Lesson Plan: Old Joe Has Gone Fishing

By Cynthia Lilley | May 7, 2019

This lesson was presented at the 2012 DSA National Conference at Seattle Pacific University and teaches 7/4 with Benjamin Britten’s “Old Joe Has Gone Fishing” from his opera Peter Grimes.

Cynthia Lilley leads a solfege session at the 2018 National Conference.

Benjamin Britten wrote this canon as a sort of faux sea chanty/drinking song.  It is charming a capella; when heard in the opera with full orchestra and chorus, complete with a mixolydian counter melody, it packs a wallop.

Lesson Sections:

  1. Introduction to 7/4
  2. “Old Joe Has Gone Fishing”
  3. Sharing the Music
Download the Lesson Plan

Originally published in the Fall/Winter 2012 issue of “American Dalcroze Journal” Vol. 39, No. 1. Members of the Dalcroze Society of America can read and download this full lesson idea online. Not a member? Join instantly online.

Posted in Lesson Plans, “American Dalcroze Journal” Excerpts and tagged

About Cynthia Lilley

Cynthia Lilley earned her Dalcroze License at Longy School. She lives in New York where she currently teaches at the Dalcroze School at the Lucy Moses School of Music and the Dalcroze Program at the Diller-Quaile School of Music. She is past president of the New York Chapter of the DSA. She is a composer of art songs.

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