Music Appreciation/Secondary General Music Classes 

List of Resources Needed to Create New Classes Including Materials and Supplies 

Garza, Toni.  “Creating a Middle School General Music Curriculum from Scratch.” NAfME, 2020. https://nafme.org/blog/creating-middle-school-general-music-curriculum-scratch/. 

This article defines Middle School General Music, why it’s important, explores setting up a curriculum, creating engaging project-based lessons, and creating rubrics. It encourages teachers to view general music classes as an opportunity to explore the essential question of “How do we instill a lifelong respect for music in our music students?” This is a short but interesting resource that will get educators thinking about how they could craft a general music class for secondary students. 

Spencer, Melissa. “Tips for Creating a Music Appreciation or General Music Class Curriculum.” self-published, 2026. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JzpXIpfclF8HHeF9JQ9lJdeqibhaDYg_/view?usp=drive_link  

There is no standard curriculum for general music classes, which can make crafting a class like this feel a bit daunting. This resource is a collection of tips from various educators on creating music appreciation or general music class curriculums. These tips come from university professors' guidance and current educators’ experiences. 

Literature on this topic for educators 

Abril, Carlos R., and Brent M. Gault. Teaching General Music: Approaches, Issues, and Viewpoints. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. https://a.co/d/0iYJZxb3 

This book looks at a wide range of well-known music teaching approaches—like Dalcroze, Kodály, Orff Schulwerk, Informal Learning, and Music Learning Theory—and explores how they shape the way general music is taught. Each chapter is written by a scholar in that field. Instead of promoting one “best” method, the book compares these approaches and shows how they can work together in real classrooms. It also looks at the strengths, challenges, and limitations of each approach while considering how children around the world experience music in their everyday lives. This makes it helpful for teachers who want to think more critically about their teaching and try new ideas rather than sticking to just one system. For music educators, the book is valuable because it gives practical perspectives, encourages flexible teaching, and helps teachers design more thoughtful and inclusive music programs. 

Abril, Carlos R, and Brent M Gault. General Music: Dimensions of Practice. New York: Oxford University Press, 2022. https://a.co/d/0bV2nwHa  

General Music: Dimensions of Practice is a useful book that helps music teachers think about teaching music in holistic, practical, and meaningful ways. It organizes music learning into four main areas—performing, connecting, creating, and responding—and shows how these ideas can shape music classes. The chapters (written by multiple authors who are experts in their fields) include creative teaching ideas like songwriting, improvising, singing, movement, listening, and analyzing music for both elementary and secondary students. Each section explains why the topic matters, shares research behind it, and offers lesson ideas or teaching models teachers can use. This makes the book a valuable resource for music educators because it provides practical strategies and inspiration for building engaging, well-rounded music programs that connect with students and their communities. 

Curriculum, Method Books, and Lesson plans structured around national music standards 

Brink, Lara. “Music Appreciation Comprehensive Course Syllabus.” Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, 2020. https://www.imsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Music-Appreciation-2020-Syllabus.pdf. 

This is a free syllabus available online, which outlines a college level music appreciation course. The goal of this course is to help students recognize music’s development from a historical and cultural perspective. This course covers the fundamentals of music including basic terminology, instrument families, tempo, rhythm, form, meter, musical genres and masterworks. The course uses the Experience Music textbook (listed below) and follows fine arts learning standards. While this is meant for college students, secondary educators could take the Unit outlines and pattern their own age-appropriate curriculum after this syllabus. It provides a framework that is logical and incremental to use as a pattern for secondary school curriculum. 

Charlton, Katherine. Experience Music. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2019. https://a.co/d/050vyfi3  purchase online access for listening activities found here https://a.co/d/0fe5eoSa  

This source is used in the Lara Brink “Music Appreciation Comprehensive Course Syllabus” resource, above. This college textbook needs an additional purchase to access listening activities through the McGraw-Hill Connect Music platform. Connect Music is a digital platform which integrates teaching and learning as it provides both one-click access to the program’s music selections and interactive exercises that focus on the listening process. Each chapter is structured so students listen to one piece three times to develop stronger listening skills. This book could be used in-class with a large screen and speakers to play for all the students.  

Downes, Cindy. “Music Appreciation Lesson Plan.” Oklahoma Homeschool, 2004. https://oklahomahomeschool.com/musicApprHSU.html. 

This is a free online homeschool music appreciation course that can be modified for a class of students. There are ideas for 11 different subunits. These ideas would need some development into more detailed lesson plans with standards, objectives, and specific assignment outlines. But this covers a wide range of music topics and are generally appropriate for secondary students. There are many links to other sources in this curriculum, some of which might be appropriate for elementary students.  Overall this source is a good starting point and gives educators ideas for how to structure a music appreciation course. 

Giles, Lee. “Music Appreciation.” Easy Peasy All-In-One High School, 2013. https://allinonehighschool.com/music-appreciation-2/. 

This is an extensive free homeschool music appreciation course that includes 90 lessons. It is designed to be completed in one semester for a homeschool student, with one lesson per school day. However, this could easily be expanded to a full year curriculum by including projects and more detailed assignments and class activities. This source includes links to YouTube videos and other websites and contains listening activities and videos to watch, plus links to read from an online music dictionary with audio examples of the definitions. This curriculum covers topics like musical genres and terminology, instruments, playing techniques, composers, and definitions. It includes links to a simple mid-term and final. Most of the composers covered in this course are classical, European, and male. This curriculum is designed for independent learning, mostly passive, with no projects. This source could be effective as the outline for a class, but it would need objectives, standards, and more engaging learning activities and assignments to be effective in a school setting. Students would also benefit from hands-on learning opportunities and more variety in the composers and genres studied. 

Kamien, Roger. Music: An Appreciation. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2000.  https://a.co/d/01ElsRV4  

This resource is a widely used textbook for introductory music courses. While it was primarily designed for non-music college majors, the author uses accessible language suitable for adult learners and high school students and aims to help develop listening skills and understand musical elements, forms, and history.  This book is useful because it focuses on teaching students how to listen and not just learn facts. The listening outlines provide step-by-step guidance for listening to specific pieces, including time counts and musical notation. It breaks down complex musical elements (pitch, dynamics, timbre, etc.) in a way that is accessible to beginners. It covers a wide range of musical selections from different historical periods and cultures, including world music. This book incorporates modern digital tools like online playlists and video tutorials. This is a useful resource for guiding a music appreciation or general music curriculum. 

Spencer, Melissa. “Lesson Plans by Melissa Spencer.” self-published, 2026. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1CsFmU_bouteSH7PUahKTTZbG1x2mJwvV?usp=drive_link  

This folder has 4 free lesson/unit plans for secondary music students. They would be appropriate in a music appreciation, general music, or digital music classroom. Lesson plan topics include: 

• Poverty, social justice and music (exploring famous musicians who came from poor circumstances, found instruments, steel pan drums, Jug bands, and the Vegetable Orchestra) 

• Different beliefs, shared humanity (with world religion, music, and politics) 

• Song Analysis Road Map lesson plan (teaching students how to analyze a song and make a map of it, using the song “Willow” by Taylor Swift as an example 

• Splicing and Editing WAV forms with a DAW using covers of songs to demonstrate techniques with “Call Me Maybe” by Carly Rae Jepsen 

Wentlent, Anna. Music Mosaic. USA: Alfred Music, 2020. https://a.co/d/0bacDl1O    

This is an inexpensive book that can be used as a complete sequential curriculum on the development of American popular music for middle school or early high school music appreciation/exploration courses. There are 15 project-based learning lessons in the book and cover a variety of topics including tracing the culture of an ancestor to forming a student ukulele jam, world drumming, history of jazz, variety show performance, and writing and recording a rap. Core music standards, teacher instructions, reproducible student sheets, and assessment rubrics are included for each project. Substitute teacher plans are included in this curriculum, as well as an online code inside the empty CD pouch that gives access to downloadable PDF worksheets. 

Videos 

PBS LearningMedia. “Music Appreciation Video Collection.” PBS and WGBH Educational Foundation, 2026. https://thinktv.pbslearningmedia.org/subjects/the-arts/music/appreciation-and-analysis-of-musical-works/music-appreciation/?rank_by=recency. 

This resource is a collection of 206 free educational videos about various music topics, sortable by grade level, and produced/created by the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), an American non-profit public television network. Topics for secondary students include different styles of music, from hip-hop to the blues to Latin rock. There are also cross-curricular videos, combining combine music and other disciplines with several lesson plans that include visuals and support materials, such as "Belarusian Waltz: Art as a Form of Protest," "Macbeth and The Metropolitan Opera," or "The Dancing Scientist: Take the Stage." Careers in music, music in world cultures, and music institutions are among the additional topics explored in Music. These videos are interesting, high quality, and would be excellent supplements to a general music class. 

 Assessments 

Jooya, Julia. “12 Fun Formative Assessment Ideas to Use in the Music Classroom.” Jooya Teaching Resources, 2023. https://juliajooya.com/2023/05/30/12-fun-formative-assessment-ideas-to-use-in-the-music-classroom/. 

This blog article outlines various assessment ideas for performance, composition, listening, and music appreciation and history. Jooya’s list of ideas is interesting and effective for assessment and include self-evaluation/reflection, peer feedback/critique, performance journals or video diaries, composition process documentation, guided listening and response, musical analysis/comparison, musical interpretation/expression, listening journals, musical timelines, and music history or genre group presentations. Jooya explains each idea in depth and even offers pre-made templates for assessments in those categories in her TeachersPayTeachers store. These are helpful resources when needing to assess students learning about music in many ways, like in a music appreciation or general music course. 

Other useful resources 

Gale, Toms and Lauma Kazaka. “Fun Music Appreciation Lesson Plans and Activities.” Solfeg.io, 2017. https://solfeg.io/music-appreciation-plans-activities. 

Solfeg.io is a Latvian music education platform which recently won the 2025 Global Education Startup Award for best education technology. They offer 3 free lesson plans for music appreciation lessons. For more full lesson plans on music history, music theory, music appreciation, analysis, band, piano, ukulele, guitar, percussions, singing, composition & improvisation, and the future of music, see the website https://solfeg.io/resources. Lesson plans includes the intended grade levels, objectives, required prior knowledge and skills, materials, activities, and questions. These lessons are very participatory and some lessons even include free visuals via google slides. Some of the lessons are free but access to the play along tracks requires a membership. The membership unlocks between 140-230 lesson plans for classes and instruments. This is a unique and visual/audio resource for teachers to utilize in their music appreciation or general music class curriculums. 

Hip-Hop CommUniversity. “K-12 Hip Hop Music Guidelines.” Music Will and Hip-Hop Education Roundtable, 2026. https://www.hiphopcu.org/guidelines. 

Created in partnership with Music Will and Hip-Hop Education Roundtable, this a 140-page slide presentation and toolkit for teaching Hip-Hop. The toolkit teaches why Hip-Hop education matters, core elements and ways to implement lessons on Hip-Hop to various grades, teaching principles for success, sections on Music History and the origin/evolution of Hip-Hop. Further, it includes sample activities for music appreciation of Hip-Hop, composition elements, sections on DJ architects, techniques, equipment, and sampling. There are music performance activities and evaluation frameworks. There is a unit on Hip-Hop Entrepreneurship and activities for creating business and marketing plans. The appendix includes definitions of slang/vernacular in Hip-Hop (including spit, fire, flex, ghostwriter, dope), career opportunities in the Hip-Hop industry, educational pathways in Hip-Hop, and a list of essential classroom resources when crafting an effective Hip-Hop course. This is a valuable resource for music teachers who want to reach contemporary music students in authentic ways using music that students love. 

Okoye, Ruth, et al. “Music Appreciation.” Teachersfirst.org, 2026. https://teachersfirst.org/spectopics/musicappreciation.cfm. 

Teachersfirst.org is a non-profit online community for teachers, by teachers, with thousands of lessons, units, and reviewed web resources for K-12 classroom teachers. They offer 22 music appreciation resources which introduce students to the history and various genres of music. This collection of resources include teaching helps for blues, jazz, classical, and other genres, and teaches about musicians from different periods. There are links to websites with recordings of authentic African tribal music, World music, and Classiccat, a website with links to hundreds of recordings of classical songs by 100 classical composers.