Music Stories

Language Arts and
Music

Peer Gynt

The Legend of Peer Gynt
Read his story.

 

Peer Gynt and the Trolls

Can you catch the trolls? Move your cursor quickly!

 Peer Gynt Suite

The script of the 1875 play by Henrik Ibsen - adult difficulty!

---

The Nutcracker Suite

A Christmas Story
Read the story and listen to the music.

---

Hansel and Gretel

The story by the Brothers Grimm

  

Hansel & Gretel

See the pictures of this opera production

.

The Annotated Hansel and Gretel

A detailed look that parents might find interesting

Opera in Focus
the story the way the opera tells it

Grimm Brothers@National Geographic.com

About the Brothers Grimm

Ongoing Tales: Hansel & Gretel

  Peter and the Wolf

Peter and the Wolf

A text and music version is included.

This site was made by kids in Florida!

Click on "Visit Site."

Peter and the Wolf

The music plays and a reader reads the story that you see. A good site for you to use at home.

 

Peter and the Wolf
A Software Review

Sergei Prokofiev

Great pictures of the composer

 

Peter and the Wolf
by Phil Tulga at his amazing site

 

---

Grote Smurf 's Site

The program music site of Grote Smurf is amazing. It is in Dutch, although sometimes there is an English option. Worth exploring. It includes:

Carnival of the Animals

A really neat site. Click on the name of the animal and hear the music by Camille Saint-Saens.

Oops - only one thing..........

The names are in Dutch! Try it anyway.

---

You can also check out

Dance Macabre

Click on the links to hear the sounds that go with the words of the poem.

Click here to follow along while it plays (click on the blue picture to get started).

---

Pictures At An Exhibition
Go for a walk through the exhibition hall.

---

The Seasons
Listen to the music while you watch paintings showing each season.

---

Flight of the Bumblebees

---

Performers 

Meet the Musicians at New York Philharmonic

Meet the conductor and soloists at New York Philharmonic

Meet the conductor and musicians of the National Arts Center Orchestra (Canada)
Read performer biographies, see performers demonstrate their instruments, watch or read the transcript of an interview with the performers. Read composer interviews. Excellent! From ArtsAlive.ca.

Jazz

Baby Loves Music which includes a link to
Baby Loves Jazz
Real jazz for real little people, even toddlers. See the video music lessons for snippets of animated examples of piano, bari sax, trumpet, keyboard, bass plus two great little videos of "Wheels On the Bus" and "If You're Happy And You Know It."
Go Baby Go - a jazz CD for little people and the books in the Baby Loves Jazz series, including Ella Elephant Scats Like That (board book with CD), are available through bookstores.

PBS Kids - JAZZ
A fabulous site for kids to explore! Meet the composers, the players, go through the history of jazz using a timeline, compare jazz styles, more.

Jazz History (for parents and educators)
Descriptions of 14 types of jazz music. Thorough!

Recorders 

Sites with music to accompany you as you play your recorder.

"Rockin' Recorder" - fun

 

Recorder Player - good stuff

 

Recorder Dojo - play songs at home. Ask your music teacher for the password.

 

Recorder Play Alongs from Broken Ground Music Page

 

You Are Going To Learn To Play The Recorder - great if you're new to recorder at a new school - by Linda Barnhart

Play Along Accompaniments
From Ed Sueta and Macie Publishing - 3 songs to play along with

 

Interactive Introduction to Recorder BAG only - Lynn Hadfield

 

Recorder Time! - Diane Whitney (Tallahassee, Florida)
Accompaniments to several classroom recorder tunes. Some scores available.

 

Chatham Park (Elementary - Pennsylvania) Recorder Page by teacher Ken Peters. Easy to read scores, good accompaniments for beginning and advanced beginning players.

 

Recorder for Beginners - a British company provides accompaniments online - you need to buy the scores, however. Could be very nice for working at home.

 

Sheet Music For Alto Recorder
Great site even for beginning alto recorder players which includes score and accompaniment

 

Free Recorder Music
Click on "Play" to hear the music. These scores are for advanced
players.

Play recorder along with Schubert, Vivaldi and Mozart
From ArtsAlive.ca

---

Interactive Recorder Fingering Chart from MusicK8Kids.com
See and hear notes for the recorder (flash player required)

Interactive Recorder Note Finder (for soprano and tenor recorders)
Forget how to play an "F" or a high "D"?? This site shows you.

Want to know the fingering for sopranino, alto and bass recorders? Click here.

 

 

 

 Instruments

The Instrument Lab - from ArtsAlive.ca
Learn about the orchestra; then learn about the instruments in the orchestra.

Audio and video of instruments being played. Outstanding site.

 

All about Steel Drums

Wow! Everything you want to know about steel drums.
You can even learn how to make your own pan.

 

Musical Dictionary   from Classicsforkids.com
See pictures and hear examples of instruments. Excellent.

Learn About Instruments

 

Instrument "Hangman"

Play a game. Do you know the instruments?

 

Instrument Storage Room
at the New York Philharmonic

 

Instrument Encyclopedia
Some very interesting musical instruments!

Music Instruments

Learn about each one!

 

Musical Instruments

A site by students about 12 years old

 

Early Music Instruments (some still used today)
Includes pictures and a sound clip

 

120 Years of Electronic Instruments
Starts with the Musical Telegraph (1876) of Elisha Gray, who got to the patent office with his telephone patent one hour later than Alexander Graham Bell.

Internet Piano

Music Magic:cfinger.html

A Piano Exploration

Guitar Tuner
Use this little applet to tune your guitar

Orchestras

Dallas Symphony Orchestra - kids page

Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra - kids page - for young people's concert information

New York Philharmonic Orchestra - kids page - wonderful site

San Francisco Symphony Orchestra - kids page

BBC Orchestra Guide - a really good site which even includes sections for electronic instruments and the conductor

Other Ensembles

Plastikmusic - this ensemble plays only plastic instruments. boomwhacker.  Click here for a video of Mozart's Turkish March, a rondo played on boomwhackers.

 Science, Math and Music

The Soundry

Wonderful sight actually shows the doppler effect.

Find out how to make your own very wierd sounds.

 

The Science of Sound
This is a series of experiments about sound and its application to animals, musical instruments and communications.

 

The Sound Site - hands on activities

Clear descriptions of activities you can do at home such as making a model ear drum, making amodel vocal cords, making other instruments......

 

How Hearing Works

Noise Induced Hearing Loss, provided by Music In Motion  REQUIRED READING FOR PARENTS

Philharmonic Physics

Learn about what sound waves look like. Try the simple "wave" experiments.  

 

Virtual Piano
As you play, you'll see and hear the wave forms!

 

The Musical Scientist

 

Playing Fraction Pies - Phil Tulga site

 

Music Activities and Classroom Integration (math, science, language arts, homemade instruments)

Progressive and excellent site by Phil Tulga. Definitely take a look.

 History- Social Studies and Music

America the Beautiful
Wonderful inspiring words about our National Song

From Sea to Shining Sea

The Story of America the Beautiful

 

Star Spangled Banner - Library of Congress

 

Star Spangled Banner - Smithsonian Institute

 

The Story of the Star Spangled Banner

 

Fort McHenry - The National Anthem

 

Star Spangled Banner Flag House

 

An Interesting Short Story of the SSB

 

Ben Franklin invents an instrument, the glass armonica

 

Newstand
at New York Philarmonic - click on a newspaper 

 

50 U.S. States Songs
Words, scores, midi

 

This Day in Music History

 

The Civil War Music Site

 

Echoes of Africa
An excellent site about music from Africa that has pictures, sound clips, and links to other pages.

 

Music History at the Smithsonian

 

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum

 

Popular Songs In American History

Great site with lyrics and midi tunes starting with the 17th century

 

All Aboard The Musical Train
Join "Beary Tone" on a tour of music from the 1920’s to the 1970’s. Several artists from each decade are highlighted.

 

From www.tinfoil.com:

Early Recorded Sounds and Wax Cylinders

Interesting tour through the earliest music recordings. Many photos of early equipment.

Cylinder of the Month

About 150 recordings from 2-minute wax cylinders from the late 1800's and early 1900's

 Lessons

Learn Piano Online
Probably the very best site for beginning piano for children - the one always recommended by me. Real good for adults too.

Free Piano Lessons
Good for older learners.

Ear Trainer
Here are some sites where you can get ear training- "tune up your ear"

Music Theory.Net
Wow! You can learn a lot here!  Advanced.

Keyboard Trainer
Practice naming the keys of the keyboard. Be sure to turn off the black keys options or it gets very difficult!

 

Note Trainer
Practice naming the treble clef pitches.Other options include bass, alto and tenor clefs.

 Music Notes
This site by three teenagers is a great resource for getting information on music history, styles, professions, instruments and more.

 Music to hear online

Listen to a very large selection of classics
This site is an absolute treasure! Part of Classicsforkids.com

Listen to Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Vivaldi - From ArtsAlive.ca
Mozart: Symphony #29, A Major
Schubert: Symphony #3, D Major
Vivaldi: The Four Seasons
Beethoven: Symphony #1, C Major, Opus 21

Twelve Brass A-Tooning
The Clarion Brass Choir comprised of twelve brass players and a percussionist orchestra. This animated video features Christmas and holiday tunes.

Hetzler's Fakebook
551 American Old Time, Celtic and Klezmer fiddle tunes in MIDI format. A real find.

Camp Songs and Sing-Alongs Quiz

Try to get a perfect score and then sing the songs!

 

Sing Along MIDIS and Lyrics

A really large collection of songs to sing along with:

Children's
Patriotic
Favorites
Movies/Musicals
Holidays/Sounds including links to animal/bird sound pages and holiday fun

 

Plank Road Music K-8 songs that you just love - Free

free mp3 downloads

 

Music K-8 songs to download - .99 each

This site requires parent involvement; fintended for student's listening pleasure at home. Buying this download does not contain rights for classroom or performance use.

 

Kiddiddles Songs for learning

 

Jazz Portal from Smithsonian

Check out: Live It, Learn It, Love It

WDAV 89.9 Music Listening Journal is designed to give children an immediate connection with classical music. Highly recommended - parents and teachers will find this VALUABLE. From Davidson, North Carolina

 For Fun

Singing Horses
What can you learn about harmony, ostinato...?
A student (and music teacher) favorite!

Piggy's Music Lessons! from Plank Road (MusicK8Kids.com)
Choose from "High/Low,"
" What's That Note?,"
" Copy Pig," and
" Note Names."

Instrument Hangman

 

Music Hangman

 

FunBrain Music Games

 

Beethoven's Baseball

Instrument Sound Match

Guitropolis Squares

Musical Style Scramble

Music Terms Scramble

NYPhil. Game Room

Name That Tune

 

Kazounds

A music memory game, like Simon

 

Music Match 'Em - for younger players.

 

Rockin' Rhythm Master
Can you copy the rhythms?

Note Name Game- cute!
Make words from note pitches

Music Things You Can Do At Home

 

Kindermusik for Kids
Two music games for young children

 

DragonTales Music Activities

Music Machine
Dragon Songs
Share A Song

 

 

Music Activities and Games for Home or School

 

Brainteasers
Palindromes, rebuses, puzzles and more!

 

Jokes and More Jokes and some Trivia

 Extras!

Sense-ational Concert Behavior

Everything you wanted to know about concert etiquette. Get your parents to read this, too.

 

Jazz

Free staff paper

Finale Notepad - free download lets you write down your own music at home

Send a musical postcard (email)

Music K-8 Home page..... games, links, mp3 freebies (very honorable site for kids)

Music downloads for kids from Music K-8 kids
.99 per download - some of your favorite songs! You need parental involvement for the paid downloads.
(Includes American Tears, In This World Together, All Jazzed Up, Freeze, I Will Dare, Rockhopper, Heart of America, It's My Book, Turkey Woogie, Light The Candles, Viva Valentine and loads more)

Disaster Planning for Children - from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), National Institutes of Health, Department of Health & Human Services.
This is serious information that could make a big difference in the lives of all of us should we experience a disaster such as another Hurricane Katrina or a pandemic flu outbreak. Excellent information.