Learning about the string instruments in music class? These couple of ideas will inspire your students about playing stringed instruments in your next music class.
Gather objects of different sizes, or collect pictures of such objects, or simply make a list of such objects (e.g., elephant, mouse, airplane, bicycle, etc.). Demonstrate the differences between the pairs of objects and ask the students to recognize the relative size of the instruments with the terms “viola”, for large and “violin” for small. e.g. “mouse, elephant” would be “violin, viola” and “train, feather” would be “viola, violin” This will help students remember the relative dimensions of the instruments, which may be a little tricky to remember.
There are more similar ideas to these in our music lesson plans product from the fun music company.
You can make a home made diddly bow (a basic blues instrument with one string) by stretching some kind of instrument string or wire on a wooden plank. Insert objects beneath the string at either end to elevate the string and increase its tension. Use the diddly bow to explore the effects of string tension and string length (you can effectively shorten the string by pressing down on it with a finger). Greater string tension and shorter strings lead to faster vibrations, which in turn produce higher sounds.
