A Listening Activity about early Rock and Roll Music
Tuesday, April 6th, 2010The “Duck Walk” was a unusual dance move made famous by Chuck Berry. A music lesson plan about early Rock and Roll music can be much more entertaining if you use this idea and expand on it in music class. After you’ve watched some videos of Chuck Berry doing his trademark “Duck Walk” you could [...]
Music Lesson Plans – Your Guide to Effective Music Teaching
Wednesday, March 31st, 2010As a music teacher you will have a curriculum to follow, and it is much easier to follow if you organize music lesson plans at the start of each new session. There is a wealth of information online if you feel you are running out of ideas. You want to have a plan organized for [...]
Making Music Worksheets effective in the music class
Monday, March 29th, 2010There are a great many books and worksheets for the teaching of music theory available. Many of these are excellent, and well written and researched for the instruction of music theory. There is one thing that over everything else makes certain worksheets and educational materials more effective in this area. This one thing is an [...]
Learning Music for Music’s Sake
Sunday, March 28th, 2010There has been a lot of discussion around the Music Education community recently about the benefits of music education for children. There is a lot of talk about the “Mozart Effect” where the listening to certain types of classical music are shown to have benefits in ordering the brain and thus improving intelligence. Some have [...]
Making Music Theory Worksheets more enjoyable for students
Sunday, March 28th, 2010If you’re a music teacher like me you know that most music students roll their eyes when you mention that you are going to bring out a music theory worksheet for them. Many even at the mention of music theory tend to get scared and feel that it really isn’t for them, when there is [...]
Substitute Lesson ideas – Playing Fun
Friday, March 12th, 2010I came up with this idea so children could experience what it’s like to sing and play instruments in a group. First I would teach the class a simple song by rote, I use Yellow Submarine by the Beatles but any fun song will do. If you can play basic chords on the piano or [...]
The Flute and Piccolo – a classroom music lesson
Wednesday, March 10th, 2010The Flute and Piccolo are important instruments to learn about in music class, but no so easy if you can’t play them yourself, so here is a few ideas to get you started High or Low Game: Sing or play some melodic intervals in both directions. Then ask the students to identify which note was [...]
Getting the mix right of practice and theory
Tuesday, March 9th, 2010This is an issue facing most music teachers – how much do you let students just play away, and when do you introduce the theoretical knowledge? There has never been a subject in which the practical aspect is more important than in music. Learning music should always be about doing in any school Singing, Movement, [...]