I CAN Statements - Download these copies onto your desktop. The I CAN statements are aligned to the Wisconsin Standards for Music and allow for edits within the document to create classroom, student friendly posters. There are slight variations between the grade bands for formatting to show multiple versions. Feel free to adjust the format to support your classroom.

Maker Faire participants collaborate in ISKME's Design Lab, using digital stories and salvaged materials to design an innovative school of the future. The Design Lab features Makers Mauro ffortisimo Di Nucci's deconstructed piano and INKA Biospheric Systems' Vertical Garden; as well as Student and Teacher project examples that integrate art, science, sustainability, and green design inspire the creation of shareable open-source learning resources. This wiki page showcases photos and video from the Design Lab, open educational resources for teachers, and a step by step guide through the design process.

This is a worksheet that can be used in a lesson that is meant to connect students between major and realitive (in the same key) minor scales.  This lesson would be appropriate for students in a middle school instrumental setting.  Students in this lesson will first be asked to associate feelings (happy) with a major scale and then spell the major scale on their instrument of choice.  Next, students will learn about the different forms of the relative minor scale (natural, harmonic, melodic), and how it relates to the major scale.  Students will then associate feelings to the different forms of minor scale (sadness, mysteriousness).  By the end of the lesson, students should know that any natural scale can be made by lowering the 3rd, 6th, and 7th degree of a scale, a harmonic scale can be made by lowering the 3rd and 6th step of a scale, and a melodic minor scale can be made by lowering the 7th step of a scale on the way up, and the 3rd, 6th, and 7th step of the scale on the way down. 

Through a progressive series of composition projects, students investigate the sonic organization of musical works and performances, focusing on fundamental questions of unity and variety. Aesthetic issues are considered in the pragmatic context of the instructions that composers provide to achieve a desired musical result, whether these instructions are notated in prose, as graphic images, or in symbolic notation. No formal training is required. Weekly listening, reading, and composition assignments draw on a broad range of musical styles and intellectual traditions, from various cultures and historical periods.

This subject investigates the special relation of women to several musical folk traditions in the British Isles and North America. Throughout, we will be examining the implications of gender in the creation, transmission, and performance of music. Because virtually all societies operate to some extent on a gendered division of labor (and of expressive roles) the music of these societies is marked by the gendering of musical repertoires, traditions of instrumentation, performance settings, and styles. This seminar will examine the gendered dimensions of the music -- the song texts, the performance styles, processes of dissemination (collection, literary representation) and issues of historiography -- with respect to selected traditions within the folk musics of North America and the British Isles, with the aim of analyzing the special contributions of women to these traditions. In addition to telling stories about women's musical lives, and studying elements of female identity and subjectivity in song texts and music, we will investigate the ways in which women's work and women's cultural roles have affected the folk traditions of these several countries.

This resource offers ongoing professional development, resources, and further programming around the converging fields of arts education and special education. Includes reseources for educators and parents, webinars, professional papers and an extensive bibliography of journal articles on arts education and special education.

Kellen Abston, known on stage and to his listeners as “Klassik,” was born and raised in Milwaukee. He honors the family members and mentors who have guided him as he channels his creativity into making electro-soul-infused hip-hop music that takes the pulse of his life in the city.

This resource is part of Re/sound: Songs of Wisconsin; a collection of educational media resources from PBS Wisconsin Education and Wisconsin School Music Association. These resources can be used to explore connections between music, identities, cultures, and emotions. The collection includes video interviews with Wisconsin musicians, performances, audio files, and educator guides designed to help activate the media with learners in grades 4-8.

Getting his start at an early age, this music industry innovator from Waukesha made some serious sound waves with his inventions.

Resources available for exploring this story include:
- A short animated video with captions and transcripts in English and Spanish
- A short biography book accessible as a slide deck, with per-page audio for listening along, and maps of key locations in the story
- Questions that can be used for conversation, reflection, and connection with the story
- A historical image gallery full of primary and secondary sources to explore
- A guide for activating the media with learners that includes story stats, extension activity ideas, and standards supported

This story is part of Wisconsin Biographies, a collection of educational media resources for grades 3-6. Explore the full collection at pbswisconsineducation.org/biographies.

This video segment from Between the Lions features a catchy song that celebrates an important function of literacy: access to information. It also shows the wide world of print, and all of the knowledge that can be gained from it.

Maa Vue is a singer/songwriter based in the Wausau area of Wisconsin who creates music in the Hmong language. In her journey as a musician, she draws from her emotions while celebrating her culture and challenging expectations.

This resource is part of Re/sound: Songs of Wisconsin; a collection of educational media resources from PBS Wisconsin Education and Wisconsin School Music Association. These resources can be used to explore connections between music, identities, cultures, and emotions. The collection includes video interviews with Wisconsin musicians, performances, audio files, and educator guides designed to help activate the media with learners in grades 4-8.

In this lesson, students learn about sound. Girls and boys are introduced to the concept of frequency and how it applies to musical sounds.

Marcya Daneille is a jazz vocalist based in Milwaukee. Her music, which she describes as “classically-trained, jazz-influenced, and soul-inspired” is infused with improvisation.

This resource is part of Re/sound: Songs of Wisconsin; a collection of educational media resources from PBS Wisconsin Education and Wisconsin School Music Association. These resources can be used to explore connections between music, identities, cultures, and emotions. The collection includes video interviews with Wisconsin musicians, performances, audio files, and educator guides designed to help activate the media with learners in grades 4-8.

Mariachi Monarcas de Milwaukee adds their own flair to traditional mariachi songs that evoke emotions and pride in Mexican culture, and connect people across time and place.

This resource is part of Re/sound: Songs of Wisconsin; a collection of educational media resources from PBS Wisconsin Education and Wisconsin School Music Association. These resources can be used to explore connections between music, identities, cultures, and emotions. The collection includes video interviews with Wisconsin musicians, performances, audio files, and educator guides designed to help activate the media with learners in grades 4-8.

Invite students to share and discuss a song of their choice with lyrics that contain a social, political or cultural message relevant to a contemporary social justice issue. Students will lead their peers through a close reading and discussion of the song’s lyrics, and create a written analysis of the song, its lyrics, and its message. To help anchor their analysis, teachers may use the Critical Literacy Text-Dependent Question Stems template in the lesson. Students can organize their writing along the eight areas, while choosing from the list of prompts in each area. (Note: Teacher discretion will be necessary for handling lyrics that use explicit language.) Use the suggested activity and strategies below to empower students to lead the lesson with their peers as the students.

Welcome to Music 101.  I think you’ve made a smart choice to spend some weeks studying some of the greatest music ever written.  Consider for a moment how quickly a hit pop song passes from fashionable to forgotten.  Those of us that have been out of high school or college more years than we care to remember have certainly had the experience of hearing a favorite anthem of our youth and thinking, “Oh yeah, that song!  I’d forgotten that one.”  Think about that: the song was totally loved, then completely forgotten within a matter of just a few years.  Then consider that many of the composers that we will study have been dead for over two hundred years, and yet their music has never been forgotten and never stopped being performed and loved.  That, quite simply, is amazing.

This course is an exposition of the philosophy, principles, and materials of music from the Baroque Period to contemporary period with illustrative examples from the Baroque Period, Classical Period, Romantic Period, Contemporary Classical Music and Popular Music. The course is designed to give the student an appreciation of music by exposing them to many musical styles, composers, historical trends, as well as increasing their aural, verbal and writing skills in describing music.

Introduction to works representative of a variety of music traditions. These include the repertoires of Western Europe from the Middle Ages through the present; of the United States, including art music, jazz, folk, rock, musical theater; and from at least two non-Western world areas.

In this episode of NJEA’s Classroom Close-up, Fort Lee’s School No. 1 is using music to extend concentration among general and special education students in kindergarten through second grade. In addition, working one-on-one using dials to analyze a student’s response to various genres of music, educators are studying the impact the music has on a student’s ability to focus, which will help to improve and enhance student learning.

Students are introduced to the concept of the image of music. After listening to a song, they draw images of it by deciding where different musical instruments were placed during recording. They further investigate audio engineering by modeling the position of microphones over a drum set to create a desired musical image.