New York Philharmonic Kidszone
About this resource
- Appropriate grades
- 3–8
- Subjects
- arts (music)
- Provider
- New York Philharmonic
- Special requirements
- Shockwave is required for portions of the site. Quicktime is required for the video portions of the site.
Legal
This catalog record is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License. This license applies to the content of this page only and does not apply to the referenced website.
The Kidzone is a great place for students to learn all about the orchestra. Meet musicians, hear what the instruments sound like, create your own orchestra, make your own instrument and learn about composers.
Begin in the Compostion Workshop where you can compose a "Mozart Minuet" by choosing and rearranging measures from Mozart's work. You can vary the speed of the composition as well as the instrument playing. There are options for sending the composition via email or printing out the sheet music. You can also try combining various instruments with the Music Sketchpad and the Rhythm Band, or explore the "ups and downs" of Musical Contours. Manipulating sound and meter is in the hands of students using these interactive, multimedia activities. This would be a great place to experiment with patterns as an extension of math!
Visit the Instrument Storage Room next to learn more about strings, brass, woodwinds and percussion families of instruments. Select an instrument and you can read about the history, construction, how it's played and even learn about related instruments... Friends and Family! Click on the poster on the storage room wall to watch one of the short videos answering questions such as "what got you into music?" and "why don't you play jazz?"
How does sound vary when produced using different materials? How can you alter the pitch or vibration? Experimenting with instruments can tell us a great deal about sound. If you're feeling inventive you can visit the Instrument Lab. This area gives step-by step directions (even video) to build instruments using various household items or easy to find materials like corrugated plastic pipe from the hardware store or pieces of wood. You can also try the online instrument inventor to see if you can make music by manipulating the items available.
The Composers' Gallery offers portraits and short biographies of major classical composers. Each entry includes audio of one of the composer's works. You can sort the composers by name, nationality, style, and birthdate, expanding the ways the work may be viewed. For example, you may listen to all the works of the composers from Poland or listen to just the Baroque pieces. Visit the musicians' lounge to learn more about the players or try some of the games and puzzels. There is so much to do--you may take choose to navigate using the Site Map to make sure you don't miss any of the wonderful features and activities on this site.
