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Treble Clef Sign
Young scholars explore and explain the purpose of the lines and spaces. They associate up and down on the staff with higher and lower pitches on the piano. Students recall that the G clef touches 5 lines and has 4 spaces.
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Using the Patterns and Symbols of Mali Mud Cloth to Convey Identity
Students participate in relating the role of the arts in defining identity. They examine the community in West African society and how members of that community define their role. They view how artifacts, music and performance can...
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Rhythmic Expression
Learners discover movement and expression to music/sound through a series of teacher-led exercises and role plays. This lesson is ideal for the middle school drama class with possibilities for adaptation to any level of drama or general...
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Night on Bald Mountain
Learners use appropriate terms to reflect a working knowledge of the musical elements. Then they use terminology from music and other arts to analyze and compare the structures of musical and other artistic and literary works. Students...
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Watch Your Conductor Like a Hawk
Students focus their eyes on the conductor in music class. The teacher uses a music sheet to isolate the musical elements of tempo, balance, and blend.
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Fiddling Around
Students look at a piece of art to make connections between early Baroque art and Baroque music. In this art and music instructional activity, students focus on the painting The Boy Violinist, by Hendrick Terbrugghen. They listen to the...
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Can You Compose?
Fourth graders investigate musical notes. In this music lesson, 4th graders compose a short song while clapping the rhythm and singing the syllables using the appropriate notes or rests.
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All Mixed Up
Students explore the emergence of bootlegs, also known as 'mash-ups' (the combination of two songs into one), on the Internet. By researching the musical origins of songs and creating and performing their own bootlegs, students gain a...
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Haring Inspired CD Covers
Young scholars create CD covers from their music-inspired drawing sessions. They compare what they drew while listening to classical, punk and rap music. They scan their drawings into Adobe Photoshop and design their cover.
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Overture to 'William Tell' by Gioacchino Rossini
Students create an awareness of how music creates a setting in a story or legend. They identify the instrumentation, dynamics and tempo used to create various settings for a musical story. They perform rhythmic patterns from listening...
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Low Brass: Tibet, Switzerland and Haiti
Students identify sounds played on instruments from around the world. In this music lesson, students listen to music played on various low brass instruments from Tibet, Switzerland and Haiti to determine the differences in pitch...
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The Bolero
Students discuss the structure of the musical film "The Bolero." In this film arts lesson, students watch "The Bolero" before participating in discussion questions and watching a second performance of the same musical. Included in this...
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Analyzing Two Dances and Making a Dance Map: The Nutcracker
Students discuss dance elements and create a dance map. They choose a dance theme and incorporate movement into their dance maps and choreography. They also experiment with different types of music.
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Sergei Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf"
Fourth graders study Sergei Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf." They explore the characters and the instruments that represent the characters. They create their own version of "Peter and the Wolf" for the purpose of introducing the...
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Listening Logs
Students hone their listening skills. They develop tools for approaching research into their own musical traditions and those of community and state and examine different ways of recording data. They design different types of research...
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Metallic Sounds
Students differentiate between metallic and non-metallic sounds. In this music lesson, students listen to the audio clip of "March" and march in time with the music. Students identify the metallic sounds in the music piece. Students...
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Bringing Stories to Life
Students perform short stories with sound effects and music they've created. For this stories lesson, create effects of record from a file to complete a presented story.
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Scaling the Blues
Students identify musical characteristics of blues music and define the term 'scale.' They identify chromatic, major, pentatonic, and blues scales and label each key on a keyboard using letter names, sharps and flats.
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The Heart of Human Experience: Cultura Azteca
First graders explore Aztec culture to gain understanding of relationship between music, recreation, and culture. Seven lessons on one page.
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The Nutcracker
First graders define a ballet as a story told through dance. They listen to melodies and demonstrate beat and accent through body movement. They watch the ballet.
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From Vienna: The New Year's Celebration
Students research the history, art, music, and architecture of Vienna and make an oral presentation based on their findings. They listen to segments of the Vienna Philharmonic New Year's celebration and design a musical extravaganza in...
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Once Upon a Time
Students examine how music and sound affect their creation of artwork. They view art images online, create three hybrid collage creatures, develop a list of hero characteristics, and write an adventure story for a character they have...
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Low and High with Ives
First graders read the Poem "The Elephant" by Shel Silverstein and create a descriptive web in the shape of an animal. In this cross curricular music lesson, 1st graders recite a poem with rhythm, then listen to the song "The Circus Band...
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Playing With Your Food
Students discover about the form and function of traditional musical instruments, then use this knowledge to create non-traditional instruments that replicate the sounds of traditional instruments. They use vegetables to create their...