Music Mapping!

We are starting a unit on Music Mapping in our classroom. Music Maps are exactly what they sound like, maps of what the music sounds like. In this class we are focusing on the using the lines that the students have been learning in art class to map the music we hear. This is the first week so in order to introduce maps, I presented three different maps with different styles of music. The first was a map of Léo Delibes's Coppelia Waltz, the second Aaron Copeland's take on the children's song "I Bought Me a Cat," and the last John William's Raider's March from Indiana Jones. The three maps used different elements of art and different types of art to visually express the sound of the music in unique and creative ways. The Raider's March map was created as a mock treasure map. Each student was given a personal copy of the map to follow along with the music. I felt like the students responded well to the concept. They enjoyed the lesson and began to understand the functions of the musical maps with the added context of the artistic lines.