Journeys of the Mind Teacher’S Notes

Viewp ints

8 Journeys of the Mind Teacher’s Notes

1 Synopsis 2 As a class. Have students read aloud the names. Help Marjie McGraw is a travel writer. She is researching with pronunciation, if necessary. Ask the class if they had an article for her newspaper about the music and heard of any of these people before they watched the history of Nashville, Tennessee. She wants to find out video. Elicit from the students what they knew about why Nashville is sometimes known as “Guitar Town.” these people. Nashville first became famous for music in the 1930s, Individuals. Play the video again, and encourage when a national music radio show was broadcast from students to watch for the correct order. Check answers there. Marjie visits the Country Music Hall of Fame to and have students tell you which person isn’t a famous learn more about the history of country music and its guitar player. most famous stars. She also visits the Gibson guitar Answer key: factory to find out what makes this type of guitar so 1 Mother Maybelle Carter 2 Les Paul special. Finally, she interviews the owner of a vintage 3 George Gruhn 4 Eric Clapton 5 Johnny Cash guitar business. 6 George Harrison 7 Paul McCartney Length of video: 4:47min George Gruhn is not a famous guitarist. He owns a 2 Target Language famous vintage guitar store in Nashville. Grammar: Past Perfect and Simple Past 3 Individuals. Have students read the questions, then Vocabulary: popular music check that they understand them. Have students circle Language points: be broadcast, a walking encyclopedia, the correct answers before they watch the video again find a focus, prepare an article to check their answers. Check answers as a class. 3 Procedural Notes Answer key: 1 c 2 b 3 c 4 a A Before you watch C After you watch Individuals. Have students read the music genres and match them with the places. Check answers. Individuals. Have students write a 50–100 word summary about the things Marjie found out in the As a class. Ask the class if they like these genres of video. (You could set this for homework if you prefer.) music. Brainstorm other music genres (blues, rock, pop, If students need assistance, elicit some key phrases from R&B, soul, classical, etc.). Ask what countries these other the video and write them on the board. While students genres are from. Have students name their favorite types are working, circulate to help with grammar and of music, singers, and bands. vocabulary. When students have finished, if time, call on Answer key: some students to read aloud their newspaper articles. 1 2 3 4 5 c a e b d Suggested answer: Nashville, Tennessee, has been a music center since the B While you watch 1930s, when a famous radio show was broadcast from there. Mother Maybelle Carter was one of the famous 1 Individuals. Have students read the questions and guitarists who performed on the show from the 1950s. check that they understand them. Play the video Before Mother Maybelle, people had played the guitar and encourage students to circle True or False while mostly as a rhythm instrument. But she showed people watching. Check answers. that you could play the guitar as a lead instrument, Answer key: too. Nashville is also the home of the Gibson guitar 1 False 2 True 3 True 4 False (Orville Gibson factory, where Les Paul guitars are made. You can also was a guitar manufacturer, and Les Paul was a buy vintage guitars in Nashville, from a store run by the guitarist. They made a famous type of guitar together.) famous guitar enthusiast, George Gruhn.

Viewpoints D.R. © Macmillan Publishers, S.A. de C.V. 2009 Viewp ints 8 Journeys of the Mind

Language points E Your viewpoint

Individuals. Read aloud the expressions in the box In pairs. Read the questions aloud and check that and check that students understand them. Emphasize everybody understands them. Have students work in that students need to choose the correct expression pairs and discuss the questions. While pairs are working, and change its verb tense to match the sentence. circulate and help with grammar and vocabulary. Finish Have students complete the sentences with the correct off with a class discussion. Which types of music, bands, expressions. Check answers. and singers are most popular and the least popular with Answer key: the whole class? 1 find a focus 2 preparing an article 3 walking encyclopedia 4 were broadcast

4 Video Script

Presenter: Marjie McGraw is a travel writer clothes, and instruments. I interviewed based in Nashville, Tennessee. She Nick Buck. He works at the museum has written books, articles, and radio and is an expert on music history. programs about the music and history Nick: Up until the 1920s, the guitar had of Nashville. been used primarily as a rhythm Marjie: People ask me to write about Nashville instrument, a secondary instrument. all the time, so, my challenge is to Maybelle found a way to make her find a new and unusual focus for guitar sound like two guitars playing my stories. Nashville, Tennessee, has at once. She could play the rhythm been called Music City, USA, and chords and lead melody lines at most recently, Guitar Town. Today, the same time, and this was truly a I’m going to prepare an article for my revolutionary thing at that time period. paper to find out why. Marjie: Hey , Mother Maybelle Carter used In the 1950s, a disc jockey referred to a Gibson guitar, so I thought that’s Nashville as Music City, USA, and the something else I can focus on. name stuck, but music had been an Gibson guitars are made right here in important part of Nashville’s cultural Nashville. I wonder if that’s why they life long before that. Nashville’s call it Guitar Town. Orville Gibson, reputation as a music center started the company’s founder, had been a in the 1930s with a radio show called shoe clerk before he started making The Grand Ole Opry. It was broadcast mandolins and guitars. Musicians from here, in the Ryman Auditorium, loved the sound of his Gibsons, and to people all over the United States. they still do. I got to talk to a lot of From the 1950s on, one musician who people at the factory. I wanted to find was often heard on the program was out what it is that makes a Gibson Mother Maybelle Carter. And the way guitar so special. she played her guitar changed country Marjie: What makes a Gibson sound like a music. One place to learn more about Gibson? Mother Maybelle is right here at the Guitar Maker: The way the guitar is weighted, the Country Music Hall Of Fame. Come balance of it, there’s a lot of things on, let’s go inside. that go into what makes it. A lot of The Hall Of Fame is where the very people like the design of its classic best country musicians are honored. In design, the body shape. the museum, you can learn about the Marjie: What’s Gibson’s most famous guitar? history of country music and see many Walter: W ell, today the guitar Gibson is best country musicians, performances, known for is the Les Paul. In 1952,

when Gibson introduced the Les Paul because he invented a way to classify model, Gibson had been making guitars. only hollow-body electric guitars. George: Style 45 has this abalone pearl trim all We decided to make one with a solid around the edge of the top. body. So they found Les Paul, who was Marjie: No one had ever done this before. at that time the most famous guitar George: It’s a rare enough one that they only player in the world, and he also had made a couple of dozen. been playing a home-made solid-body Marjie: He’s a walking encyclopedia of guitar guitar. So, Gibson and Les got together knowledge and he can tell you the and introduced the Les Paul model. value of any guitar in minutes. It had a gold top finish. We still make George: Rosewood fingerboard. About $300. them today, and it’s by far the most Marjie: He also has had some pretty famous successful arrangement between a customers, like Eric Clapton, Johnny guitar company and a guitar player in Cash ... the history of the guitar. George: But this was Johnny Cash’s main guitar. Marjie: Obviously, many people in Nashville Marjie: ... George Harrison and Paul are extremely passionate about guitars, McCartney. but George Gruhn is completely Marjie: Those guitars were incredible! I have obsessed. George Gruhn runs the enough to write my article, and I think most famous vintage guitar business I know why they call Nashville “Guitar in the world. It’s located in the heart Town.” of Nashville. George Gruhn is famous

Written by Dorothy Zemach Design: Wild Apple Design Ltd. Viewpoints D.R. © Macmillan Publishers, S.A. de C.V. 2009 Illustration: John Storey