If your students have been collecting our Composer Trading Cards then you’ll know the amazing boost of music history motivation they provide. Piano students everywhere have been eagerly researching Bach, Mozart, Clara Schumann, Scott Joplin, Rachmaninoff and more (we’ve now shared 14 different cards!)
Learning about composers helps your piano students to become more connected to their music, to understand the influences that shaped each composer’s approach and to feel inspired to seek out more information and more music!
Today we’re sharing two sets of Composer Trading Cards (Hayden and Saint-Saëns) PLUS a fun printable you can use to keep your students building their well-rounded musical foundations.
More Composer Cards Plus A “Mystery Composer”
If you haven’t yet used our Composer Trading Cards you may be wondering what they are all about! These cards are the baseball card equivalent of the music world. Each card has an image of a composer on the front and several research-prompting questions on the back.
Your students will have a blast collecting the cards, discovering the answers to the questions on the back (with help from a parent), and discussing their findings with you at their next lessons.
Today’s new set includes F. J. Hayden and Camille Saint-Saëns. See download instructions below for our new set, plus the previous cards we have released.
And wait… there’s more! Today, we’re also sharing a “Mystery Composer” printable that you can use to continue to ramp up the music history fun!
The Mystery Composer Cards
Our Mystery Composer Cards are blank cards that will inspire your students to create their own composer research project. To do this your students will:
- Choose a composer they are interested to learn about (or the composer of their current piece)
- Draw an image of the composer on the front of the card.
- Research the composer and fill in the information on the back
Where To Find Today’s Printable?
You can find our two new composers (plus the mystery set) in the Growing With WunderKeys Toolkit. Click here and then select the “Music History” tab. Clicking on each image will lead you to the set of cards that you can print double-sided (I recommend sending to a print shop and requesting that they be printed on glossy card stock for a “real card” feel).
We’d love to know – which Composer Trading Cards are you waiting for? Who would you like to see on an upcoming trading card?
Lisa B. says
Thank you! Another great set! 🙂 I would love to see some jazz/blues and big band composers.
Andrea says
Thanks Lisa! We’ll keep this in mind – we’ve focussed on piano for the first bit but we’d like to branch out to other genres too!
Barbara Towler says
Great idea! How about some jazz pianists? Dave Brubeck, Duke Ellington, etc.
Rebecca says
We are anxiously waiting for Brahms, so we can have the “three B’s”! I have a student who has left a spot open in her sleeve for Brahms, right next to Bach and Beethoven! Thank you.
Andrea says
Noted! Thanks Rebecca 🙂
Kitty says
More African American composers. Here’s a great resource. http://aacinitiative.org/composers/
Emily says
20th and 21st century composers would be awesome! My students love these cards.
Jeanette Berntson says
Robert Schumann, to go with Clara 🙂
Linda Kirkconnell says
Any of the following would rock my world!: Edvard Grieg, Brahms, Robert Schuman, Paul Dukas, Dvorak, Handel, Jacques Offenbach, Schubert, Schumann, Strauss, antonio vivaldi, Richard Wagner, Emile Waldteufel, Giuseppe Verdi. Students are all playing classical music/studying composers exclusively this term. Loving the composer cards! Thank you.
Macy Fox says
Brahms!! I had my students all make their own card last year because we really wanted to cover him. The pictures were hilarious.
And Liszt :O Gotta have Liszt! 😀
Andrea says
Hi Macy! We have Liszt 🙂 You can find his card here: https://wunderkeys.com/2017/09/06/composer-card-set-4-ages/
Sandra Gazetos-Sheikh says
My students just LOVE collecting these cards! I would love to see more of these cards, please.
Any composers would be great how about: Handel, Vivaldi, Pachabel
Contemporary Composers: John Williams, Hans Zimmer etc.
Broadway Composers: Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Rogers and Hammerstein etc.
So many to choose from…I love the idea of just exposing them to a composer and possibly new music.