Pop Art Music Composers

It is fun to adapt the Pop Art activity for any subject at any level. College students still love to color and enjoy the opportunity to be creative as seen through this project. My Music Appreciation students really enjoyed the opportunity to be artists for a class period when I surprised them with a change-up from our typical work in class. They commented during and afterwards how much fun it was to complete this activity and how it let them return to their elementary school days for a few minutes, putting aside the stresses and challenges of everyday life as a young adult.

THE PROCESS - These are a few images of students hard at work on their composers.

Student coloring an image of a composer on his iPad.

Student coloring an image of Franz Schumann on her iPad.

Student coloring an image of a Antonio Vivaldi on her iPad.

Student coloring an image of Ludwig von Beethoven on his iPad.

THE RESULTS - These projects turned out so well that we created a collage of four composers to serve as the cover for the Music Appreciation textbooks we created.

Cover to the Medieval and Renaissance textbook featuring an image of a composer created with the pop art activity.

Cover to the Baroque textbook featuring images of four composers created with the pop art activity.

Cover to the Classical textbook featuring images of four composers created with the pop art activity.

Cover to the Romatic textbook featuring images of four composers created with the pop art activity.

Cover to the Modern textbook featuring images of four composers created with the pop art activity.

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4 replies

April 15, 2024

Coloring is the fun part - but getting in close to an image also makes students curious about the subject and drives learning. Love this approach to Pop art! Your students did an outstanding job.

April 16, 2024

These look so sharp! I love how you used them for the book covers.

April 17, 2024

I love these so much. 🤩 It’s such a fun ‘what if’ scenario too! Imagine what Beethoven would have composed in reaction to Pop Art, or other 20th century art cultural movements and/or political change. 🤔 🎵

So cool that these fantastic Pop Art examples have become so central to this book writing project. Amazing work, Donnie!

May 31, 2024

You had me with the title alone (not to mention Beethoven making an appearance). ❤️ how your students were able to not only explore this project for a class, but bring it into their semester book project. What a great way to bring new life to classical music. Thanks for sharing, Donnie. 🙌🏻

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