Have a look at the length of the string, and discus the effect on its pitch Have the students guess if longer or shorter strings will produce higher or lower sounds. Ponder this with your students: Why do you think people use the word “low” to describe pitches of lesser frequency and “high” to describe pitches of greater frequency, when it actually has nothing to do with physical lowness and highness relative to the ground?

Here is another great topic for discussion: Why is the harp built with the short strings close to the player and not the other way?

Here is an activity to help students understand the harp’s pedal mechanism:

A modern double action pedal harp has seven pedals. What happens is each pedal changes all the strings of one note name. Each pedal has three positions: top (flattens pitches by a semitone), middle (no change), and bottom (raises pitches by a semitone).There are three positions for each pedal: In the top position it lowers the pitch by a semitone, in the middle there is no change, and in the bottom it raises the pitch be a semitone. With all the pedals in the middle position, the harp plays a C major scale.

Procedure: On the whiteboard, draw seven pedals laid out from left to right (simple ovals or rectangles will do), and label them with the note names from C to B. You can then have the students follow along the whiteboard while you play the C major scale on a keyboard instrument. You can then play the scale again, and alter one note by either a semitone up or down. Ask the students which note was altereed, and in what direction it needs to be moved. You can then have one student run out the pedal in question and draw it again in the position you played. Repeat as desired with different notes altered. For a greater challenge, alter two or more notes.

If you have access to an electric guitar and an acoustic guitar, you can easily demonstrate the need for a resonator, both on the guitar on the harp. The electric guitar only uses electrical amplification instead of a resonator, so it produces only a faint sound if it is not plugged in. By contrast, an acoustic guitar is readily audible because the guitar body acts as a resonator. The harp also would be far to quiet to hear without a resonator, so you can point it out to the students and demonstrate its function.

Hi-Lo Game: Play or sing a variety of melodic intervals, both ascending and descending. Ask students to discern which note comes first, the high note or the low note, by describing the interval as flute-piccolo (low-high) or piccolo-flute (high-low). This will have a double effect of helping their aural skills and knowing the relative ranges of flutes and piccolos

Find a bottle with a narrow neck and blow across the top with a focused stream of air to make a musical tone, like a flute player. Fill the bottle with a few inches of water and ask the students to predict what will happen to the pitch when you blow again. You can then explain that this is exactly what happens when a flute player lifts their fingers from the finger holes – its just like shortening the tube.

If you are feeling ambitious, you could fill several bottles with varying amounts of liquid and tune them to the notes of the scale (certain kinds of pipes, or tests tubes borrowed from a science teacher, also work well). Play some tunes with your bottle instrument, and ask for student volunteers to play their own tunes.

Listen to Sergei Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, a work for orchestra with narration. This work features not just the flute but all the woodwinds prominently, as well as the strings and timpani. Therefore this piece, or parts of it, could be used across several class sessions.

In Peter and the Wolf, each character is identified timbrally by a specific instrument or section. Peter is the strings, the flute represents the bird, the duck by the oboe, the cat by the clarinet, the bassoon represents grandfather, the wolf by the horns and the timpani represent the hunters. Instruments of the orchestra are covered in detail in the fun music company printable music lesson plans series

Prokofiev also identifies characters thematically with characteristic melodies, and conveys the plot through the music.

Here are some questions for discussion:

Why do you think the composer chose those instruments for each of the characters? (E.g., the reedy, piercing quality of the oboe actually sounds something like a duck’s quack; the loud, sharp sounds of the timpani are like the sounds of gunfire.)

What else in the music conveys the personality of the characters? (E.g., the bouncy, major-key theme for Peter exudes boyish confidence; the minor-key theme for the wolf is powerful and ominous, like the wolf himself.)

Take one section of music and discuss how it conveys the plot (for example when the cat scampers up the tree it is showed by arpeggios rising rapidly

During the Victory Parade, why do you think the composer switched Peter’s music from the strings to the horns?

Hi-Lo Game: Play or sing a variety of melodic intervals, both ascending and descending. Then ask the students to tell you which note was first by saying flute-piccolo if the first note was lower, and piccolo-flute if the first note was higher. This will help develop the students’ pitch discrimination and will reinforce the relative ranges of the flute and piccolo at the same time.

Find a bottle with a narrow neck and blow across the top with a focused stream of air to make a musical tone, like a flute player. You can then vary the sound by filling the bottles with a few inches of water, and asking the students to predict what will happen to the pitch You can then explain that this is exactly what happens when a flute player lifts their fingers from the finger holes – its just like shortening the tube.

You could then make a home-made instrument by filling several bottles with varying amounts of liquid, and tuning them to notes of a scale. (you can even borrow some pipes or test tubes from the science teacher!) Students will love playing their own tunes on the bottle instruments

Listen to Sergei Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, a work for orchestra with narration. In this work both the flute and piccolo are featured as well as all the woodwind instruments, the timpani and strings. You could use this piece in several sections in many classes when learning about the orchestral instruments

In Peter and the Wolf, each character is identified timbrally by a specific instrument or section. The strings are peter, the flute represents the bird, the duck by the oboe, the cat by the clarinet, the bassoon represents grandfather, the wolf by the horns and the hunters by the timpani.

The story is told by having each instrument describe each character and the plot unfolds as the melodies interact

Here are some questions for discussion:

What qualities (timbre, range, etc.) of the instruments make them good choices for the characters? (E.g., the reedy, piercing quality of the oboe actually sounds something like a duck’s quack; the loud, sharp sounds of the timpani are like the sounds of gunfire.)

What else in the music conveys the personality of the characters? (E.g., the bouncy, major-key theme for Peter exudes boyish confidence; the minor-key theme for the wolf is powerful and ominous, like the wolf himself.)

Take one section of music and discuss how it conveys the plot (for example when the cat scampers up the tree it is showed by arpeggios rising rapidly

During the Victory Parade, why do you think the composer switched Peter’s music from the strings to the horns?