Minnesota Music Listening Contest
Celebrating its 23rd year, The Minnesota High School Music Listening Contest
is an independent not-for-profit competition providing an ideal
opportunity to enrich students' experiences with
classical, ethnic,
and popular music in a fun and competitive environment.
In this statewide contest, students develop skills in active listening
and critical analysis by learning to identify composers,
cultures, periods and styles.
Teachers or coaches recruit three students to form a team. The teams receive a study guide and
repertoire compact discs that contain all the musical selections they will need to compete effectively. All
teams participate in regional competitions and first- and second-place teams advance to state
competition.
Give us your feedback about the contest:
Nominate your coach for WEM Foundation's Academic Coach of the Year
What Participants Say
Coaches
"This is my first year. I hope to return. I'm looking forward to this experience. It's bringing out new curiosity and interest in music in my students. Thank you!"
"I think it is a very worthwhile program."
"Really nice work, people!"
"I thought the music selected was great in its variety. The kids were really excited about it."
"Since this was our first year, we had no idea what to expect. Great manual and test questions -- bringing everything together. Provides wonderful background on history of music, composers, and music."
"Great challenge -- encourages competitiveness."
"My kids love this experience!"
"What a great contest! I really thought the Mystery Round was good because students were able to use the skills they developed while going through the CDs and expand and critically think about musical periods and composers."
Students
"Pretty cool competition. Thanks."
"I learned more history in three weeks studying for this contest than in my history class all this year. No lie. Keep it up!"
"The competition was fun. It was interesting to listen to different types of music that I normally wouldn't hear. I would suggest this to anyone."
"I was very surprised as to how much I learned. I enjoyed this contest very much."
"This is a really difficult competition, but we learned so much."
"I thought it was a highly effective way to study history of music and music composition. I learned lots of different terms regarding composition styles, analysis, and genre."
"It was fun to learn about the characteristics of the music periods and the composers. I was really proud when I heard a song I knew for sure!"
"This contest has been a great learning experience for me. It has really pushed me to expand my horizons in listening to different types of music. I have also learned a lot technically about music. It's a very challenging competition, but worthwhile indeed."
"I enjoyed learning about all different kinds of music and composers. It brought about a new-found enjoyment for music because I knew more about the historical background of it."
Read "Name that Tune: Classical Style" from the Feb. 17, 2009 Minneapolis StarTribune.
