Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra - Part One: Introduction and the Four Families

Benjamin Britten's "The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra" is one of the staples for introducing the instruments and instrument families of the orchestra to students. There are a lot of interactive websites out there that attempt to teach the instruments to students, but why mess with a good thing? Carnegie Hall didn't mess with a good thing; they improved it!

Carnegie Hall's "The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra" takes your students on an online safari to find all of the instruments in the orchestra in the wild. It is up to you, Violet, and her Uncle Ollie to find them, collect them, and guide them to the orchestra stage.

Through the game you follow the form of the actual music.  You start by listening to the full orchestra play the theme, followed by the four families playing the theme, followed by the individual instrument variations, and ending with the fugue.

This online adventure can take a long time to complete, so I am breaking it up into five parts:

1. The introduction and four families

2. The woodwind family

3. The strings family

4. The brass family

5. The percussion family and finale

Creating Music - Block Game

image via www.creatingmusic.com

Click here to go to The Block Game

This game comes from the Morton Subotnick website Creating Music.  Use blocks to create simple melodies.  Memorize your composition, and then try to find it again by listening to it.  I used this game with my students when we were working on songs with Do, Re, and Mi.  Here is a description of each difficulty and level setting:

Easy - Level 1 - 3 beats with 3 pitches (Do, Re, Mi)

Easy - Level 2 - 3 beats with 6 pitches (Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La)

Easy - Level 3 - 3 beats with 8 pitches (Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, Do - full Major scale)

Medium - Level 1 - 5 beats with 3 pitches (Do, Re, Mi)

Medium - Level 2 - 5 beats with 6 pitches (Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La)

Medium - Level 3 - 5 beats with 8 pitches (Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, Do - full Major scale)

Hard - Level 1 - 8 beats with 3 pitches (Do, Re, Mi)

Hard - Level 2 - 8 beats with 6 pitches (Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La)

Hard - Level 3 - 8 beats with 8 pitches (Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, Do - full Major scale)

Sample Lesson Plan by Will Braune: