High School Music Worksheets
Download free copies of some of our 300 Music Theory Worksheets
The worksheets are designed to take high and middle school students from a point where they have no functional knowledge of music theory to a situation in which they have a "joined up" knowledge of how to correctly Name Notes
, how to understand whole and half step Intervals
, Major and minor Scales
and their construction, how Chords
are put together from scales and how those scales and chords combine to help us to understand keys.
Our resources are not all about "dry" music theory....
Those "difficult to reach" guitar players
Free Music Theory Lesson Plans
We also have a whole load of FREE Music Theory Lesson Plans
designed to allow your students to "get" the theoretical elements of music that all too often seem to elude them.
Download some free music theory worksheets today
Below are just a few of our 300+ music theory worksheets
that you can download and print to use in your music theory lessons today.
Music Theory Worksheet on Note Naming
Printable PDF Music Theory Worksheet on Scale Spelling
Music Theory Worksheet dealing with Chord Construction
Print a PDF Music Theory Worksheet on Scales and Chords
Printable PDF Music Theory Worksheet on Intervals
An important part of teaching music theory effectively is to be able to assess the prior learning and the extent of our students knowledge when we first encounter them and to be able to measure their progress with regard to a set of clearly stated and understood objectives. Below you will see a link that will allow you to download and print a FREE intake assessment and student tracking system
Free Music Theory Worksheet and Student Progress Tracker
The diagnostic test and music theory progress tracker above provides a simple and reliable method for tracking the learning and progress of your music theory students. It is designed to be used with the handouts and lesson plans featured on this site but can also be used as a "stand alone" administration aid
Music Theory Worksheets
Music Theory Worksheets lie at the heart of what we do as High School Music Educators. There are an enormous number of teaching strategies available to high school music teachers using a whole lot of "new" technologies but the fact is that the paper and pencil are still the most useful tools that an educator has when imparting knowledge or assessing understanding in our music students.
The Music Theory Worksheets that make up our download are concerned with the "nuts and bolts" of teaching music in a modern high school. The harmonic and melodic elements of music. Naming notes correctly, scale construction, how chords are formed and the theory that underpins common harmonic systems (keys etc). If our high school students cannot be helped to understand those important elements then we will have failed as music educators. It really is as simple as that.
"What should a high school music teacher cover first?"
When teaching music theory it can be difficult to know where to start?
Most students know a little music theory but I find that more often than not there are significant "gaps" in their knowledge and they tend to trip up over the same things such as calling a note of D sharp "E Flat" or not developing a familiarity with the sequence of Major and minor chords in any given key. Some students can remember and recite quite advanced fragments of music theory ("the key that contains three sharps is the Key of A") but will struggle to explain "why" this is the case (they often can't tell you which three notes of the A scale are sharpened and more importantly the scale formula that underpins their statement)
The 300 worksheets available from this site set out to provide a structured way for students to get a firm grasp on the harmonic and melodic components of music theory "from the ground up" with no room for ambiguity or uncertainty
So......Where do we start?
High School Music Worksheets:
Assigning The Correct Letter Names to Notes
It cannot be overstated that the ability to understand how notes are assigned the "correct" letter name is the essential first step to understanding music theory. If our students do not feel confident enough to assign names to notes correctly then they will struggle more than they need to with every other aspect of music theory.
We provide a series of worksheets designed to help students to come to terms with the most basic but important concept associated with developing a working understanding of music theory (that some pitches can be assigned only one letter name while others can be given either of two letter names depending on the circumstances).
If you look closely at the music worksheets in the above graphic you will see that although some of them require students to provide notation many of them do not. If our students can count up to twelve and know the alphabet from A to G then they already have the skills required to understand music theory.
Use of the worksheets in this download will allow learners to get to grips with music theory without obliging them to first become familiar with notation and allows notation to be given its proper place in the study of music.
When they develop a clear and certain understanding of how and why notes are named then they are ready to move on to a study of the two intervals ("whole step" and "half step" intervals) that combine to allow the construction of Major and minor scales
High School Music worksheets: intervals
When learners can correctly and confidently name notes then they are ready to study whole-step and half-step intervals. If you look at the three worksheets shown above you will notice that the two to the left of the picture feature representations of a keyboard alongside a text based question requiring students to identify a note either a whole or a half step above or below the note that they have named in the circle on the worksheet (an ability that they developed when completing the Note Naming Worksheets mentioned previously)
The music worksheet towards the right of the image uses text only and is designed to oblige learners to rely upon (and to reinforce) the knowledge that they have developed with regard to correctly naming notes
in order to identify notes a given whole or half-step interval above or below a specified note.
Familiarity with these two intervals will allow students to use them in order to construct and analyse Major and Minor scales.
Click the link below to Download Free, Detailed Lesson Plans designed to take your students from a situation in which they have no functional knowledge of music theory to a place where they understand Notes, Scales, Chords and Keys
Download Free PDF containing Lesson Plans For a series of first music theory lessons
High School Music Worksheets: Scales
When they are confident in naming notes correctly and can understand whole and half-step intervals then students are ready to look at the rules and concepts underpinning scale construction
Scale construction is perhaps the single most important "building block"
when it comes to developing an understanding of music theory and
our very first set of music theory scale worksheets use only letter names and the relevant #'s and b's
They are provided with the intention that learners can be introduced to musical notation after they have gained some experience of naming notes and constructing scales.
The worksheet shown above is one of a series designed to be used before the point at which musical notation is introduced
The sheets feature "support" to the novice in terms of graphics featuring scale formulae ("W" and "H" representing whole-step and half-step intervals that come between the notes of the scale) and also, a piano keyboard so that students have a visual aid available to help them to work out the correct letter name and interval
Below you can see a detail from one such (completed) worksheet which better illustrates the theory behind it.
Students are required to identify the root note of the scale and to use the keyboard diagram to help then move through the correct sequence of whole-step and half-step intervals in order to define the correct notes for the scale
Introducing notation and stretching more capable learners
Below are a set of complementary scale worksheets that use notation. They can be used to help familiarise learners who become able to identify the letter names for scales with notated music or to stretch more advanced members of the student group.
300+ Music Worksheets in a simple "one click" download
High School Music Worksheets: Chords
A set of music theory worksheets that look at chord construction. The first sheets are concerned with simple triads. Later students can be exposed to other worksheets dealing with more advanced chord construction (7th chords etc)
Music Worksheets: High School Level Theory Tests
A range of high school level music theory worksheets in the form of music theory tests with ten questions/puzzles on each sheet.
Initially the tests are concerned with Major Scales, Minor scales and basic triads. More advanced worksheets introduce 7th chords and (major and minor) pentatonic scales into the mix.
These test papers can be used for homework or in classroom sessions.
They are also ideal for diagnostic or assessment purposes
to determine the strengths and weaknesses of particular students with regard to music theory.
In addition to allowing you to test your students they also provide an excellent music theory resource for use with substitute teachers
when you can't be in the classroom?
Music Theory Worksheets and/or Wallcharts for High School
You also get Thirteen letter sized music theory handouts explaining the construction of major, minor, pentatonic and blues scales as well triads and 7th chords etc
These music theory resources can be distributed to students and/or printed and displayed as a source of quick reference on your music classroom wall?
Once they have been downloaded you can print these invaluable High School music theory worksheets and handouts
straight from the hard drive of your computer or drop the files onto a memory stick
and take them into your high school or college for photocopying etc. Whatever suits the way you work? Any way you choose you can be sure that for the rest of your teaching career you will always have access to first class music theory worksheets and resources.
DOWNLOAD over 300+ High School Level Music Theory PDF's NOW!
A lifetime of music theory worksheets for only $18.00
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