The Fun Music Company has a whole series of lesson plans available about composers, from the Baroque through to the 20th Century. Here is a great listening activity for Music by Mozart: Twelve Variations on "Ah vous dirai-je, Maman" Before beginning this activity with the class, write a selection of emotions/moods on individual small pieces
Anything can be found and used to make noise/sound, thus the term ‘found sound’. Since children love to make noise, ask them to locate an item in the classroom and experiment with the sounds that item can make. Give them a short amount of time to experiment, explaining that at the end of the specified
Draw a collection of music symbols on the whiteboard and have the students name them as you do so. After that have them turn their backs (or turn the white board around) and erase one. They must name the missing one. Keep going until they are all gone. Submitted by Lonna Possehl
Make up a series of large cards with a music notes or symbols that the class are currently learning, and tape them to a series of buckets. Then set the buckets up in front of the class and make a line with tape on the floor about five (5) feet from the buckets or
To help students understand how timpani can be tuned, demonstrate the effect of membrane tension on pitch. With a coffee can drum (see lessons on Untuned Percussion), you can often vary the tension of the skin by simply pressing or pulling at the edges of the skin, while another student hits the drum in steady
The piano has several less known cousins which are important for us to introduce into the music classroom: the celesta, harpsichord and organ. Discuss with students the similarities and differences among keyboard instruments. The keyboard instruments are related to each other in that they are controlled by a similarly laid-out key mechanism. Technically, however, they
Here is an essential list of listening for music lesson plans about Beethoven. "Für Elise" Bagatelle in A minor http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_UOuSklNL4 Listen to the beginning of “Fur Elise” and sing together the well-known opening melody (the first nine notes). Now play the whole piece, this time counting how many times melody appears. You could work individually
Here are a few basic ideas about what music theory rock music students really need, and what they don't! If they are playing drums there is very little point in them learning to read the bass clef or treble clef notes - you’ll want to focus on Drum clef notation and rhythm. Concentrate on the
A recording of this work can be found on video at
These days Handel's keyboard music is most often performed on a piano. At the time that this music was performed however pianos had not yet been invented, so keyboard music was generally played on a harpsichord. Have the students research differences between the instruments, looking at the time when each instrument was invented, and the