Lesson: Melodies and Math
After reviewing basic music theory, students compose their own music for the touch-tone phone.
Math, Music

Everyday Arts Challenge: Color Check
Count all the different colors you see on your way to school. How many shades of blue can you find? Red? Green? Yellow? What color do you see the most?
Visual Arts, Math

Connections: Math and Music
Math ideas help organize everything from the beat (rhythm) to the tune (melody) of music. Explore some of the surprising and essential connections between math and music.
Geometry, Math, Music

Lesson: Patterns Across Cultures: The Fibonacci Sequence in Visual Art
The Fibonacci Sequence manifests in nature and visual arts.
Math, Science, Music

Lesson: Amazing Fibonacci
Using the Fibonacci sequence of numbers, your students study math concepts of pattern, recursion, Pi and the Golden Ratio, developing their ability to analyze the structure of music.
Music, Science, Math

Lesson: Counting Crows
Students will learn the meaning of Aesop's fable, "The Crow and the Pitcher," blending math and art with literature and film.
Animals, Folklore, Math, Literature

Everyday Arts Challenge: The Shape of Things
In your classroom, count how many squares you see. Look up. Look down. They’re everywhere.
Geometry, Math, Visual Arts

Everyday Arts Challenge: Color Check
Count all the different colors you see in your cafeteria. How many shades of blue can you find? Red? Green? Yellow? What color do you see the most?
Visual Arts, Architecture, Math

Arts Days: January 04, 1950: The 19 Minute Gift
Before the arrival of the cassette tape and compact disc, the big breakthrough in music recording was the invention of the LP, or long-playing record. Up until this point, the standard record was able to hold only four minutes of music; the LP could play for 23 minutes. Thank you recording company RCA Victor for those extra 19 minutes.
Inventions, Math, Music, Popular Culture

Arts Days: April 24, 1934: The First Organ Transplant
When an American inventor named Laurens Hammond demonstrated an organ without pipes on this day, musicians like George Gershwin were skeptical (though Gershwin bought one anyway). No one could quite believe that a pipeless electric organ could produce the majestic sounds of the pipe organ that had dominated church services and musical events for centuries. However, once Hammond’s organ was played, the skeptics grew silent.

Using a complex series of magnets, coils, and gears deep inside the console of the instrument, Hammond had created a new instrument capable of all the melodic richness of the pipe organ but in a much smaller size. The price couldn’t be beat, either—$1,250 compared to $4,000 and up for traditional organs, which used air pumped into the pipes by the organist to create their sound.
Musical Instruments, Music, Math, Inventions

Series: Connections
Music shares some surprising connections to mathematics, language, and science. Learn about them in this series adapted from concerts performed at the Kennedy Center.
Music, Language, Math, Geometry, Science

Lesson: Creating AB Patterns
Patterns exists both in the natural and manmade world. It is an element in art, as well as math and science.
Geometry, Math, Music, Visual Arts, Nature

Lesson: Creating Comic Strips
In this lesson, each student creates an original comic strip to convey a mathematical concept and explores comics as a form of communication.
Literature, Popular Culture, Visual Arts, Cartoons, Comics, & Animation, Math

Arts Quotes: Pythagoras
"There is geometry in the humming of the strings. There is music in the spacing of the spheres."
Greece, Geometry, Math, Music, Science

Arts Days: January 13, 1910: Turn It Up!
Italian engineer Guglielmo Marconi won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his 1896 invention of the radio, which was initially used by ships to communicate with stations on shore. Over a decade later, American inventor and opera lover, Lee de Forest, developed the radio receiver, bringing radio broadcasts to the public.

On this day in 1910, de Forest promoted the radio receiver by broadcasting a live performance of tenor Enrico Caruso from the Metropolitan Opera. At the time, only a small number of people owned radio receivers and could listen to the broadcast, which was sent over a telephone transmitter.
Inventions, Innovators & Pioneers, Math, Opera, Music

Arts Days: April 27, 1810: Elise Who?
We´ll never know who the great German composer and piano virtuoso Ludwig van Beethoven had in mind when he wrote this delicate piano composition that is instantly recognizable after just a few notes. While it’s known as For Elise in English, its formal name is Bagatelle in A minor (a bagatelle is a short, light piece of music usually written for piano). Für Elise was actually jotted down right on the paper Beethoven used.

Some scholars think the reference indicates Beethoven wrote it for one of his girlfriends, but others say the informal name is the result of a transcription goof, and in fact the piece was intended to be Für Therese (a woman Beethoven had really wanted to marry but never did). At any rate, Für Elise is a charming work.
Math, Music Legends, Composers, Orchestra, Europe

Theme: Acoustics & Sound
How do composers "hear" outer space? How did Beethoven compose music when he couldn't hear? Browse lessons and multimedia that explore the art and science of the world of sound around us.
Innovators & Pioneers, Musical Instruments, Inventions, Math, Music, Science, Space