Singing, clapping, moving up and down with the melody, it all sounds like a great music instructional activity. Kinder-musicians sing three different songs to practice memory, speaking, and movement skills. They'll move to the melody,...

Ancient people used musical pipes as early as the third millennium BCE. Young scientists explore the workings of musical pipes to better understand the relationship with frequency, length of pipe, and sound waves. They determine the...

B.B. King and Muddy Waters are two of the most famous blues performers of all time. In this music lesson, middle schoolers study the early careers and lasting musical contributions of both artists, each of whom carried the blues on to...

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....

Students view different musical instruments from around Latino world, predict what sounds instruments will make based on their appearance, listen to and evaluate music from different Latino genres orally or in writing, and make...

Young scholars use recordings of Wyclef Jean's music to study and explore different styles and techniques.

Notes of pride and persecution, exclusion and isolation resonate in flamenco. Introduce this musical art form to your social studies or Spanish language classes with a resource that follows a young flamenco guitarist as he...

Students explore the terms and structure of a bluegrass tune. They participate in a listening exercise that will challenge them to identify specific elements within a bluegrass musical arrangement.

In this creative music activity from Scientific American, students learn about musical notation and then design their own notations. Great web resource links are alsp provided

Students explore the chord chart for 12-bar blues in C and then play the scales on the guitar. They play their scales at a moderate tempo and practice related arpeggios. After listening to "Band in the Box" music tracks, students...

Students in a guitar class perform the Beatles song, Eleonor Rigby and study it's melodic and harmonic structures. They discover the process of arranging the song for a 4-part guitar ensemble.

Students 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.

Third graders sing the Shaker tune "Simple Gifts" while identifying eighth, quarter, and half notes. They listen to Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring and recall other ballet music.

Learners 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 activity is provided by the MENC (National Association for...

Students identify a guitar, piano, trumpet, flute, drum, and a violin by sight and sound. They view pictures of each instrument as they are played on a recording, discuss how each instrument makes their particular sound, and listen to...

Before Woodstock, there was Newport. Get plugged in to the social changes of the 1960s with a lesson that looks at Bob Dylan's performance at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival as a symbol of the radical changes that marked the era.

Young scholars study dotted eighth/sixteenth note rhythm pattern using percussion instruments and alternating from "corral to corral" in groups of 4-6. They play the pattern while listening to selected American western theme songs.

To foster concept development and auditory discrimination skills, learners with visual impairments listen to identify a variety of common sounds. The teacher makes recordings of various sounds, including those found in the home, at the...

Students are introduced to the various songwriting techniques of Paul McCartney. They explore and compare the basic melodic, harmonic, and lyrical tendencies of the different types of pop music.

This lesson enables students to gain a broader awareness of the basic blues scale and the harmonic structure of the standard blues progression. Students will be given introductory exercises on blues improvisation and will also...

Upper graders listen to and watch a documentary about an all female group Antigone Rising. They discuss how females are portrayed in the rock world, the type of music they play, their song lyrics, and what they note in the documentary....

Using a karaoke machine, a guitar, and other devices, learners explore the way sound waves travel. Using this hands on approach, learners can get a better understanding of wavelength, frequency, and more.

First graders determine that Spanish is the language spoken in Mexico before singing a number of Mexicans songs. They make maracas to use while singing Mexican songs. They sing the song, "La Cucaracha," in English realizing that it is a...

Young scholars explain the history and relevance of the following instruments in bluegrass music: fiddle, guitar, dobro, banjo, mandolin and stand-up bass. They identify the defining characteristics of each bluegrass instrument and...