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. 

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