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Intro: Observing Veteran’s Day and Teaching with Library of Congress Music
On 11/11/11 we will observe Veterans Day. Many schools are choosing to have students attend classes on this day to use this opportunity to celebrate our Veterans, connect with communities and focus on topics and themes that may otherwise not be in curriculum. Regardless of whether we are looking at nationally discussed topics like progressions in medicine resulting from war, geographic influences on military strategies with maps, individuals that played important roles in our history, songs by the military and civilians or deeply personal stories of veterans, their correspondence home, drawings and photographs and diaries.

Veterans Day
To provide teachers with another tool to use in their classroom as we observe Veteran’s Day, TPS EIU created two pages on our site within our Special Projects area. The first is titled Veterans Day and provides links to many resources within the Library of Congress, the most poignant being the Veteran’s History Project.

In addition, our Patriotic Songs site has become really popular because we highlight official songs of branches of the US Armed Forces. The songs are shared through sheet music, audio, and information from the Library of Congress and links to the official website of that military branch.

Teaching with Music - Types of Primary Sources
Music created at a specific place or point in history is a powerful primary source. Students know that they are drawn to particular songs, artists or types of music. We can use this information to encourage them to analyze the lyrics and music from other times and places to gain a better understanding of life at that time. 

Music is available at the Library of Congress site in the form of audio, sheet music and lyric sheets. 
1. Sheet music is typically found in in jpeg and PDF format for printing. 
2. Lyric or Song Sheets are also found in jpeg and PDF format and were often distributed to gatherings for sing-alongs.
3. Audio may be found in RealMedia or MP3 format. This audio can be downloaded and saved. 

Performing Arts Encyclopedia
A search from the homepage will let you look for topics and type of resource. A wonderful area is the Performing Arts Encyclopedia. Look at the Special Presentations for prepared sets with background information and highlighted items. 

One of my favorites is Patriotic Melodies that tells the stories behind some of our countries most recognized songs. 

Yankee Doodle - is available in sheet music from 1845 and 1862, song sheets and sound recordings as early as 1897. 

God Bless America -You can find Irvin Berlin’s handwritten lyrics, however you will only find 30 second MP3 and RealMedia audio due to copyright restrictions. 

Be sure to look at the BIBLIOGRAPHIC INFORMATION for the primary source - you will find restrictions and more!

Copyright 
Copyright and Primary Sources from the Library’s Teachers Page offers questions and answers about copyright and fair use.

Taking the Mystery out of Copyright is an interactive page for teachers and students

Citations 
One key point to remember is to always cite your sources. It is important that we model this for students and show that we are respectfully giving credit where credit is due.