The National Standards for Music Education emphasize conceptual understanding in areas that reflect the actual processes in which musicians engage. The standards cultivate a student’s ability to carry out the three Artistic Processes:
These are the processes that musicians have followed for generations, even as they connect through music to their selves and their societies. And isn’t competence in Creating, Performing, and Responding what we really want for our students?
Students need to have experience in creating, to be successful musicians and to be successful 21st century citizens.
Students need to perform – as singers, as instrumentalists, and in their lives and careers.
Students need to respond to music, as well as to their culture, their community, and their colleagues.
1. Sing, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music.
2. Perform on instruments, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music.
3. Improvise melodies, variations, and accompaniments.
4. Compose and arrange music within specified guidelines.
5. Read and notate music.
6. Listen to, analyze, and describe music.
7. Evaluate music and music performances.
8. Understand relationships between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts.
9. Understand music in relation to history and culture.