5/6 General Music Students take one class of general music per week for the whole school year. The goal of the course is to enhance musical appreciation and literacy. The topics covered include American musical styles, sound science, mallet percussion, and world drumming. Students will be encouraged to perform on both homemade and classroom instruments as well as sing. Classes will be exposed to a wide variety of music from differing cultures.7th grade Ukulele Students take one class of music per week for the whole school year. The goal of the course is to enhance musical appreciation and literacy, as well as help students hone their performance skills. Students will learn how to play the ukulele, and in doing so become familiar with reading music, musical terminology, music performance, and teaching others about music that interests them. 8th grade Songwriting Students take one class of music per week for the whole school year. The goal of the course is to enhance musical appreciation and literacy, as well as help students hone their performance skills. The class will examine the music theory underlying pop and rock songs from the past 50 years and use what they learn to write their own music, which they will perform on classroom ukuleles, percussion instruments, and iPads. Band Band is offered in two levels: beginner, which meets on Mondays and Thursdays from 3-4:30, and advanced, which meets on Tuesdays and Fridays from 3-4:30. Beginner students are not expected to have any prior knowledge of reading or playing music on their chosen instrument, while advanced students should have played their instrument for a year or more and be comfortable with reading music. Students can choose to learn flute, clarinet, saxophone, trumpet, trombone, or percussion. The band performs three concerts per year. 5th Grade General Music Curriculum Details Unit I - Mallet Madness! Students learn to play classroom percussion instruments with special emphasis on glockenspiels in this unit. Students will learn how to read musical notation and play rhythms and pitches accurately. A class performance of a song will be the final project of the unit, with students responsible for learning and playing their own part. Unit II - The Science of Sound Students will explore the scientific workings of sound and discover how different instruments work. At the end of the unit, students will invent their own homemade instruments and give a brief presentation on how their instrument creates sound. 6th Grade General Music Curriculum Details Unit I - World Drumming Students
will go on a world tour in this unit, examining the use of drums in
different cultures around the globe. This unit is performance-heavy,
requiring students to participate frequently on classroom instruments.
The topics covered include native American drumming, West African
rhythms, Caribbean drumming, Asian drumming, rhythms of India, and
Middle Eastern drumming. The final project is a small group presentation
in which groups must perform their own original compositions for the
class and connect their performance to one of the styles studied. Unit II - Music of America This unit explores the various genres of music that are historically American, or that have been shaped by American influence. Students will focus on country music, gospel, blues, jazz, rock, and Latin pop. The unit project is a podcast that compares elements of a modern song of the students' choice to the styles studied in class. 7th grade Ukulele Curriculum Details Learning to Play Ukulele Over the course of the year, students will learn how to hold, tune, play, and care for a ukulele. The course will cover a variety of chord types, time signatures, key signatures, and common musical terminology. Students will be expected to demonstrate understanding of these concepts in writing, orally, and through expressive musical performance. The first rubric will focus on having students teach the rest of the class how to play an appropriately difficult song of the student's choice. The second rubric will ask students to create a music video for a song learned as a class. 8th grade Songwriting Curriculum Details Becoming a Singer-Songwriter Students will apply musical conventions they have learned in the previous three years, including using appropriate musical notation and performing on the ukulele, to create their own music. Every month, a new songwriter and song will be introduced, and the class will analyze the techniques present in this month's song. Students will be expected to compose part of one song every two to three weeks using the techniques studied in class. Students will perform their work frequently for the class! |
NOTE: This webpage is out of date as of August 2016. For current information, see our active webpage.
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