Planning music lessons? here are a couple of ideas to help you create some fun music resources for your lessons.

Here are a couple of ideas that you could use with your music class if you are preparing a music lesson about Joseph Haydn:

Encourage the students to pretend that they are Prince Esterhazy, and that they are looking for a new Kapellmeister. Ask them to write a job advertisement outlining the duties of the position and the type of person you are looking for. Ask them to include details for the applicant of the Esterhaza palace where the job will be based.

Stretch the classes imagination and pretend that T.V. talk shows existed in the 18th century. Have the students pretend they are an interviewer and they are interviewing Haydn after one of his successful tours of London. They can talk about the events of the time, people he met, the current fashion and the response to his music. Remember, Haydn had a great sense of humour! This segment could be done in groups and recorded, or completed in the form of a class discussion.

Another activity is to have the students research the 18th Century ‘Symphony’. There are a lot of interesting facts to learn like the number of movements, the standard instruments used at the time and the size of the orchestras. Ask them to research other composers who wrote symphonies.