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Daily Music Education Lesson Plans

By Espie Estrella, About.com

March 21

March 21
VocabularyWe will learn about time signatures. It indicates how many notes and what kind of notes in a measure. The time signatures commonly used are 4/4 (common time) and 3/4. There is also 5/2, 6/8 etc. The number on top is the number of notes per measure while the number on the bottom indicates what kind of note. Here's a guide:
bottom # is 1 = whole note
bottom # is 2 = half note
bottom # is 4 = quarter note
bottom # is 8 = 8th note
bottom # is 16 = 16th note
Music HistoryJohann Sebastian Bach was born.
Activity
  1. Draw a treble staff and write the time signature 4/4. Ask student to draw what kind and how many notes are needed per measure (i.e. 4/4 = 4 quarter notes/measure). Do the same thing for various time signatures such as 3/4 (3 quarter notes/measure), 3/2, (3 half notes/measure) 6/8 (6 eighth notes/measure), etc.
  2. A variation is to draw the notes and student will write the time signature based on it.
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