Bass drum, snare drum, tom-toms, cymbals. Perched behind their drum sets, wielding their drum sticks and wire brushes, drummers lay the grove and are the heartbeat of a band's performance. A dynamic lesson introduces young musicians to...

The backbone of Latin American music is the beat! Young musicians work on blending Afro-Latin rhythms and beat patterns before incorporating the major pentatonic, minor pentatonic, and blues scales in their own compositions.

To demonstrate their skills with traditional and computer-assisted notation, young musicians notate and perform the first eight measures of Friedrich von Schiller's theme to "Ode to Joy."

What do physicists and musicians have in common? A lot more than you might think. After first viewing a slide show presentation and completing a series of skills practice worksheets on the physics of light, sound, and...

How many sharps and flats are their in each of the major keys? Help keep your young musicians sharp with a printable template that models how to identify the signature for the major keys' sharps and flats.

Note values are the focus of a short instructional activity that asks young musicians to respond to short-answer questions and to complete a measure with notes of the appropriate value.

To demonstrate their understanding of simple and compound time signatures, young musicians complete a chart by drawing quarter or dotted quarter notes equal in value to the note groups shown.

Designed as an assessment of understanding, this one-page worksheet asks musicians to demonstrate their understanding of scales by drawing C, G, and F Major scales on the provided staffs. 

Young musicians must unscramble music expressions and then use the key pad from a digital keyboard to answer a music trivia question.

Your young musicians will take note of this worksheet that asks them to mark the half steps in a C major scale and then write the scale in both treble and bass clef. 

Gee, your young musicians should have no trouble tracing the treble clefs on this worksheet. Once they have mastered this tricky signature, they place it correctly on a staff.

How sharp are your young musicians? Can they perfectly identify the sharps and flats in each key by completing a circle of fifths diagram? There is solid theory behind this exercise.

In order to answer a music trivia question, young musicians must count the number of ties in a melody, name the final note, and use these clues to spell out Charlie Parker's nickname. This activity is not for the birds.

Designed for rhythm level 1, the two games in this packet ask young musicians to identify the number of beats represented by a series of notes and notations, and then to use those numbers to answer a music trivia question.

Here's a collection of unit plans for middle school musicians. Topics include the mbira, opera, rhythm and culture, music in Africa, music in the movies, music theory and notation, blues and jazz, and the ocarina. Definitely worth a look.

Gustav Holst's The Planets provide young musicians an opportunity to examine how composers can create a suite: a collection of smaller pieces grouped to explore a single topic. After listening to "Jupiter," they examine "Mars" in...

Want to make some music but you don't have the instruments? Get a start on your percussion section with a creative bongo drum project! Young musicians use a coffee can, packing tape, and colorful paper to create the perfect percussive...

Artists, musicians, and dramatists have long been the leaders in the quest for social justice. To gain an understanding of the power of the arts to address social issues, class members listen to a reading of Drew Daywalt's The Day the...

Much of Latin American music owes its origins to the slave trade. Peoples from the Yoruban and Dahomean cultures brought with them the distinctive rhythms, time signatures, and eighth note patterns that now characterize Caribbean music....

Africans transported to the Caribbean as part of the transatlantic slave trade brought with them a rich tradition of music and dance. Four lessons teach young musicians the rumba clave rhythm, cascara rhythm, and the 6/8 bell patterns...

Bring the sounds of the deep South vocal blues to the classroom with a Smithsonian Folkways lesson. In preparation, scholars listen to and count the 12 bar blues patterns in several works and identify the I, II, IV, and V chords as well...

Young musicians experience song, dance, and play of the Jamaican culture. Scholars listen for and recreate beats, they play tunes, make up original dances, and play a game that challenges pupils to pass stones to a specific beat.

Bring jazz music and the Harlem Renaissance to light with a lesson that challenges scholars to research and create. Pupils delve deep into information materials to identify jazz terminology, compare types of jazz and jazz musicians,...

And the beat goes on! Finding a way to connect during the isolation imposed by the Coronavirus pandemic can be challenging. This activity from the Amani Project offers a way to stay close during a time of physical distancing....