What goes on in music?

Performing:

• • Playing Instruments

  • Singing

  • Moving to music

Listening:

• • Listening to and analyzing music

  • Describing music

  • Evaluating music and performances

Creating:

• • Improvising

  • Composing

Being musically literate:

• • Reading

  • Notating

Drawing connections:

• • Understanding the relationships between music and other subjects

  • Understanding music in relation to culture and history

I work to incorporate these standards on a rotating basis into the daily life of the music classroom. Often times one piece of music can be used in a variety of ways, hitting many of these standards along the way. For example:

Hearing the song "Tidy-O" for the first time, students analyzed its different rhythms - identifying quarter note, eighth note and sixteenth note patterns. They then learned dance moves to correspond with the song, keeping a steady beat with their feet as their main task. Many students began to sing along, learning the simple melody as it was repeated in practice of the dance.

The next class, students were asked to review the rhythmic patterns they had first identified and were then tasked with notating the entire song on their own - something they had never been asked to do before. With minimal guidance and permission to work with a partner - most students successfully completed the assignment with ease and gained greater facility in writing their quarter notes, eighth notes and sixteenth notes.

As a final challenge with this song the students now know by heart, together they deciphered 3 instrumental parts written on the musical staff - rhythms, pitches and all with only small nudges from me in the right direction. Also something they had never been tasked with before.

With one simple song students addressed analyzing, moving, singing, notating, reading and playing music.

Every lesson I begin with your students evolves as the students show me by their actions and understandings what I'm doing well or what they need presented in a clearer or more engaging way. I work hard to make class challenging, meaningful and engaging, and how that presents itself changes almost every day.