Teaching Music History?

How do you inspire students in your Music History Lesson Plans about Great Composers such as JS Bach, Mozart, Vivaldi and Tchaikovsky?

Simple… Start with the Fun Bits!

Printable Music Lesson Plans Module
15 prepared ready-to-use lessons with all materials

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When we started to write this module we had to find a way to get children to relate to composers that lived 300 years ago. We live in a fast paced world, where many students of today haven’t even used CD’s, let alone records or tapes! How do they relate to a world where there wasn’t even that? There was no way of recording music in Mozart’s time other than a pen and a sheet of paper!

We had to find a way to make these composers seem relevant, and we didn’t want fact sheets and lessons full of the normal boring information!

For instance :

Do you know which composer had his body dug up by two well respected scientists and his head removed in 1809 to see if genius was related to head size?

Do you know which composer was once arrested for tampering with the American National anthem?

Do you know which composer has a recording of his music floating in outer space?

By starting our fact sheets with interesting facts, and including “fun facts” about each composer we have hopefully made the subject a little more accessible to the students of today.

In order to do this massive undertaking we started with a short list of 50 writers who wanted to contribute, then we chose just five to create one lesson for us, and finally we chose one very talented writer to bring it all together.

We then let her take her time to create the fact and fun sheets – in fact this project has been in development for almost a year!

Choosing fifteen composers to profile in this project was a difficult task, but we chose them to represent a cross section of eras and musical styles from Baroque through to the 20th Century.

You can of course use these lessons in any order, or pick and choose ones that suit your classes.

Lesson 1
Johann Sebastian Bach

JS Bach starts our journey into the great composers. Students can design a facebook profile for Bach, and explore different interpretations of his music, from the original Organ and Harpsichord versions through to rock renditions.

Lesson 2
George Frederick Handel

In this lesson students will learn about the composer who moved from Germany to Italy because it was too boring, then became very popular in London. In this lesson they can explore the differences between the Harpsichord and the piano, as well as listening and creating a news report about a performance of “the messiah”

Lesson 3
Antonio Vivaldi

In this lesson students will think about living in Venice in Vivaldi’s time: what it would have been like to travel around the city via gondola or boat in its canals. The’ll also learn about what it would have been like for Vivaldi as a priest, working in an orphanage, composing music and teaching violin.

Lesson 4
Joseph Haydn

In this lesson students will discover what it was like to work as a professional musician in the 18th century, as they pretend to be Prince Esterhazy and have to write a job ad for a new musical director. Students can discuss what it would have been like to work in the one job as a composer for 30 years, and then what it would have been like to have his music released to a wider public at the end of his tenure.

Lesson 5
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

In this lesson students will imagine that they are conducting a guided tour of the Mozart Museum in Austria, and that they have to present a talk about Mozart and his life. They can also explore mozart’s variations on “twinkle twinkle little star” as a simple analysis exercise.

Lesson 6
Ludwig Van Beethoven

This lesson gives students the opportunity to explore what it would have been like to be deaf and compose such beautiful music. Students can explore feeling vibrations in instruments, as well as viewing videos and researching others who