Jazz: An Expression of Democracy

There is an indescrible energy to Latin American music—but if you know your music theory, it's not so indescrible after all. A thorough packet provides definitions for terms like bolero, charanga, shekere, and tumbao before listing...

Samba music is a musical mixture of both African and Brazilian sounds and rhythms. Explore this art form with your class using this easy-to-follow slide show. They'll learn about Samba's roots, beats, characteristics, instruments, and...

Young scholars analyze the elements of poetry and jazz. In this critical thinking skills lesson, students take a closer look at the rhyme, rhythm, alliteration, form, free verse, lyricism, and imagery that exist is jazz as well as poetry. 

Learners collect real data through listening, counting and timing jazz pieces.They use ratios, rates, and proportions to report collected data and demonstrate an understanding of the concepts of rhythm and tempo in music.

In this jazz music practice instructional activity, students read about syncopation and triplets in a 3 paragraph selection. Students then respond to 1 question.

Students describe some of the distinguishing characteristics background rhythms used in R&B. They perform typical R&B accompaniment patterns and develop their own horn section to play background rhythms.

Pupils identify musical characteristics of baroque, jazz, and psychedelic music. They arrange traditional music into the style of baroque, jazz, and psychedelic music.

Students study early New Orleans Jazz music and recognize Louis Armstrong as an early jazz artist. They recognize the elements and roots of Jazz.

High schoolers view a video about different types of music. They examine the history of jazz, big band and rock back to the city of Chicago. They discover Chicago's music scene today and compare it to the past.

Young scholars compare and contrast classical piano style with jazz piano style. They watch a segment of the video, "VH1 Driven: Jamie Foxx," participate in a class discussion of the music from the video, and develop a list of...