Listening List for Elementary Music Classes
Piece for primary
grades and
lesson focus.
Jazz
World
Music
Traditional Classical Contemporary
Classical
Tisket A-Tasket
(Vocal Jazz)
Gamelan Piece
(Tone Color)
Peter and the Wolf
(Instrument ID,
Programmatic Music)
Carnival of the Animals
(Instrument Families,
Programmatic
In the Hall of the
Mountain King
(Dynamics, Tempo,
Rhythm)
Surprise SymphonyHaydn (Accent,
Rhythm)
Nutcracker (Kinesthetic
expression, recognition
Ratetsky March
Olympic
Fanfare (Form)
American
Traditional (Folk,
blues)
Musical Theatre, Popular Music
Opera
Piece for upper
elementary
grades and
lesson focus.
Take 5-Brubeck
(Mixed meter)
Everybody
Loves Saturday
Night
(Ensemble
Playing)
Turkish Rondo
(Rhythm)
Appalachian
Spring (Theme
and Variations)
Stars and Stripes Forever
(Form, Steady Beat)
Eine Kleine Nacht Musik
(Rondo Form)
Summertime
(Opera, Historical)
Era Units in Grade
6 Text
I’ve Got Rhythm
Bobby McFerrin
Firebird-Stravinsky
Lucy in the Sky
With Diamonds
Twinkle Variations
(Rondo Form)
Piece for Middle
School and
lesson focus
Salt PeanutsGillespie
Montagues and
Capulets-Prokofiev
Variations on
America-Ives
Hoedown
Entertainer-Joplin
Rockit-Hancock
Ride of the Valkyries
Viennese Musical ClockKodaly
Infernal DanceStravinsky
O Fortuna-Orff
Sabre DanceKhatchaturian
Tod und VerklarungRichard Strauss
(Program Music-grade
7)
Fingal’s CaveMendelsshohn
(Program Musicgrade7)
Pictures at an
Exhibition-Mussorgsky
(Program Music-grade
8)
Pierrot LunaireShoenberg (12 tone
music-grade 8)