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Activities
Interactive games and activities for students and lifetime learners.
Lessons
Curricular Experiences for educators from our Smithsonian Global Sound network of teachers.
Videos
Watch music performances, instrument demonstrations, and interviews with artists on Global Sound Live.
Celebrate Cultural Heritage Months
Use these special features to celebrate cultural heritage months.
Folklife Education Kits
Educational resources from the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage now digitally available.
iTunes U
Smithsonian Global Sound Tools for Teaching on iTunes U. Download lessons, activities, videos, and more, and sync them with your computer or iPod.
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Activities
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Global Sound Activities from the Teacher of the Year
Grades K - 12
Andrea Peterson, elementary school music teacher in Granite Falls, WA and the 2007 National Teacher of the Year often references Smithsonian Global Sound in her classroom. Here she details specific activities using the website to teach music, history, social studies, and other subjects.
Source: Flash Video, 3m 07s. |
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Meet the Mariachi! Explore Mexico's Musical Gift
to the World
Grades 4 - 8
This is an introduction to the inviting sounds of mariachi: its instruments and how they are played, its rhythms, and how it is important to people. The activity uses maps, video, and interactive instrument demonstrations to give an "insider’s view" that will help students enjoy the music and learn to talk about it with others.
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The Smithsonian Folklife and Oral History
Interviewing Guide
Grades 4 - 12
Smithsonian Global Sound contains many recordings of interviews with and oral histories of influential leaders such as W.E.B. DuBois and Angela Davis to voices of everyday people from Grenada to South Carolina. They demonstrate how important peoples’ voices and stories are to understanding history. The Smithsonian Folklife Oral History Interviewing Guide inspires students to turn to members of their own family and community as key sources of history, culture, and tradition. It features a general guide to conducting an interview, as well as a sample list of questions that may be adapted to your own needs and circumstances.
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Corridos sin Fronteras: A New World Ballad Tradition
Grades 4 - 12
Mexican corridos are story songs about local events and people. Listen to the many corridos found on Smithsonian Global Sound, and have students explore the history of the music and write their very own corrido to share with the class. Resources for teachers include lessons on how corridos provide insight into the Chicano struggle for social justice.
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The Music in Poetry
Grades K - 12
This issue of Smithsonian in Your Classroom, a publication of the Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies, introduces students to English poetic ballads and the poetry of Langston Hughes using music, spoken word, and video found on Global Sound. Full-length streaming tracks to accompany the lesson plans are available here.
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Lessons
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Nobel Voices for Disarmament: 1901–2001
Grades 6 - 8 and 9 - 12
With a focus on thinking and yearning for peace and listening to the voices of Nobel Peace Prize winning speakers and Smithsonian Folkways artists on a world history of violence, this lesson plan will offer teachers a framework for approaching these complex issues through recorded sound. Click here to listen to a free stream of the full Nobel Voices album from Smithsonian Folkways.
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Afghan Rubâb: The Lion of Instruments
Grades K - 2, 3 - 5, 6 - 8 and 9 - 12
The Afghan Rubâb is revered as Afghanistan's "national instrument." Despite censorship during the Taliban rule, the rubâb has regained its prominence in the Afghan culture. Skillful performers Ustâd Mohammad Omar and Homayun Sakhi continue to perform on the solo instrument leaving "their creative imprint on the region’s musical legacy. There can be no doubt that authentic traditional music remains forever contemporary." (Sakhi, 2005)
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On the Plains of Orinoco: Joropo Music in Colombia
Grades K - 2, 3 - 5, 6 - 8 and 9 - 12
This lesson investigates life on the Colombian Orinoco Plains through the exploration of Joropo Music. Activities include Spanish attentive listening, cultural enrichment, and musical interaction through singing, playing and moving.
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Egypt: The Bedouin Culture
Grades 6 - 8
Students will experience the music of the Bedouin culture of Egypt. In the listening example, they will hear two ancient traditional instruments; the rababa – a fretless stringed instrument, and the darabuka- a conical percussion instrument. They will view examples of Egyptian scales and rhythms and approximate the improvised sound of one of the scales and one of the rhythms on western instruments. An extended activity will include the use of Egyptian Bedouin music and student improvised music within the structure of the ancient Egyptian art form, Shadow Puppet Theatre.
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Thailand: Songs for Life
Grades K - 2, 3 - 5, 6 - 8 and 9 - 12
The piece "Man and Buffalo (Kon Gap Kwai)" by Caravan was instrumental in effecting governmental and social change in Thailand. Musical study of the song lends itself to discussions of form, performances of ostinati and accompaniment, and improvisation of a pentatonic song/solo.
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Dance Traditions of Argentina
Grades 6 - 8
The goal of the lesson is to introduce students to two contrasting dance traditions from Argentina, the Chacarera, and the Tango. Elements of the music used to accompany both types of traditional dance will be explored.
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Mbiras, Marimbas, and You: Zimbabwean Music for the General Music Classroom
Grades 3 - 5, 6 - 8 and 9 - 12
Learn to play and compose music with the mbira. Explore the use of the instrument in Zimbabwe to understand the relation of music to history and culture and its ability to incite social change. Lesson includes notations, historical background, and recordings and images from Smithsonian Global Sound.
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Son Jarocho from Veracruz: Exploration of Music and Dance Forms
Grades 3 - 5, 6 - 8 and 9 - 12
Use lively recordings and videos from celebrated son jarocho performers José Gutiérrez & Los Hermanos Ochoa to explore regional Mexican folk music and culture. Discuss poetic structure in song lyrics. Translated lyrics improve Spanish language skills.
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An Introduction to Irish Music
Grades 9 - 12
Explore Irish and Irish-American history and culture through song lyrics, dance, and instrument demonstrations. Follow the music and play along with melody sheets and band transcriptions.
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Capoeira: Martial Arts Meets Music
Grades 6 - 8
Performance videos and live recordings immerse students in this musically and visually exciting tradition from Brazil. Students learn to recognize the differences in several Brazilian musical genres.
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Let's Dance Like an Eagle: Zeybek Dance in Turkey
Grades 9 - 12
Teach the history and geography of Turkey, focusing on the Anatolia region and Zeybek traditions. Students will learn to identify rhythmic patterns in Turkish music and Zeybek dance.
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Musical Hooves on the Steppes: The Morin Huur of Mongolia
Grades 4 - 5
Explore rural nomadic life in Mongolia and the highly impressionistic music and arts of the Central Asian steppes. Students learn to imitate sounds of the natural environment through improvised dance, instrumental performance, and throat-singing.
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Caribbean Beats and Blends
Grades 9 - 12
Learn about Caribbean peoples, languages, geographies, and values by singing and playing instruments to Caribbean music. Particular focus on Puerto Rico, Cuba, Haiti, and St. Lucia.
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Melodic Rhythms of India
Grades 6 - 8
Introduce students to the melodic rhythms of the tabla tarang, classical drumming from India, through music and movement. Learn to improvise the jati system of vocalizing rhythms.
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Ooooh, the Oud
Grades 3 - 5
Use video and music to discover the ancient Middle Eastern stringed instrument, the oud. Discuss the history of the instrument and compare different styles of playing. Learn to identify and repeat the different rhythms.
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Music in South India - Kerala
Grades 9 - 12
Talk about the geography, language, and culture of Kerala in South India using story songs, dance dramas, and rhythms. Introduce students to specific artists and instruments important to Kerala's musical traditions.
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Conjunto Music from South Texas
Grades 3 - 12
Use songs and social dances from the Mexico/USA border to introduce students to South Texas people, language, location, and values. Also discuss issues such as immigration and experiences of living in the borderlands.
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Celebrate Cultural Heritage Months
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Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15 - October 15)
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¡Que Viva el Mariachi!
Music, Meaning, and Movimiento
Mexican mariachi music is made to move you. It is direct, driving, and designed to instill emotion. Happy, sad, proud, angry, desolate, romance-stricken, and rebellious are some of the moods... |
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Latino Chicago
Music and community
The Latino presence in Metropolitan Chicago offers us a distinctive window into Latino culture in the United States and the role music plays in creating communities.... |
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La Nueva Canción
The New Song Movement in South America
The 1970 victory of the Popular Unity government led by Salvador Allende in Chile marked the rise of the first democratically elected socialist government in Latin America. After years of social and political unrest, the election of the Allende government was seen as a beacon of hope...
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Música Latina: Exploring Hispanic Heritage through Music
Latin America, including Latino communities in the United States, is one of the most diverse, dynamic musical regions of the world, marked both by longstanding traditions and by unceasing creativity. Music is central to Latino cultural life, and the richness of Latinos' musical activity in North America reflects both their large population and their complex cultural makeup.
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Puerto Rican Bomba and Plena: Shared Traditions - Distinct Rhythms
Bomba and plena are percussion-driven musical traditions from Puerto Rico that move people to dance. Often mentioned together as though they were a single musical style, both reflect the African heritage of Puerto Rico, but there are basic distinctions between them in rhythm, instrumentation, and lyrics. You can hear the difference in these songs.
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American Indian Heritage Month (November)
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In Our Own Voice
Songs of American Indian Women
Very little is known and appreciated about American Indian women's songs and voices, even among people who are familiar with American Indian music.... |
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From the Andes to the Arctic: Exploring Indian Heritage Through Music
Smithsonian Global Sound offers many archival recordings of American Indian music, as well as contemporary pieces by innovative and traditional musicians. Each track illuminates the central role that music plays in American Indian culture and is evidence of both difference and similarity across a hemisphere of Native peoples.
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African American History Month (February)
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Say it Loud
African American Spoken Word
The spoken word occupies a central and indispensable position in African American history and culture. As a vessel for remembrance, the oral tradition carried African narratives to a new continent and sustained them through...
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Voices of Struggle: The Civil Rights Movement, 1954 to 1965
We honor African-American history and music with a look at the profound cultural contribution of the Civil Rights Movement, called by Guy Carawan "the greatest singing movement this country has experienced." The African American struggle for civil rights and equality inspired the many other socio-political movements in the USA and around the world.
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Women's History Month (March)
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In Our Own Voice
Songs of American Indian Women
Very little is known and appreciated about American Indian women's songs and voices, even among people who are familiar with American Indian music.... |
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Women Breaking Music Barriers: She Isn't Supposed to Play That
Although recordings by women fill the archives of Smithsonian Global Sound, gender discrimination and gender segregation have posed considerable barriers to women's musical talent. Still, many women musicians around the world challenge traditionally held beliefs about gender and women's social status simply by playing a certain instrument or singing a certain song.
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Asian Pacific American Heritage Month (May)
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Connecting Cultures
Music of the Mekong River
Like the Yangtze, the Nile, and the Mississippi, the Mekong River in Southeast Asia is a giver of life; countless communities depend on it for their existence. Like these other rivers as well, the Mekong River means more than environmental and economic stability...
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Na Leo Hawai'i: Musics of Hawai'i
Asians and Pacific Islanders make up the majority of the population of Hawai'i. Music has always played a central role for all these communities. In early Hawai'i, mele, or chant, was the most important means of remembering myths of gods and deeds of powerful people. Today, Hawaiians continue to use music to define themselves and celebrate aloha 'aina, or love of land. And thousands of immigrants have adapted their lives as well as their music to this delicate land.
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Caribbean American Heritage Month (June)
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Puerto Rican Bomba and Plena
Shared traditions - distinctive rhythms
Bomba and plena are percussion-driven musical traditions from Puerto Rico that move people to dance. Often mentioned together as though they were a single musical style, both reflect the African heritage of Puerto Rico...
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Islands of Song: Music of The Bahamas
For hundreds of years along the 700 scattered limestone islands in the Caribbean Sea that make up The Bahamas, the human voice has been raised in melodious strains to a rhythmic pulse that is deeply influenced by the African ancestry of most Bahamians. Centuries of colonial domination, and the nearness of American and Caribbean cultures have also shaped the character of Bahamian music. As a result of these merging influences, Bahamian music is uniquely rich, reflecting generations of joy, hardship, innovation, and artistry.
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Folklife Education Kits
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Land and Native American Cultures: The Power of Stories
Grades 9 - 12
What can stories tell us about the world views of various cultures? How can stories be used to preserve and share cultural traditions? What values and beliefs are communicated in Native American stories? This excerpt from the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage education kit Land and Native American Cultures uses tales from Native Americans throughout the Americas to explore these questions and more. To enhance the lesson, download Hopi tales read aloud by Jack Moyles here.
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Our Bahamian Heritage
Grades K - 12
This digital version of Our Bahamian Heritage is an in-depth look at Bahamian arts and culture. It was co-produced with the Ministry of Education and Training of the Bahamas, and the Embassy of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas. The original kit used a cassette tape and VHS video, but the digital music files and video found here on Smithsonian Global Sound can supplement these lessons.
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Creativity and Resistance: Maroon Cultures in the Americas
Grades K - 12
This resource guide focuses on the history and culture of Maroon communities in Suriname, French Guiana, and Jamaica, and also the Seminole Maroon communities along the U.S.-Mexico border. It offers interdisciplinary activities that can be adapted for all ages, from kindergarten students to adults. Use it with Smithsonian Global Sound music and video found here.
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