1. Vickie L. Mobley
EDU652
Instructor Linda Ellington
June 17, 2013
SO YOU WANT TO BE A MUSIC CRITIC: CRITIQUES AND
TIMELINES OF MUSICAL GENRES

2. THE PURPOSE OF THE GROUP CRITIQUE
 The group-critique is the most complex form
of original-work activity. Group critiques
have learners help other learners to refine
their work. Group-critique activities take
advantage of discussion forums to help
learners learn from other learners. In the
simplest form of group critique, a learner
prepares an individual answer to a question,
posts it for others to critique, and then
revises it before submitting the final version
(Horton, 2011).

3. SUBJECT CONTENT AND DETAILS
 For this assignment the class will be divided into
groups of 4-5 students.
 The subject content is music
 Each group will choose three songs from a specific
genre. One team may choose Jazz while another
chooses Pop etc.
 The groups will use iTunes or Youtube to listen to
each song and upload it onto the class Blog entitled
“So You Want To Be A Music Critic”

4. SO YOU WANT TO BE A MUSIC CRITIC!
 For this learning activity each team will choose three songs from
one of the following genres (artist examples are listed below):
 Rock and Roll (Elvis Presley, The Beatles)
 Jazz (Miles Davis, Max Roach, Duke Ellington)
 Blues (John Lee Hooker, Howlin’ Wolf)
 Country (Johnny Cash, Keith Urban, Carrie Underwood)
 R&B (Sam Cooke, James Brown, Jennifer Lopez)
 Alternative (Soundgarden, The Kills, White Stripes)
 Pop (Katy Perry, Adele, Amy Winehouse)

5. TIMELINE: THE ORIGINS AND ARTISTS OF MUSIC GENRES
 Each team will put together a timeline for the specific genre of
music they chose. For example, Jazz began in New Orleans,
LA in the 1800’s
 Each timeline will contain artists who contributed to the genre:
For example The Excelsior Brass Band was formed in 1880
(Scaruffi, 2005) Sidney Bechet became known around 1922
and Louis Armstrong became popular a few months after that.
 Each artist that appears on the timeline will have the title of a
song they performed under their photo. The year the song
was recorded will also appear.
 The timeline will run for 50 years and will be divided into
increments of 10 years

6. CRITIQUE RESPONSE QUESTIONS
 What was your overall reaction to the song?
Like it? Love it?
 What was the strongest element of the
performance? The beat? The harmonies?
 What was the weakest element of the
performance? The beat? The harmonies?
 Be respectful and considerate when critiquing
others (Vahl, 2013).
 Be sure your critique is specific to the song that
is being discussed.

7. CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE CRITIQUE
 What did you think about the songs that were chosen?
 Do you think these songs are good examples of their
respective genres or would you choose someone else?
 Would you recommend these songs to a friend or listen
to them again?
 Did you learn about a genre that you find interesting?
Will you research and continue to listen?
 Do you think the critiques were fair?

8. REFERENCES
 Horton, W. (2011). Group critique. William Horton
Consulting. Retrieved June 14, 2013, from
http://www.horton.com/portfoliogroupcritique.htm
 Scaruffi, P. (2005). A history of jazz music. A History
of Jazz Music. Retrieved June 15, 2013, from
http://www.scaruffi.com/history/jazz1.html
 Vahl, M. (2013, April 23). The 4 elements of a great
critique. ComposeCreatecom. Retrieved June 16,
2013, from http://www.composecreate.com/the-4-
elements-of-a-great-critique/