Primary Source Learning: Music
Analyzing Primary Sources: Learning from Music
Primary Source Learning: Sheet Music Collections & Teaching Resources
Tech Tool: Sheet Music Scanner
Guided primary source analysis activities
- The Banks of the Yellow Sea
- Leonard Bernstein illustrated letter
- Election Day
- L’Africana – L’Africaine Opera
Learning from the Source lesson plans
- Capturing Character on Camera
- Mourning Lincoln & the Art of Tribute
- The Negro Speaks of Rivers
- Science Radium Romp
- The Star Spangled Banner K-2
- The Star Spangled Banner 3-5
- We Shall Overcome
Music Division educational videos
Minerva’s Kaleidoscope music blog posts
- Celebrating Fifty Years of Hip-Hop with Children’s Literature and Activities
- Cuban Jazz Singer Daymé Arocena’s Advice for Young Musicians, in Five Videos
- Exploring Percussion with the Tambuco Ensemble in Five Parts
- Getting a Feel for the Clave in Jazz
Library of Congress Curriculum Units for the 2014 Music Standards National Association for Music Education
Listening to the Diverse Voices of America’s Past National Association for Music Education
Primary Sources for Musical Learning
Teaching with the Library of Congress blog posts
- Analyzing Primary Sources Through Movement
- Analyzing the Musical Perspectives of Marian Anderson and Harry T. Burleigh in Deep River
- “Appalachian Spring” and Primary Sources: Music Students Enrich Their Research and Their Performances
- Baseball, Music, and Suffrage? Exploring the Music of the “National Pastime”
- The Battle Hymn of the Republic: A Primary Source Starter
- The Boccaccio Project: Musical Storytelling in Response to a Global Pandemic
- Bringing Music and Primary Sources into Your School
- Bringing in the New Year with Sheet Music and Folklore
- Celebrating the Public Domain and Engaging Creatively with Primary Sources
- Civil War Music: A Classic Primary Source Set Plays a New Tune
- Comparing Arrangements of Auld Lang Syne
- Exploring Bugle Calls through Programming
- Exploring the Cuban-American Musical Heritage of Emilio and Gloria Estefan—Diversity and Identity in “The Great Melting Pot”
- Exploring R. Nathaniel Dett in Vocal Ensembles
- Exploring the Triad through the Civil War Bugle
- The Gershwin Prize: Celebrating Song as a Vehicle of Musical Expression and Cultural Understanding
- Know Your Candidate: Analyzing Sheet Music to Explore Presidential Nominee Identity
- Musical Inspiration Revealed in Interviews and Letters
- The Path to the Presidency: Music to Excite the Masses
- Piquing Student Curiosity About the 100th Anniversary of the Constitution with Sheet Music
- Primary Sources Documenting Music, Law, and Everyday Life
- Singing Out for Social Justice
- Singing for Political Change: Celebrating Music In Our Schools Month with Library of Congress Primary Sources
- Skin and Bones for Halloween
- Squirrel Hunting, Singing, and Thinking in Elementary School
- Storytelling and Songwriting: Making Connections through Primary Sources
- Tangible and Intangible Legacies
- Teaching Language Arts through Music: Historic Sheet Music and Song Sheets
- Teaching with Music from the Voices Remembering Slavery Collection
- World War I Recruiting Songs: Building the Military with Music
What do Ensembles Sound Like? What Do They Look Like? album of photographs and sound recordings
- How do students expect an ensemble to sound when they observe the people, instruments, and other clues in the photograph?
- How do they expect an ensemble to look when they hear their music?
- How can students expand their knowledge by making and revising such predictions?
Library research guides
- American Women: Resources from the Performing Arts Collections
- American Women: Resources from the Recorded Sound Collections
- Amy Beach
- Anthologies of Musical Works from the 15th-17th Centuries
- Anthony Philip Heinrich
- Anton Webern
- Arnold Schoenberg
- Asian American and Pacific Islander Culture and Traditions
- Baseball Music and Songs
- Beethoven
- Black Composers
- Bluegrass Music
- Christmas Carols: Topics in Chronicling America
- Clara Schumann
- Classical Flute Repertoire, Performers, and Instruments
- Early African-American Music: A Bibliography
- Early American Sacred Music
- Early Jazz Music (Backlash and Opposition): Topics in Chronicling America
- Eleanor Everest Freer
- Film Music
- Franz Liszt
- Franz Schubert
- Gena Branscombe
- George Antheil
- Gullah/Geechee Collections
- Harry Thacker Burleigh
- Igor Stravinsky
- James Reese Europe: Topics in Chronicling America
- Jazz Research
- Jazz Stock Arrangements
- Johannes Brahms
- John Philip Sousa: Topics in Chronicling America
- Kendrick Lamar
- Latin American Composers
- Leonard Bernstein
- LGBTQ+ Performing Arts Resources
- Louis Moreau Gottschalk
- Major Bowes and the Original Amateur Hour
- Music and Books on Music from the Russian Imperial Collection in the Library of Congress
- Music for Silent Film
- Music in the United States
- Music Materials in Braille, Large Print and Audio
- Music Notation: Preferred Preservation Formats for Digital Scores
- Music, Theater, Dance: An Illustrated Guide
- Musicals of Stage and Screen
- Opera and Media Technology
- Popular Sheet Music for Voice and Piano
- Primary Sources for Latin American Composers
- Ragtime: Topics in Chronicling America
- Recorded Sound Research
- Resources for Orchestra Conductors
- Seeger Family
- Shape-Note Singing
- Sissieretta Jones: Topics in Chronicling America
- Stephen Collins Foster
- Television Music
- The Star-Spangled Banner
- Transcripts of Dramatic Musical Works in Full Score
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
- Woody Guthrie