Feeling the Tempo: Presto and Largo
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Aim: How can we identify the tempo of music through movement?
Summary: Students demonstrate the expressive quality of tempo through movement.
Standards: US 1, 2, 5, 6; NYC 1, 2, 3
Grade: 1st
Concept: Tempo
Artistic Process: performing, responding
Materials: Audio Tracks, Teacher Worksheets
Time Required: 15 minutes
Related Pages:
Instructions
- Review the definitions of presto (very fast) and largo (very slow).
- Hold up sign for presto and repeat the word very quickly (e.g., “pres-to, pres-to, pres-to”) with the students.
Download Teacher Worksheet (PDF) - Hold up a sign for largo and repeat the word very slowly (e.g. “laaahr–gooohhh, laaahhr-gooohh”) with students.
Download Teacher Worksheet (PDF) - Have students create one or two expressive movements to demonstrate presto and largo. Guide them in performing and changing their movements as they listen to short musical excerpts.
- Discuss how these two tempos feel different.
- How did you move to the presto tempo?
- How does the presto tempo make you feel?
- How did you move to the largo tempo?
- How does the largo tempo make you feel?
Going Deeper
- Ask students to share any songs they know, or that you have sung together, which have a presto or largo tempo.
- Choose a song with a moderate tempo that the students know well and try performing it at an exaggeratedly fast presto an exaggeratedly slow largo.
- How did singing at a presto tempo make the song feel different from how we usually sing?
- How did singing at a largo tempo make the song feel different?
Assessments
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