Winning over your most RELUCTANT middle school music students.

Many students are drawn to music from day one. They enter the classroom and are immediately WOWed by the singing and instruments and imaginative play. Anything that you do in the classroom is a winner for these kids.

Then there are the students who take some winning over.

Here are some activities that I have found to win the hearts of your most RELUCTANT musicians at the middle school level and help them discover the joys of music.

Video Game Music Unit

A video game music unit can be PERFECT for making music relevant to students who don’t consider themselves innately musical.

1. Consider having students share what kind of games they play at home and asking if they have ever payed attention to the music before? What does the composer do to “set the scene” at different parts of the game? When the scene gets intense, what happens to the music?

2. Another fun activity is to watch YouTube videos of performances of video game music. Here is a fun video of a group performing the Mario themes on boomwhackers from “kaboom percussion:” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qv3nf-4mWNc .

3. Finally, have students create their own video game concept while composing their own musical themes. Have students consider how the actions of their character or setting is reflected in their composition. Chrome music lab is a great place for students to have fun composing without needing a lot of music reading background. https://musiclab.chromeexperiments.com.

This is something you can organize yourself, or check out a video game composition project on TPT. Here is one that I created:

Rock Music Unit

Who DOESN’T think rock music is cool? Learning about rock bands is another fun way to engage your most reluctant musicians.

1. Consider asking students what rock bands they already know. Many will be excited to share examples that they have heard at home, online, or on TV. You could extend this with a project in which each group researches and presents about a different rock band.

2. Rock music is a great place to study lyrics because many rock songs use a variety of poetic devices. Have students listen to great rock song examples as they read along to the lyrics and search for rhyme, metaphors, hyperboles, etc. The English teacher will thank you for reinforcing the concepts the students are already learning in class.

3. Have students create their OWN rock band. Come up with a name, group members, costume design, song list, tour schedule, etc. Bonus points if any students come in ready to perform a song.

3. Music in Sports Unit

Middle schoolers are constantly exploring their identity, and many will begin to classify themselves as “a sports kids” or “a music kid” etc. A unit that combines these categories will show students that they can be more than just one thing.

1. Play a game that combines music with sports. “Ye Toop Doram” is a song written in Farsi that is a great example of such a game. In this singing game, students pass the ball in a circle as they sing the A section, then roll the ball to try and hit the student in the middle as they sing the B section. Here is a great example by “Buchanan Music Program” on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOh1T5QcBmM

2. Study the “fight” songs of different leagues. College football has some great examples. What does the music have in common? How does it make you feel?

3. Have students create their OWN sports teams fight song. If they don’t have a sports team they root for, they can create one of their own! Here is a guided example of this project.

Thanks for reading and thanks for teaching!