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William Tell Overture
Students explore the musical concepts of rhythm, melody, expression, and tone color in a three-lesson unit about the William Tell Overture. They identify dynamics and tempo and play a vocal tone color singing game.
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"Sakura Sakura" and the Kumoijoshi Scale of Japan
Learners listen to a recording of "Sakura" and determine where it is from. In this global sound lesson, students view pictures of cherry blossoms and connect its significance to Japanese culture. Learners sing the score while...
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Designing the Careers Show
Students write a song. In this career lesson, students form groups based on occupational interests. Student groups write song lyrics about their chosen career. Students present their songs to the class.
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Wyclef Jean for VH1 Storytellers
Students use different folk songs to learn chords and other musical elements.
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Storytellers: Pearl Jam
Students examine the nature of their own generation by looking at current events and music styles. They update old lyrics with new ones that are more relevant to current times and express a truth about their own generation. Finally,...
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Folk Rock Singers and Songwriters
High schoolers listen to and analyze songs of folk rock musicians of 1970 and then compose and perform a song in a popular or folk style for acoustic guitar and voice or for two acoustic guitars.
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Haydn's Surprise
Learners listen to Haydn's "Surprise" and use the score to create themes and variations with other rhythms. They create poems using Haydn's rhythm in the symphony and research his life. They also use "body percussion" to play parts of...
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Blues Improvisation
Students practice playing and improvising while playing the 12 bar blues. They practice compositional skills, evaluate and perform musical pieces focused on the blues.
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B is for Banana
Students practice and perform the song "B is for Banana" using their knowledge of basic rhythms in 4/4 and student-created rhythm accompaniment based on speech. This excellent lesson is provided by the MENC (National Association for...
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Salad Sisters
Students practice and perform 8 and 16 beat rhythmic patterns in 4/4 using the song "Salad Sisters" as a basis in this elementary-level General Music lesson. An amazing lesson for teaching cooperative music composition techniques and...
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Lesson Plan for Adagio for Strings, Op. 11 (1938)
Students study the life and music of composer, Samuel Barber. In groups, representing trees, water, and stars they use interpretive dance to tell the story of the musical composition, 'Adagio for Strings, Op. 11' by Barber.
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Drama and Dance
Students create a dance that tells a story then they use the dance for inspiration and write their own. In this drama and dance lesson, students discover how the May and Aztec would dance to covey a concept or story. Students work in...
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The Dancing Flute
Students use a cardboard tubes as props as they create their own dance steps to express the emotions invoked in a portion of The Nutcracker by Tchaikovsky.
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Springtime
Students discuss springtime. In this music instructional activity, students explore rain by making a rain stick and singing a song about rain.
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Accomplished Practice # 5
Students predict what music from different nations sound like by creating short musical pieces based on their assumptions. Students listen to music from different cultures and describe how their musical creations differed as well as how...
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Great Big House
Third graders sing and play the song "Great Big House" in the Orff style using soprano and alto glockenspiels, bass xylophones, bass marimbas, triangles, woodblocks, and the singing voice. The lesson includes step-by-step teacher...
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The Quatrain
Students analyze the quatrain structure and rhyming in the song, "Puddles". They use this format to create their own quatrain lyrics for a song then they share their song ang revise it.
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Let's Paint a Pioneer Song
Students listen to stories about and examine pictures of pioneers, and compose their own pioneer songs to familiar melodies.
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A Wing and a Prayer
Fourth graders improvise missing harmony accompaniment for a soloist performing "The Star Spangled Banner." Groups select several familiar melodies that they can produce while individual students take turns improvising a new harmony part.
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Hard Rock - Lesson 1
Students perform any part of a four-part keyboard ensemble with musical sensibility in a "hard rock" style. They improvise a melody over student accompaniment.
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Sing Me a Story!
Sixth graders explore lyrics, phrases, and the beats in each phrase. They select a nursery rhyme, set it to a simple tune they already know, and match the tune with the same number of beats per phrase with a poem with the identical...
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Santana
The orchestra plays the National Anthem and discusses their origin. Students listen to other nation's National Anthems, and discuss how they felt while listening. As the students play the National Anthem, the teacher sings. The students...
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ABBA - Lesson 3
Students develop a deeper understanding of the connection between improvisation and inspiration. They choose a partner and take out their original poems. With their partners, have them say the poem with a steady beat.
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"Let's Write a Song"
Fourth graders brainstorm ideas that answer the question, "What is a song?" They determine the parts of a song, read lyrics, and listen to a song while identifying the chorus. They repeat the procedure with a new song before working in...