Tear and Take Composer Posters To Teach Music History

I was never able to devote as much time as I would like to music history.

With 30-minute lessons, something had to give. And I knew parents were expecting progress more than a social studies class.

But I couldn’t, in good conscience, raise piano players who would not know Bach from Beethoven.

So, I sought out teaching tools to share little composer tidbits without stealing lesson time.

The activity we’re sharing today checks both of these boxes.

Our Tear And Take Composer Poster is a homework task that requires less than one minute of lesson time.

How To Use The Tear And Take Composer Poster

Outside of your local grocery store or coffee shop, there is likely a bulletin board where people advertise services.

Pinned to those boards will be a poster with little strips of paper at the bottom that can be torn off. Usually, the little strips of paper contain a phone number so you can contact the advertiser to get your lawn mowed or your hair cut or your dog walked.

Today’s activity is based on these posters.

The poster at the bottom of today’s post has those same little strips of paper, each bearing the name of a classical composer.

To begin with this activity, print out the poster, cut along the dashed lines beside the composer names, and then hang it in your studio.

Next, when a student walks out your studio door, ask them to tear one composer’s name from the poster and then research that composer during the week ahead.

To narrow their research, ask your student to complete one of the following tasks:

Watch an animated video on YouTube about the composer’s life by searching the composer’s name and the term “for kids”.
Research where the composer was born, print out a map, and label his or her birthplace on the map. Tell me one interesting thing about this place.
Listen to a piece of music by this composer and draw a picture of what you imagine while you listen.
Research other composers your chosen composer may have known and write a funny text message conversation they may have sent to each other if they were alive today.
Create a word art picture using the title of one of your composer’s most well-known pieces.
Find a funny joke or pun using this composer’s name and tell it to me at our next lesson.
Find a PDF of a piece of music by this composer. Print it out and highlight three musical markings or notes you don’t yet know. We’ll discuss them in your next lesson.
Draw a picture of your chosen composer and write words to describe his or her music in an artistic way around your drawing.
What instrument(s) did your composer play? Make a collage using pictures of the instrument from the internet.
Find three interesting or funny facts about your composer. Write them down to share with me in your next lesson.

Download today’s Tear and Take Composer printable at the bottom of the post, but first…

Are Your Shelves Stocked With Supplementary Music?

Variety is the spice of life. This is true for piano lessons too. If your students spend every single musical minute in a method book their progress will slow and their motivation will wane.

Supplementary repertoire should be a part of every studio library. In addition to a method book, students should be working on supplementary music.

And if you’re looking for exciting supplementary music, check out Andrea and Trevor Dow’s Very Useful Piano Library.

The piano books in this library contain delightful stories, hilarious lyrics, pedagogically perfect piano pieces, timed note reading tests, sight reading activities, theory coloring pages, and rhythm work.

You can check out the entire library here or view a sampling of the books by clicking on a cover below.