New World Symphony

Last week I rehearsed Dvořák's Symphony No. 9 "From the New World" with the Lee's Symphony Symphony Orchestra in preparation for their fall classic.  Although I love performing, this rehearsal reminded me of why I'm an educator and not fighting tooth and nail for coveted symphony gigs around the world.  I had never played "The New World Symphony" before, and it was quite obvious within a few measures of sight reading that I wasn't as familiar with the piece as I had originally thought.  I knew I had homework to do, and I knew exactly where to go:  Carnegie Hall's listening adventures!

Carnegie Hall's listening adventure for Dvořák's Symphony No. 9 provides a detailed, animated listening map for the entire New World Symphony.  I love how the melody of most of the themes is either shown on a musical staff or shown with contour lines.  These are the three themes from the first movement:

The interactive maps provide a great tool for teaching form, contour, motifs, and instruments of the orchestra.  It also provides a great cross curricular opportunity for teaching history, geography, and storytelling.  I don't recommend going through the entire symphony in one lesson or even through one unit unless you are teaching older students.  I do recommend using one movement at a time to help supplement your and objectives.

Carnegie Hall has provided a "How to use this site" page to help you design a lesson that works best for you.  They also have an Activities page for each movement of the symphony.  These activities can be a great way to assess your students and to check for understanding.

You can believe that when I perform this piece at the Lee's Summit Symphony's Fall Classic on October 13 (yes, that's a shameless plug,) I will be imagining the sailing ships, dancers, and locomotives.

If you liked this online tool, you will love Carnegie Hall's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra.  You can check out my blog posts about the YPGO here:

• Part One: Introduction and Four Families
• Part Two: Woodwind Pond

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

Les Paul Google Doodle

Mashable.com recently posted their list of the 30 Best Google Doodles of 2011, and number 11 on the list (any Spinal Tap fans out there?) was the Google tribute to Les Paul's 96th birthday.  What a great way to make music history fun!


Your students can simply strum the strings to create music.  You can also discuss the major scale, intervals, and chords by playing the notes on a computer keyboard.  Each row will play the same scale, and you can press up to four notes at a time to create chords.


Finally, have fun recording and sharing your compositions!  Simply press the record button, play a song, and press the record button again to end your song.  You will be given a link with your composition to share with other students, teachers, parents, or friends.  Click here for an example of a little tune I made to sound a bit like The Who's "Baba O'Riley."  Try sharing your composition links in the comment section below!


Rock on, and happy new year!

The Nutcracker

I know, I know, I know... Winter break is just around the corner, and it is way too late to get started on a unit about the holiday classic, The Nutcracker.  I am writing this blog to simply share some of the great interactive Nutcracker resources that are out there either because I used them, or because I'm like you and just found them, too!