Curated OER
A Musical Composition Experience
Upper graders having skills in music performance will extend their abilities through creative musical composition. They'll use Finale 2000 to explore facets of music composition, they'll then compose a piece for their instrument in C, F,...
Curated OER
Music Composition
Are your learners ready to compose their own music? If so, this worksheet will help them do it. The sheet is broken into several staffs where they write the tune, riff, and chords. They can put them together to create a unique piece....
Curated OER
Set a Poem to Music
Fun awaits both you and your class as you embark on a musical activity. After discussing different rhythmic meters they choose a poem to set to music. The poem must rhyme and be set to a melody in the key of C Major. Because the activity...
Boston Symphony Orchestra
The Elements of Music—How do Composers Plan?
The introduction to Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake and the finale of his Symphony No. 4 provide young musicians with an opportunity to investigate the music elements composers employ to develop the themes they want to create. They compare the...
Hookshot Creative
Compose Your Own Music
Channel the masters with an interactive music composition activity! Learners use the online tool to create their own masterpieces one measure at a time.
Curated OER
19th & 20th Century Composers: Exoticism
VH1 Music Studio has put out another great lesson that incorporates analysis, compare/contrast, and musical terminology. Kids will listen to the song "Habanera" considering the use of specific instruments in evoking a sense of location....
Curated OER
Music: Off the Wall & Onto the Stage - Composing
Kids explore Gullah music from Africa and then create original compositions based on what they've learned. They practice traditional melodies and rhythms then make some of their own, which they then perform for the class.
Curated OER
If Paintings Could Talk: Art and Language
Middle schoolers learn about the artist Canaletto, play a vocabulary game, and create a landscape using collage technique. Background information on the artist is provided along with instructions for the game and vocabulary words to...
Curated OER
Using Garage Band to Enhance 2nd Grade Composition
Your second graders can become composers with a little help from the Garage Band software. You pre-select several drum, piano, and guitar loops for the groups to choose from, then they put them together following an ABA looping pattern....
Curated OER
Pictures at an Exhibition
Students discuss how the musical composition was created. They listen to "Pictures at an Exhibition." Students discuss how the Promenade in the beginning of the opus is based on Mussorgsky walking through the exhibit of paintings....
Curated OER
Using Poetry As Inspiration for Composition
A reading of Robert Frost’s "The Road Not Taken" launches an interdisciplinary study of the connection between the meters of a poem and a melody. After identifying the number of beats in each line of the poem, young musicians use...
Illinois Music Education Conference
Taking the “General” Out of Middle School General Music!
Middle schoolers will sing the praises of this music program. The resource, designed as an overview for music instructors, is loaded with ideas, activities, and links. Not a sour note in the packet.
SoundTree
When The Saints Go Marching In: A Lesson for Middle School Keyboard Lab Students
After listening to a variety of interpretations of "When the Saints Go Marching In," partners compose and then perform their own renditions of this classic before joining a full-class jam session.
Curated OER
Creating an Original Opera
This may be a lot to ask of a high schooler, but then again, who knows? Pupils work in groups to explore, write, and then perform an original opera. They view versions of The Magic Flute and La Traviata, then compose a plot, characters,...
Curated OER
Modernism in Poetry, Painting, and Music
Are you teaching Modernism to your class? Connect different areas of artistic expression in the Modernist Era. Learners read T.S. Eliot, view art by Pablo Picasso, and listen to a Modernist musical composition. This final assignment is...
Curated OER
Music in Words
Your class can build strong, well-represented opinions about the music they hear. They listen to, and share thoughts about, a piece of classical music. Then they write a piece of music or a poem, and analyze their peers' work and their...
Curated OER
Click and Drag Music Composition
Fourth graders work in small groups using SMART Board Technology to write a 4 measure music composition. studying the basic structure and vocabulary of written music is the goal of this experience.
Curated OER
Composing Music
Students compose music with musical instruments, and write the proper notation for the songs they have created.
Teaching Tolerance
Community Arts Showcase
An art showcase encourages class members to explore the themes of social justice and tolerance. They create an original artwork, engage in group discussions, and journal writing. The art gallery also provides a chance for families and...
Curated OER
Create a Composition
Students select an instrument and create a musical composition. In this musical composition lesson, students invent an original piece of music that is 16 measures long. Students hum and record their pieces.
Curated OER
Create a Music Carnival
This outstanding lesson will encourage your students to combine their knowledge of rhythm, pitch, tone and color with their imaginations to create original compositions about animals. They create a music carnival to "Peter and the Wolf"...
Johnny Mercer Foundation
Project-Based Songwriting
Project-based learning in a music theory class? Take note. Young songwriters compose, record, copyright, and promote their original songs. They even design their own CD cover.
Curated OER
How and Why to Look at Abstract Painting - Activity 1
Students create abstract art using acrylic paints and canvas in this lesson provided by Oregon Public Broadcasting. The lesson includes information on abstract art and video links.
Curated OER
Poetry/Music: Let It Snow!
Young scholars create poems and sound compositions using instruments, sounds, and pictograph notation. After listening Debussy's Children's corner suite, they brainstorm a list of snow vocabulary words. Students write poems and in groups...