I like to think that I teach pretty well-rounded piano lessons. In any given week my students will have run the gamut of musical experiences from technical work to repertoire to ear training to composing to piano games.
But there is one area where I drop the ball…. music history.
So, to be honest, today’s post is a “two birds with one stone” kind of article. I get to share another great piano printable with all of you, and, in creating this printable, I also get to alleviate a little “music history guilt” by using it with my own students!
Does music history play second fiddle in your studio as well? Read on…
Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh …. and Bach! Composer Trading Cards
Today’s activity plays on the passion children have for trading cards. While in my day it used to be all about baseball and hockey, the trading card frenzy now includes Pokemon, Yu-Gi-OH! and Magic The Gathering (oh the things you learn when you work entirely with kids!)
Now let’s add one more category to the list… Composer Trading Cards!
Starting today, every few weeks, Trevor and I will send you a new pack of Composer Trading Cards. The pack will include nine printable cards with an image of a composer (selected form various musical eras) and a blank statistics page on the back.
These cards are meant to serve as a jumping-off-point into music history exploration. Simply send one card home with your students and have them do a little research to complete the statistics page on the back.
When your students return the following week, you can review what they discovered about the composer, preview some of his or her music and even share some more interesting facts about the composer with your students.
I am going to purchase some plastic trading card folders that my students can clip into their lesson binders and use to keep track of their growing composer collection. If you are planning on doing the same, know that we will be creating card packs based on era – so my folders will be set up to include a “Baroque Collection”, a “Classical Collection”, a “Romantic Collection” and a “20th Century Collection”. I’m going to get my kiddos excited about adding cards to each collection until they have a full page of each!… because who doesn’t love collecting?!
You can download the Bach Composer Pack here.
We suggest sending these to a print shop like Staples for printing on glossy card stock so they look and feel just like trading cards 🙂 Hope you and your students have a blast!
Looking for More Piano Printables To Use This Week?
Here are three recent printables that Teach Piano Today readers have been implementing with great success in their studios:
Each Piano Piece Should Begin With This Printable
Use These 6 Printable Photo Props To Recognize Student Achievement and Grow Your Studio
Fun with Practice Pegs… A “Too Cute” Piano Practice Motivator
I love the composer trading cards! What age do you think is too old to want to collect these?
Hi Denise – you’d be surprised! I’m planning on my “up to 13’s”. I think it’s all in how you present it. With my older students we’re also going to get more into guided listening/pairing with a piece to play. With a bit of adjustments you should be able to do from age 6-13 (at least)!
Such a great idea! Thank you so much for this, I’m doing a music history theme in May so these will be perfect to add a bit more fun in!
Hi Sarah! Would love to hear more about your Music History theme! Sounds great 🙂
Sarah Latham, I want to hear more about your Music History Month, too! I’m always seeking new ideas and I would love to mimic your lesson plans for this.
Andrea and Trevor, you never cease to amaze me! Thank you for this wonderful resource! Can’t wait to get the cards printed and handed out! 🙂
Thanks — this is something I would like to do more with. I love using this book with my own kids and students, too, to learn more about some of the “big name” composers — http://amzn.to/1omo7K9
Oh PERFECT! It distresses me so much that music history has become a dinosaur in education, let alone exposure to classical music. it was in my mind to bring it to my students, but I hadn’t exactly Made A Plan yet about how to do that…..This will be a great platform to spring from – in your usual fun way! Thanks again!
Hi Judy – I know exactly what you mean. Maybe it was because my own childhood was rich in music and it was just assumed that I would know these “names”… but I definitely notice big a difference in the kids I teach now. And… I haul my own children to the symphony every 4 weeks to make sure it’s not happening in my own family! 😉 )
Thank you so much! More composer cards coming; excellent! Thanks for all that you do!
Hi Amy – Yes! We have the fabulous artist working on a huge collection of portraits so it should be lots of fun 🙂 I’m stoked about feeling as though I’m actively teaching music history (without it taking up reams of lesson time!)
this is awesome I love it!!! Have you ever done a book or line of books to get kids excited about playing classical music??? like maybe fun stories to go along with each simplified classical piece or a book like my teacher thinks she’s a ninja only using simplified classical pieces?? You guys are awesome!!
You read our mind Cheri 😉 Hopefully an upcoming book, yes!
I adore music history and try to incorporate it into lessons whenever it comes up-like talking about the composer a piece is based on or taken from. Just little interesting stories about them, or what has “been said” but not confirmed (because those can be silly and kids love silly). We also talk about stylistic ideas based on the time periods and what other composers lived at the same time. I also try to connect it to country history. For instance, as a kid, I knew Mozart lived in the late 1700s, and that the Declaration of Independence came about in 1776, but I NEVER connected the two as being in the same time period. As far as I was concerned, 1776 in Vienna and 1776 in America could have been separate universes! I think I would have learned conventional history easier if I had also had something I was personally interested in connected so I could realize that it was happening concurrently. All that aside, I LOVE your composer collector cards!! It’s one thing to talk about it in lessons as it comes up, but it’s another thing ENTIRELY to have something physical to give your students and have them take an active role in learning things and then have something to keep and reference. I think I’m going to wait until more sets have come out to start incorporating them, though, because I teach a couple sets of siblings (3 from one family and 3 from another) and I think it would be exceptionally fun if the siblings did NOT get the same card at the same time. Thank you so much!!
I so agree with you Melinda – sometimes those “has been said” stories are what make kids really connect with the composer’s story (and for that I say… “go for it!”) Another really cool thing I’ve done is bring visual art into the lesson too to connect time period in music with time period in art. It’s all connected and the kids seem to enjoy pointing out the similarities in mood. With the internet you can grab a picture of absolutely any piece of artwork… isn’t it amazing what we have access to now?!
Thank you!! You guys are the best!
You’re so sweet Julie! Thanks for reading our blog 🙂
Thank you so much for another AWESOME idea to use with my students. I LOVE YOUR TEACHING TOOLS AND SO DO MY STUDENTS!! I also try to incorporate music history into my private and group lessons and my elementary and MS students will love these composer cards. Keep them coming!
Hi JoLynn! Thanks for your kind words 🙂 We will definitely keep them coming!
Thanks so much for all you share! I am using the Comic Book Method with two boys and they LOVE it!!
Hi Kathy! So happy to hear The Adventures of Fearless Fortissimo is a big hit! 🙂
One of my favorite books about composers for kids is “Bigwigs of Classical Music” by Ben Lansing! It is fun, to the point, and has great info written with humor! I have used it along with a coloring book of musical composers I bought on amazon. Several of my students are boy scouts that had to do some kind of music appreciation merit badge or something… so I let their scout leader borrow my “Bigwigs” book, gave them some blank playing cards, and let them come up with their own composer’s game! It was a hit!! Though, I think the idea of having preprinted cards ready with fill-in-the-blanks on the back would have made it easier for them! 😉 Thanks for sharing!!!
Thanks for sharing the book Karri – I’ll have to pick it up!
As always, you guys are fantastic !! Love the graphics and students are going to gravitate learning more music history. Cannot wait for others !!
Andrea, How fast can you have about 6 more composers done? 🙂 I have a group lesson March 5th and just got this GREAT idea!
Partner students up in groups of 2. Give each pair a composer card sheet. So one pair gets all the Beethoven cards, one pair gets all the Mozart cards, etc. Instruct all kids who own tablets (Kindles, iPads, etc.) to BRING them to the group lesson. Give each pair of kids a device, and a composer card sheet. They have 10-15 minutes to work together and look up information on their composer, and fill out ALL the blank card backs on their composer (they fill out all their cards exactly the same after doing the research). So each pair of students researches ONE composer and fills out all cards the same. They also find their favorite song by the composer to share with group.
Give all students an empty trading card collecting plastic folder. When all groups are done researching and collaborating, and filling out their composer cards, give kids a 5-10 minute “mingle time” where they intersperse and TRADE cards with other groups. As they trade cards, they must share their favorite fact about the composer they researched. At the end, all students have a plastic card folder filled with composer cards.
End the activity by having kids share a 1-minute clip of a song by their composer.
Group Lesson Plan:
5-10 minutes: Introduce activity, pass out supplies, partner up kids
10-15 minutes: Kids do research in pairs and fill out composer cards
5-10 minutes: Kids mingle and “trade” cards
10 minutes: Listen to 1-minute clips of songs and recap activity
Students now have a plastic card collecting sheet with composers to stick in their piano binders. You may continue adding cards throughout the year as an activity once a month or so during lesson time (great for when a student didn’t practice!)
This is a very cool idea Jolene! The only hitch is that I know we won’t have 6 released by March 5th as you would require. However, you could adapt it on your own maybe to make it work? We promise to keep them coming, just likely not that rapidly 🙂
I will just keep following you and keep it in mind for a future group lesson, then! 🙂 I LOVE love love the idea.
Excellent Idea!!!
I would love to incorporate that into my summer music camp … with your permission, Jolene 🙂 and your awesome resources, Andrea!!!
Thank you ladies
WOW! And the hits keep coming from TPT! LOVE these, Andrea! I do an in-depth composer study at each group lesson (which I do 3 x’s a year). We just studied Bach. And, as we all know, repetition is the way to learn. So these cards have found a very appreciative home! I love this artist’s work – so friendly and compelling – please pass along my compliments! I’m off to Office Depot to pick up these up! What marvelous timing you seem to always have and I can’t wait for the rest of the composers!
Hi Mae – I just love it when the timing is exactly right for a teacher 🙂 So happy we went with Bach first! And yes, we love our artist very much – she does most of or PianoGameClub.com illustrations for us as well and she’s so amazing. She’s hard at work on the other Composer cards! 🙂
I love this idea and I’m thrilled. Yesterday I was teaching a group lesson with four students and someone pointed to the bust of Bach that is on top of my game cabinet and I had so much fun sharing with them that he had 18 kids and his older sons referred to him as “the old wig,” but now we know he was the true musical genius of the family and amazing with improv. My students were fascinated and one wanted to know if Bach and Beethover were friends. It was great fun. They will love these cards and this is so timely! My students collect the scales and chords cards you produced and keep them in their business card folders and they enjoy collecting those as well. Thank you! You and Trevor are amazing….
FYI: I have three very talented boys who are going to want a card of you and Trevor and your bios. They love The Adventures of Fearless Fortissimo!
It was funny enough for me to have my cartoon drawn for the Improv Alister PianoBookClub book this month Jan 😉 Thrilled they’re loving Fortissimo!
DING! DING! DING!
ANOTHER WINNER!.
Thank you two sooo much for helping so many of us make music FUN!
Glad to hear it Jahn! 🙂
This is a great idea–thank you!!!
Great idea – thanks! Please include female composers where you can – they do exist but often get forgotten. Most of my own students are girls and they need to see themselves represented if they are to assume they can be just as great.
There were some interesting facts posted on the 2nd composer (Beethoven) any chance you could give us some fun facts on Bach?
Hi Sigrid – there is SO much online about Bach – we’ve found that googling “interesting facts ___” and inserting the composer name brings up more than you could imagine 🙂 My students found this really fun to do and came back with facts I didn’t know at all which was great!