This plan is designed to reinforce students’ ability to recognize and apply whole step/half step patterns to the guitar and foster a deeper understanding of how pitches are organized on the guitar fretboard. Understanding the whole step/half step concept and the ability to apply it are important precursors to successful sight reading and navigation of the fretboard.

Students will explore and identify the basics of melodic direction using aural skills and body percussion or movement. Students will compose their own piece of digital music using stepwise and leapwise melodic direction.

Students will compose short melodic phrases using commonly found household items, such as a rock to create “Melodies that Rock.” Students will explore music contour in relationship to high and low notes, and melodic patterns and motion.

This instructional plan provides the teacher with an outline and resources to guide music students through the process of selecting and pursuing a career path in the 21st century workplace, enabling students to understand music as a field of knowledge.

Students will identify, define and use basic standard and instrument specific notation for pitch with a focus on fluency. The objective of Note Reading Olympics is to assess and improve note reading skills. Students aim to identify as many notes as possible in 60 seconds. Students are able to achieve four levels based on difficulty: Olympic Trials, Bronze, Silver, Gold and Olympic Legend. The resources in this document are specifically designed for orchestra, but the lesson could be adapted for any music discipline.

The music room just became a working professional music studio and live performance venue, complete with a full complement of composers, performers, audio engineers, promoters, stage managers, and a stage crew! Students will work collaboratively to develop understandings of the many careers associated with the performing arts, while composing and premiering an original music work.

In this plan, students will research, discuss, and present ways in which music was used to effect change during various historical periods or events. This particular plan will use the American Civil Rights Movement, South African Apartheid, America’s participation in Vietnam, and current events as examples.

There is a mystery in the music room and students will solve it by working together. In these three short activities, students will actively listen to the order in which instruments perform, work to create a “Blob Opera” quartet, and identify which type of ensemble matches the description. If they get all three secret codes, the music room might just be saved!

Students will demonstrate the creative process by composing an eight-measure composition using the E major pentatonic scale. Notes used include B and C# on the 2nd string and E, F#, and G# on the 1st string. These melody notes will be played using the index and middle finger. Warm-ups and repertoire to prepare students in the key and compositional style are included as resources.

In this lesson, students will learn to identify different note and rest values and how these come together to form short rhythmic patterns. Students will perform rhythmic patterns on their selected instrument using the ‘Rhythm Randomizer’ tool.

Students will record themselves and use a provided rubric to evaluate growth in their playing. This lesson can be used with individual or ensemble performances.

Watch a portrait of a student come to life with the student’s own composition and performance through technology! Students will perform and record a musical greeting using their name and create access to their performance through a portrait with QR codes and websites/applications such as Flipgrid and/or ChatterPix Kids.

This plan introduces rhythm guitar chart reading using open and barre chords. Students will review how to read basic chord charts in order to accompany songs and perform with ensembles.

This lesson will introduce students to proper posture, rest position, and playing position for their instrument. Students will demonstrate understanding of these concepts and their ability to teach them to others.

This plan will introduce students to 12-Bar Blues progressions that include Slow Change, Quick Change, and Turnaround options. Students will use the Blues Scale to improvise over the 12-Bar blues progressions.

Students will use creativity, critical thinking skills, and collaboration to develop and produce podcasts that inform and educate listeners on various musical topics.

This plan guides students through an investigation of cross-disciplinary connections between music, dance, visual art, and creative writing within the context of choral repertoire.

This plan will provide students with the resources to clean, restring, and tune a classical guitar. Students will also learn about different string types and which kinds of knots are used to string guitars.  

Students will demonstrate understanding of rhythmic symbols and their values (whole, half, quarter, eighth, and sixteenth notes/rests). Students will create note trees to make connections between musical rhythms and mathematics. Students will apply their knowledge of rhythm to express their musical ideas and engage more deeply with music.

This lesson introduces students to composition through the application of rhythms being used in daily sight-reading and/or repertoire. Students will notate and perform short rhythmic/melodic examples individually and in pairs and groups.