TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Energy Transfer in Musical Instruments
This lesson covers concepts of energy and energy transfer utilizing energy transfer in musical instruments as an example. More specifically, the lesson explains the two different ways in which energy can be transferred between a system...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Energetic Musical Instruments
Students will learn to apply the principles and concepts associated with energy and the transfer of energy in an engineering context through the designing and making of a musical instrument. The students must choose from a variety of...
ABCya
Ab Cya: Marvin Makes Music Storybook
ABCya! presents its fifth children's storybook for the classroom. It's called Marvin Makes Music, an original work by Michelle Tocci. The story is about a frog that is sad because he cannot sing like his friends, until one day when he...
Exploratorium
Exploratorium: Science of Music: Accidental Scientist
Learning about the science of music is what this site is all about. With clever activities that lead to writing, mixing, and experimenting with music; with videos that explain tuning, stepping (or rhythmic movement), instrument building,...
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Do Re Mi With Straws
Check out this fun science fair project about the physics of musical sound production. Here you will make musical instruments with drinking straws, one for each note on a one-octave major scale. You will figure out the right lengths for...
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: What Material Makes the Most Resonant Soundboard?
If you like music and musical instruments, this project might resonate with you. You will investigate materials that could be used to build acoustic musical instruments. You can then use a music box mechanism and a sound level meter to...
Other
The Mudcat Cafe: Make Your Own Drums
Hands-on-activity for making music. Find out how to make your own drums at this website. Explore and have fun with music.
South Carolina Educational Television
South Carolina Etv Commission: Artopia: Music
Enter a world of music in Artopia. Here, you can become a music critic, meet a musician, play a game, and even compose your own remix music in the virtual music studio.
John F. Kennedy Center
The Kennedy Center: Making Rain
Your students will enjoy making their own rainstick while learning about poetry and expressing their feelings about rain. This three-part lesson gives step-by-step instructions, as well as an assessment rubric.
TED Talks
Ted: Ted Ed: Beatboxing 101 Beat Nyc
There's no need for instruments to make music; you can use the greatest instrument of all, your own body. Members of BEAT NYC teach the basics of beatboxing (think trumpets, bass drums, and everything in between), all while driving...
John F. Kennedy Center
The Kennedy Center: Brass Instruments and Pitch
Students will enjoy making their own brass instrument with this interesting lesson plan. Objectives include what factors affect the pitch of brass instruments and what determines pitch.
Smithsonian Institution
Lemelson Center: Spark!lab: Invent a Musical Whirligig
Students can easily create a musical whirligig to study sound production. These instruments are constructed out of everyday materials and allows students to use their imagination to make music.
Dallas Symphony Orchestra
Dallas Symphony Orchestra Kids: Dallas Symphony Orchestra
Students will enjoy this interactive website. There are many musical topics to explore while having fun. Learning how to make your own instrument, playing games and listening to music are just a few of the things you can do here.
Dallas Symphony Orchestra
Dallas Symphony Orchestra Kids: Dallas Symphony Orchestra
Students will enjoy this interactive website. There are many musical topics to explore while having fun. Learning how to make your own instrument, playing games and listening to music are just a few of the things you can do here.
Other
The Virtual Museum of Music Inventions
The title is misleading, for a reason! The site consists of tips, ideas and plans about instruments and sound. The site also serves as a "museum" for photos and audio/video clips of kids' homemade instruments from around the nation.
Quia
Quia: World Music: Rags to Riches
Test your knowledge of music from around the world with this who-wants-to-be-a-millionaire-style game. Click on the correct answer to each multiple-choice question, and move closer to "winning" a million dollars!
TED Talks
Ted: Ted Ed: Music as a Language
Can learning to make music be as unstructured as learning to speak as a small child? Bassist Victor Wooton makes that argument in this TED Ed talk. Free registration is required to receive full access to the the complete lessons.
Other
Homemade Instruments
Do you want to make an egg shaker? Come to this website and find out how. Homemade instruments can be made from different household items. Don't miss out on all of the music that can be made at home or school.
Exploratorium
Exploratorium: Science Snacks: Make Your Own Rainstick
Create a traditional instrument called a rainstick in this activity.
John F. Kennedy Center
The Kennedy Center: Chinese Instruments
Help your students identify and classify Western instruments and traditional Chinese instruments.
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: How to Make a Piano Sing
The renowned pianist Vladimir Horowitz once said, "The most important thing is to transform the piano from a percussive instrument into a singing instrument." In this lab, you will learn about sympathetic vibrations, a method used to...
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: How to Make a Guitar Sing
This is a great project for musicians interested in the physics of stringed instruments. If you have ever played an acoustic guitar, you may have noticed that picking a single string can make one or more of the other (unpicked) strings...
Illustrative Mathematics
Illustrative Mathematics: 8.sp.4 Music and Sports
This task looks at a possible relationship between playing a sport and playing a musical instrument. Students collect data from classmates, summarize the data into a two-way table, make some observations, and construct a bar graph of the...
Other
The Mudcat Cafe: Blocks, Bells, Box Drums and Mallets
Have you ever wondered how to make homemade musical instruments? Use this site to find out how to construct sandpaper blocks and mallets.