Sunday, February 13, 2022

Lessons About the Instruments in Symphony Orchestras

Last week I was chatting with a friend and he told me about one of his daughters learning to play some music from Phantom of the Opera. That took me back to my own middle school days when I played tuba in the band and we played some music from Phantom of the Opera. All of that, of course, got me thinking about some resources I've previously shared about symphonies. Here they are along with a couple of updated resources. 

How Brass Instruments Work is a TED-Ed lesson that provides an overview of how sound is produced and changed through trumpets, trombones, and tubas. The lesson within the video is rather basic but it does do a nice job of clearly conveying how a musician makes music on a brass instrument.


The San Francisco Symphony Orchestra offers quite a few resources for helping students learn about symphony orchestras. Here you'll find PDFs and videos about the instruments of the symphony. The videos feature members of the orchestra playing their instruments. Here you'll find a collection of downloadable lesson plans for teaching about symphonies. 

The Secrets of the World's Most Famous Symphony is a TED-Ed lesson all about Beethoven's Symphony Number Five and what it made it unique and captivating. It also touches on what made Beethoven different from other composers of his time. 

Join Me on Tuesday for Search Strategies for History Students and Teachers

This Tuesday at 4pm ET I'm hosting a Practical Ed Tech webinar titled Search Strategies for History Students and Teachers. If a student has ever said to you, “I can’t find anything about this,” this webinar is for you!

In this one hour webinar I’ll share the strategies and techniques that I’ve used with my own students to help them get beyond the first few pages of Google search results and dive deep into the research process. Learn more about it in the following video.



Key points of the webinar include:
  • How to craft interesting search lessons.
  • Getting students beyond the first page of search results.
  • Alternative search engines for history students.
  • Accessing and utilizing local, state, provincial and national archives.
  • Guiding students through source evaluation.
Free eBook!
Everyone who registers for the webinar will get a copy of my eBook, Search Strategies for History Students and Teachers.

Live and recorded access!
This will be hosted live at 4pm ET on February 15th! It will also be recorded for everyone who registers in advance.


No, this webinar isn't free but the tools featured and techniques within it are free to use. Purchases of this webinar make it possible for me to create other free resources like The Practical Ed Tech Handbook that I update and give away to thousands of teachers every year.

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