Visual representations of music
designed to support musical understanding

I have found Musical Maps to be a powerful classroom tool that enables students to engage in music listening that supports their natural strategies of visual connections, movement, and singing while providing opportunities for peer interaction and support. 

Musical maps with suggested ideas for musical experiences in the music classroom comprise the pages on this website. These maps and lessons ideas have been created by me and my students here at Oakland University. Please feel free to use them in your classroom and to adapt them to connect to the musical lives of your students in your own unique school community.

Deborah VanderLinde, Ph. D.
Associate Professor, Music Education
Oakland University, Rochester MI
deborahvblair.weebly.com

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Dr. Magne Espeland, Professor of Music and Education
Stord/Haugesund University College, Norway

The value of research in music education is not always judged by its usefulness to the music classroom. Teachers who visit this website on the use of musical maps for music listening will immediate recognize the usefulness of Deborah's research, and many researchers should visit it because they might have a lesson to learn. When I started my research into responsive music listening--including music puzzles and maps-in Norwegian classrooms in the mid 1980s, the reports from teachers about students’ enthusiasm and engagement in their listening processes were of major importance to the research team.  Deborah VanderLinde's work represents a major step forward in our knowledge about useful and efficient pathways for students on all levels towards discovering the many meaning aspects hidden in this wonderful and colorful instrument for human expression we call music. It is therefore, with great pleasure, that I recommend this website to all music teachers!