Lesson Plans and Worksheets
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- Eugene, OR
- 01-25-11
Major, Minor Keys Teacher Resources
Find teacher approved Major, Minor Keys educational resource ideas and activities
Singing, emotion, and music are explored by the class as they think about the expressive sounds and lyrics of each song they hear. They read, play, and sing several songs taken from musical theater productions and discuss the tones, emotions, and ways each song expresses feeling.
Students demonstrate the ability to determine the name of any major key signature. After a lecture/demo, students utilize worksheets imbedded in this plan to gain practice identifying key signatures.
Budding musicians transpose chords, identify major and minor keys, and complete measures to match the shown signatures. This resource can be used as a quiz, test, or as practice for those learning how to read and write music.
Seventh graders research the six European "postage stamp" (small) countries and research interesting facts about them. In groups, they are assigned to one of the six countries of Andorra, Liechtenstein, Malta, Monaco, San Marino, or Vatican City. On poster board, 7th graders create a postage stamp for their country.
Music theory lessons can be very tricky for some people. Children with a basic understanding of musical concepts take on the task of transposing music and identifying scale sets. This would be a good topic to address prior to discussing circle of fifths. The lesson includes sheet music and two worksheets.
Eighth graders investigate how historical events tie to musical periods of the past and present (setting), how larger works can contain smaller sections, how to listen for these smaller sections, how to identify major tonalities (keys) and how music vocabulary is used in the process.
Eighth graders compose an eight measure piece in a major key that utilized some form of wind instrument, body percussion and voice. They notate their composition on staff paper prior to the assessment and perform their composition.
Students view and discuss the movie, Music of the Heart. They compare/contrast two versions of the song, Music of My Heart, identify characteristics of heroes, and sing the song, Music of My Heart.
The famous Japanese tune, "Cherry Blooms" was composed using a pentatonic scale. Budding musicians explore the nature and theory behind the pentatonic scale as well as the East Asian music it is commonly used in. Multiple extensions are suggested for learners with musical experience, as well as adaptations for those with very little experience.
Wow this is a really thorough music quiz. There are a total of seven tasks for the class to complete. They must, write the C major scale, identify notes on the staff, write four major keys based on the information provided, identify music symbols, write the intervals, and identify notes based on what they hear. Excellent!