Lesson Plans
« Previous Entries Next Entries »A great listening idea for learning about Beethoven
Saturday, March 20th, 2010Ludwig Van Beethoven has to be one of the most unusual and interesting characters to ever compose music. Here is a listening activity to help introduce him into the music classroom, which you can include in your next music lesson plan: “Für Elise” Bagatelle in A minor Listen to the beginning of “Fur Elise” and [...]
A fun listening idea for Mozart’s music
Friday, March 19th, 2010The 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:
Classroom Lesson Plan idea “Found Sounds”
Friday, March 19th, 2010Anything 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 [...]
Students learning tuned percussion in the classroom?
Friday, March 19th, 2010To 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 Organ, Harpsichord and Celesta – the piano’s cousins in the music class
Friday, March 19th, 2010The 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 [...]
Listening Plans for the music of Beethoven
Friday, March 19th, 2010Here is an essential list of listening for music lesson plans about Beethoven. “Für Elise” Bagatelle in A minor 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 or [...]
A great listening idea for learning about Franz Joseph Haydn
Thursday, March 18th, 2010A recording of this work can be found on video at
G.F. Handel and contemporary composers – lesson planning ideas
Thursday, March 18th, 2010These 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 [...]
Help your students learn about Baroque Music
Thursday, March 18th, 2010Students will love being exposed to a variety of composers, and there is none more important than J.S. Bach for learning about the Baroque Era. This is just an excerpt of the materials found in our Great composers series of printable music lesson plans. Design a Facebook profile for J.S. Bach. You’ll want to include [...]
An unusual instrument to teach about in your music class
Thursday, March 18th, 2010Have a look at the length of the string, and discus the effect on its pitch Ask students to predict whether longer strings will create lower-pitched sounds or vice versa. Here is an interesting question to discuss with your students: Why do we use the word “high” to describe pitches of a higher frequency, when [...]
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