Activities, designed for students in grades 6 through 9, that inspire thought and dialogue on topics including music history, composition, and literature; includes listening games, graphic notation, and more.

Notation Motivation

What motivated the creation of different systems of music notation? Through a game of telephone, Philharmonic Teaching Artist Zeynep Alpan encourages viewers to think about aural and written traditions and how they can impact sharing music with others.

Investigation: Music and Feelings

How do tempo, rhythm, and melody influence music and our feelings for what we hear? Philharmonic Teaching Artists Justin Hines and Dr. Shelley Monroe Huang helps us find answers by leading us through an investigation of Arturo Marquez’s Danzon No. 3.

How Do Composers Create Music?

Join New York Philharmonic Teaching Artists Angélica Negrón and Jacinta Clusellas as they explore a few different approaches composers use to create musical ideas.

Character Melodies and Variations

Angélica Negrón and Jacinta Clusellas, New York Philharmonic Teaching Artists and composers, show us how to create an original melody for a character in a book, movie, or video game through musical variations!

The Rhythm Around Us

Join composers and New York Philharmonic Teaching Artists Angélica Negrón and Jacinta Clusellas on a journey exploring rhythms all around us.

Musical Tributes

Explore musical tributes with Philharmonic Teaching Artist Robert Fleitz and discover how Dvořák’s Cello Concerto is like a conversation between an individual and a large group.

Winter Sonnets

Are poems and music related? Find out how Vivaldi used music to illustrate a sonnet in his concerto Winter, from The Four Seasons.

Monumental Firsts

Learn about Brahms’s Symphony No. 1 and the challenge of approaching a big new project.

Exploring and Composing with Graphic Scores

Sometimes composers use shapes and colors to represent sounds for musicians to interpret when they perform. Philharmonic Teaching Artist Jacinta Clusellas introduces us to graphic notation.

The “Something Changed” Listening Game

Listen to the groove carefully: something has changed! Can you identify what it is? Philharmonic Teaching Artist Justin Hines introduces different musical concepts by testing our abilities to hear how they impact on a repeated musical pattern.