SPARK explores the electro-acoustic world of Paul Dresher - musician, composer and inventor - as he prepares for a performance of a new work at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. This Educator Guide traces the legacy of new instrument development and experimentation and its impact on music.

Lesson plan to encourage children to experience listening and responding to music with a strong beat.

Students will learn to apply the principles and concepts associated with energy and the transfer of energy in an engineering context through the designing and making of a musical instrument. The students must choose from a variety of supplies presented to them to make an instrument capable of producing three different tones. After the accomplishment of the design, students must explain the energy transfer mechanism in sufficient detail and describe how they could make their instruments better.

Students are introduced to sound energy concepts and how engineers use sound energy. Through hands-on activities and demonstrations, students examine how we know sound exists by listening to and seeing sound waves. They learn to describe sound in terms of its pitch, volume and frequency. They explore how sound waves move through liquids, solids and gases. They also identify the different pitches and frequencies, and create high- and low-pitch sound waves.

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In this class, students learn about physics principles by examining the physics responsible for producing music with electronic stringed instruments, while building, testing, and playing their own electric guitar. Students will design their own Guitar bodies, construct their own pick-ups, assemble their own guitars, tune them using a chromatic tuner, and use them to play a simple song. While the instructions here give enough detail that an independent learner could construct their own guitar, please note that this activity should only be attempted with proper adult supervision, whether at home or at school.

This is a lesson that introduces and reinforces the music concept of pitch.

Students will demonstrate mastery of eight measures of four beats by speaking, moving and playing. They will classify instruments metals, woods, scrapers, ringers, shakers, etc.

Lesson plan for an activity that challenges music students to use a technique from Balinese gamelan, to play challenging music in a cooperative manner.

Guidelines for the making of drums in class with children subsequently exploring the different sounds that drums can make.

In this lesson, students learn about sound. Girls and boys are introduced to the concept of frequency and how it applies to musical sounds.

Students design musical instruments inspired by what they learn in an experiment with beakers of different liquids. In the "research and investigate" stage of design, they experiment to determine the general relationship between pitch (frequency) and liquid density. They use their results to draw designs for instruments that can create sound at several different pitches.

Music activities involving a wide range of group actions. Includes children following rules for rhythm patterns, speech patterns, melodies, gestures, responses, etc.

Students are introduced to the concept of the image of music. They draw the image of a song after listening to it by deciding where different musical instruments were placed during recording. Finally, students further investigate audio engineering by modeling the position of microphones over a drum set to create a desired musical image.

Spark visits organ player Wil Blades as he jams with Dr. Lonnie Smith at San Francisco's Boom Boom Room. This Educator Guide is about jazz, the history of the Hammond B3 organ, and the science of electronic instruments.

For high school and above, a discussion of the relationship of musical intervals and frequency ratios, with examples and exercises.

Children explore the sound possibilities in everyday household objects.

Students will learn to hear the differences between low, middle, and high pitches. They will be able to visualize these differences by looking at the low, middle, and high points of a mountain.

SPARK explores experimental music with Matt Davignon as he curates "Live Play" at Artist's Television Access, the first event in San Francisco's Soundwave Series. This Educator Guide is about the history of experimental music and sound art.