Music Education Articles » Orchestral Music Lessons

Make learning about Franz Joseph Haydn in the classroom fun!

admin — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 20:09:25 +0000

This is an excerpt from our Printable Music Lesson Plans series on great composers. These are just a couple of the ideas found in the Lesson Plans.
A couple of ideas for a lesson plan about Franz Joseph Haydn:

Have the students Imagine that they are Prince Esterhazy looking for a new Kapellmeister for their court. Ask them to write a job advertisement outlining the duties of the position and the type of person you are looking for. Encourage them to write down details of the Esterhaza palace where the applicant will live and work.

What if TV talk shows were around in the 18th Century? Create a talk show segment interviewing Haydn on the success of one of his tours to London. Talk about a concert, the people Haydn met, Haydn’s opinion of the current fashion trends and anything else of interest. Don’t forget that Haydn was known for his great wit! This could be done as a class discussion, or you could break off into small groups to do the activity.
Ask the students to Research and write a paragraph about the musical form the ‘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. Have them find out which other composers wrote symphonies.

Listening Activity: “The Emperor” String Quartet
The form of this movement is a “Theme and Variations” which begins with a melody that is repeated four times, each time played by a different instrument of the quartet with a varying accompaniment. Divide the class into 3 groups representing the violins, the viola and the cello. Have the students stand up if they hear their group play the melody The violins and viola will be difficult to distinguish the first time. For reference, a list of the instruments playing the main theme in each variation is included below:
Theme: violin 1
Variation 1: Violin 2
Variation 2: Cello
Variation 3: Viola
Variation 4: Violin 1

A recording of this work can be found on youTube

Note: The theme from this movement became the tune for the German national anthem. Listening to a recording of the anthem first may assist with recognition of the theme in the listening activity.

Classroom learning about tuned percussion instruments

admin — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 04:53:17 +0000

Students will enjoy learning about how the timpani are tuned by exploring the effect of the skins tightness on its pitch. With a simple home made drum, 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 rhythm. If the students have their own drums, pair them off and let them take turns repeating the experiment you just demonstrated.

Have a look at the keyboard percussion instruments, the xylophone, marimba and Glockenspiel, and show the students how they are laid out just like a piano. Students may enjoy making a “paperphone.” Students can cut out rectangular bars of continually smaller sizes out of paper and glue them to thick cardboard or a large sheet of paper. You can then put labels on the bars.

Demonstrate how resonance can amplify the sound of an instrument. With a xylophone or marimba you can remove one bar and try and play it with no resonator (pipe or box) underneath. Then compare the difference with placing it over the resonating chamber. You will likely need to experiment with bars and tube size before finding a combination that resonates well.

Recommended listening: Béla Bartók, Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta, III. Adagio. This movement has prominent parts for xylophone and timpani. The timpani performs glissandi throughout, an excellent demonstration of its pitch capabilities.

These are just a couple of ideas for creating music lesson plans about percussion instruments.

Help music students learn about symphony orchestra

admin — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 01:23:55 +0000

Here are a few ideas for lesson planning a lesson all about a Symphony Orchestra

Arrange the student’s seats as if they were an orchestra. Place instrument name cards on the appropriate desks, or Give Students name stickers to wear. Allow students to be different instruments on different days.

Discuss different types of musical groups (e.g., concert band, marching band, jazz band, rock band, choir). What are the similarities and differences between the orchestra and these other groups?

Discuss the relationship between the traditional sections of the orchestra and the Hornbostel-Sachs instrument classifications. (Strings are chordophones; woodwinds and brass are aerophones; some percussion instruments are membranophones, others are idiophones.)

What you could do is have a long term assignmore for the students to research and comment on the Hornbostel-Sachs categories of Chordophones, aerophones etc)

Discuss the science of musical instruments – the connection between vibration and sound

An excellent listening activity is to listen to Benjamin Britten’s Young Persons Guide to the Orchestra If you have assigned students to different instruments to the children’s seating positions above, they may stand or perform some action when their instrument is heard. This is a relatively lengthy composition (over 17 minutes) so you may want to do different sections on different days.

For more information on music lesson plans please contact the Fun Music Company

A Lesson Plan about the classical orchestra

admin — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 01:19:14 +0000

Learning about a Symphony Orchestra in Music Class? Here are a few ideas to use

You can arrange the classroom like an orchestra. Place instrument name cards on the the students desks, or affix name stickers to individual students. Allow students to be different instruments on different days.

Have a class discussion about the similarities and differences between different musical groups. What do Rock Bands and Symphony Orchestras have in common?

Here is an idea for a Long-term assignment: construct an instrument that demonstrates two or more of the Hornbostel-Sachs categories.

Make the connection between vibration and sound. How do the different types of instruments create vibrations?

An excellent listening activity is to listen to Benjamin Britten’s Young Persons Guide to the Orchestra A great activity is to have certain students stand up or do actions when their particular instrument or instrument family is heard This is a relatively lengthy composition (over 17 minutes) so you may want to do different sections on different days.

For more information on music lesson plans please contact the Fun Music Company

Flutes and Piccolos in the music classroom

admin — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 20:22:03 +0000

Learning about the Flute and Piccolo in music class? here are a few ideas

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 help develop the students’ pitch discrimination and will reinforce the relative ranges of the flute and piccolo at the same time.

Demonstrate how the flute makes its sound by choosing a bottle with a small neck and blowing over it with a stream of air. 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.

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

This is part of a lesson plan from the fun music company all about orchestral 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 horns are the scary wolf and the hunters by the timpani.

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? (for example the low, reedy sound of the bassoon sounds like grandfather, the piercing sound of the oboe sounds like a ducks quack)

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?

Classroom Games about the Cello and Double Bass

admin — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 06:28:26 +0000

Here are a few simple classroom games you can play to help your students learn about the cello and double bass in the music classroom. These will make your music lesson plans fun!

Learning about the parts of the instruments is easy if you play this game: play Pin the Parts on the Double Bass or Cello (a variation on Pin the Tail on the Donkey). Simply have one student blindfolded and they have to pin the paper instrument parts (for example the scroll or endpin) on a poster of a cello or double bass.

Another fun game is to have the students collect objects or pictures of different sizes (e.g., tree, car, mobile phone, ball, train etc.)Show or speak pairs of objects, and have the students indicate the relative size relationships with the words cello (for small) and double bass (for large).For example, telephone, tree would be cello, double bass and beach ball, baseball would be double bass, cello. This will reinforce the relative sizes of these instruments, which may be a little tricky to remember. If you have already had a lesson on the violin and viola then you can extend this activity to include all four instruments, and have students compare the relative sizes of them all.

Here are a few excellent pieces featuring the cello and double bass:

Camille Saint-Saens, Carnival of the Animals, V. The Elephants (featuring double bass section). Several commercial recordings are available.

Pablo Casals plays J. S. Bach Suite No. 1 for Solo Cello (music begins at 0:53)

Dvorak Cello Concerto, first movement

A music lesson about the conductor

admin — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 02:12:30 +0000

What would happen to an orchestra if the conductor wasn’t there – could the musicians cope by themselves? Students will discover in this music lesson.

Demonstrate the basic beat patterns. Have students practice the patterns using pencils or drinking straws as temporary batons. You can play a game where you have one student conduct a pattern and the others have to identify it Practice the beat patterns at different tempos (slow, medium, and fast).

These are all ideas that students can use to learn about the conductor in the orchestra. There is a complete lesson plan on this subject in Our Printable Music Lesson Plans Series

The size of the conducting gestures indicates dynamics (volume): large gestures = loud, small gestures = piano. Conduct a beat pattern and have students count the beats out loud; ask them to get louder and softer as you change the size of your gestures.

Articulation is also indicated by the conductor. Smooth, Flowing Movement indicates Legato, while Sharp, sudden gestures indicate staccato. Show the students these articulations and give students a chance to practice them.

Conductors strive to convey the emotion or mood of the music. Ask selected students to convey a particular emotion (e.g., energetic, gloomy, angry, enjoyable, loving, etc.) while conducting a beat pattern. Have the students guess what emotion is being played.

Listen to pieces of music and have students conduct along with them. Folk songs or other familiar melodies could be a good place to start. To practice two beat in bar time, use a march; for triple time, use a waltz; for quadruple time, use any of a huge variety of music.

Watch a video of a conductor conducting an orchestra. Can the students recognize particular beat patterns and techniques for expression, dynamics and articulation? Can students identify the various orchestral families and instruments?