Here are a few ideas for a music lesson all about the composer Johann Sebastian Bach. This is just an excerpt of the materials found in our Great composers series of printable music lesson plans.

Create a pretend profile for JS Bach on your favourite social networking site such as Facebook. You’ll want to include some basic information like when his birthday is, his relationship status and Relgious Views, More “personal information” like work and education backround, And think about who Bach may have been connected with as “Friends” and create some “Groups” that Bach may have belonged to. Find a photo on the internet to finish off the project If you don’t want to use Facebook you could always design a passport or other similar document for Bach.

Imagine that you could invite J.S. Bach over for coffee. Have the students write down a few questions that they would like to ask him about his music, his era or anything else. You could even choose a student to be J.S. Bach and answer questions from the rest of the class. The class could even bring in some traditional german food such as gingerbread to share to complete this activity.

Find a work of art on the internet that was created around the same time that Bach was alive. You could discuss as a class the ways that the painting shows the Baroque styling of Bach’s music.