice or chorus students some excellent singing technique by someone they actually know.

– “I’m Not Gonna Miss You” performed by Tim McGraw was an especially poignant moment of the broadcast. Written by Glen Campbell who is suffering from Alzheimer’s, the tears that filled multiple stars’ eyes and set Twitter on fire during the show show the power a song can have. It ultimately didn’t win, losing to “Glory,” but the song and performance are worthy of showcasing.

– Each of the Best Song nominees were performed including “Glory” and “I’m Not Gonna Miss You.” “Lost Stars” from Begin Again, “Everything is Awesome” from The LEGO Movie, and “Grateful” from Beyond the Lights all had their own charm with Rita Orr‘s performance of “Grateful” drawing positive reviews.

– The opening number, “Moving Pictures,” was written by Frozen composers Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez and replaced the traditional opening monologue. Anna Kendrick as Cinderella and Jack Black as bombastic Jack Black joined host Neil Patrick Harris. It was good, not great.

– The only other performance followed the “In Memoriam” segment when Jennifer Hudson skillfully and soulfully presented “I Can’t Let Go.” 

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How to use movie songs in your classroom

One of the best ways to meet students on their level is to talk about music they know. It removes entire steps; getting students used to the music they are hearing, explaining context, and more. Movie songs are especially poignant and can be a great lesson or unit for your classroom.

An easy way to begin integrating vernacular music is to introduce movie music or songs from movies. It prepares students for listening to music they are unfamiliar with by focusing on a movie song – be it in the movie or simply from the soundtrack. This list from Billboard​ can be a starting point for a movie music unit. If you’re looking to transition from classical music, you can parallel it to opera and oratorio or more contemporary operetta or musicals. How do these movie songs help tell the story or set the mood like those older types of songs?

If you would rather do just a single assignment on movie music, have students pick a song from the list and discuss how it fits the movie’s theme. Connect it to music of their choice (and the new core arts standards) by having each student pick a song from one of their favorite movies and do the same assignment.

You’ll see the students get more excited about your class while focusing on the music and the meaning of it in context. You’re building lifelong music appreciation.

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