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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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Fifty States In Rhyme
Students perform "Fifty States in Rhyme" with correct posture, correct rhythms, and accurate pitches. They also identify and perform such musical terms as tone color, tempo, dynamics, phrases, and accents. Emphasis is placed on the...
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Storytellers: Dave Matthews Band
Students decide what the term "art" means to them. They identify artistic elements displayed by the Dave Matthews Band. They understand the relationship between music and other means of artistic expression.
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Learning to Play Together
Students listen to and discuss American music genres, specifically ragtime, bebop/bop, and swing, and experiment with improvisation on traditional tunes and rhythms.
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VH1 100 Greatest Women of Rock & Roll Lesson 1
Young scholars the influence of women's music in history and the suffrage movement.
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VH1 Driven: Shakira, Lesson 3
Students watch a video about the life of Latin singer/pop star, Shakira and identify the elements that make her music unique. They explore Latin music and dance and research the music and dance of a specific Latin American country.
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Bob Dylan
In this Bob Dylan learning exercise, students read about the life of the performer, then complete a variety of comprehension activities. An answer key is included.
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VH1 Fan Club Dave Matthews Band
Students study how the music of Dave Matthews Band is based on jazz, blues, bluegrass, rock and roll, and rap.
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VH1 Fan Club
Students connect the diversity of American culture to the music of Dave Matthews Band and then create lyrics that emphasize how diversity pertains to their own life.
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Songs that Bring Us Together - Lesson 5
Students compose song as a classroom effort. They write a one-paragraph essay about "message" songs in 100 years and include three ideas for topics along with the style of music (such as folk, rock, blues, rap, etc.) that would match.
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Swing Your Partner!
This was written for ESOL learners, but could work for any elementary class. Learners read about the American dance style known as Square Dancing. They explore its use in literature, write a friendly letter about it, and then use their...
San Francisco Symphony
Learning Adjectives through the Duke
Duke Ellington, jazz, and jive kick-off a fun and creative lesson on responding emotionally to music. The class will learn about jive talk used in the 1920s and the life and music of Duke Ellington. They'll listen to a selection of his...
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The Influence of Hip Hop
Students consider the influence of Hip Hop on their own language use and various segments of American society; they reflect on and demonstrate their knowledge of Hip Hop vocabulary and its use.
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Shakespeare Was A Black Woman
"I all alone beweep my outcast state." After a discussion of the "Shakespeare in American Life" segment in which Maya Angelou's relates her reaction to Sonnet 29, class groups create and perform a scene about an outcast that includes the...
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Multimedia Storytelling
Experiment with multimedia storytelling. After watching a segment of American Family, first, middle and high schoolers tell a story about their families, clarifying the setting, characters, and script. They work on setting...
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The Sting
In this music worksheet, students read an excerpt from the movie The Sting and identify the American composer, Scott Joplin, who found ragtime jazz music heard in the movie. They also respond to eight questions related to the excepts read.
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The Four Sacred Elements
Fourth graders observe the Four Sacred Elements image in PowerPoint as projected on a screen and discuss what they see and then summarize the details. They discuss what the image represents and how the Four Sacred Elements are an...
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Courageous Voices that Shook the Nation to Action
Students study Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. In this Martin Luther King, Jr. day lesson, students learn about the holiday for Dr. King through literature and music. Students learn the lyrics to Stevie Wonder's 'Happy Birthday' about...
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George Gershwin
Students explore the life and accomplishments of George Gershwin. They listen to Latin rhythms and practice the rhythmic parts. Students identify Latin instruments George Gershwin added to the orchestra. After practice, they perform a...
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All That is Irish and More - Activity 1
Learners listen to examples of fiddle music and violin music to determine the similarities and differences between the two musical forms. A video link is included in this introductory lesson to fiddle music (Part One of Two).
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The History of Rock and Roll: Part 8 - The 70's Have a Nice Day - Lesson 2
Students identify the characteristics and elements of large scale rock productions. They examine the similarities between the American Vaudeville shows and the large-scale rock theater productions of the 1970's.
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Moving and Grooving with Tempo
Students participate in activities involving folk music using movement to illustrate the musical concept of tempo. The use of a game is used in order to help maintain student involvement in the lesson.
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Singing And Making Rhythm
First graders engage in a lesson that emphasizes the use of music to form a rhythmic beat that incorporates singing. They create a song in freestyle and some of them create a song. Students are assessed at using hand movement to track...
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Ojal??
Students listen to the song and fill in the lyrics on a worksheet. They translate the meaning of the song into English. They concentrate on the correct verb tenses in the song. This activity is used as a warm up for a verb Spanish...