Supplies Needed:

1. Computer with speakers

2. Musical instrument (I used a violin, but a piano or anything else will work too)

3. Copies of the solfege sheets (click this link to download)

4. Copies of sheet music for the pieces you will be playing (click this link to download)

 

Playing The Sound of Music

Tell them that you are going to play a song that will tell them what today’s lesson is about, but do not tell them what the lesson is about.  Play “Do Re Mi” from The Sound of Music (click the link), and then ask them to name all the notes Maria mentions and guess what today’s lesson is about.

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Learning the Different Notes

Go through the C-Major scale on the first page of the handout, describing the position of each note on the staff.  You may wish to play the notes on an instrument as you go through them. 

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Looking at the Notes from Specific Songs

The rest of the handout is a series of well-known songs, but the titles are not written out.  Ask the audience to name each note in succession, then play the notes all together on your instrument.  Play all the notes as quarter notes the first time through – see if they can guess from the notes alone.  If they have trouble, play the version with rhythms (use the sheet music provided in the "Supplies" section above) and use it as an example of how integral rhythm is to music.  Once someone guesses the song, play it on the computer.  Click on the links below the song titles for recordings:

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“Somewhere Over the Rainbow” – The Wizard of Oz

“Zip a dee doo dah” – Song of the South

“Edelweiss” – The Sound of Music -- Start 0:20

“I Did It My Way” – Frank Sinatra