In the Second Grade, students will be introduced to the traditional 5 line music staff through solfege study and beginning sight singing. We will be challenged with melodic ostinato accompaniments on Orff percussion instruments as well as playing simple songs from music notation. We will continue studying families of the orchestra and be introduced to our composer of the month series. We will explore part independence with instrumental and movement ostinatos. We will concentrate on music from other cultures through our Carnegie Hall Musical Explorers material.
(Compiled from the 1994 MENC Content Standards, NYC Arts Blueprint, and the Skills Scope Sequences of Making Music and Share the Music Series)
- Singing, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music
-will experience singing solo, in a small group, and with full class
-will experience singing with piano, guitar, and Orff accompaniments as well as well as acapella
-will sing with accuracy in pitch and rhythm with a steady beat
-will sing with clear diction
-will sing with appropriate light head voice, with appropriate expression, style, and dynamics, and maintain good singing posture
-will experience call and response and echo-singing
-will develop repertoire of folk song literature from memory
-will experience singing/chanting in various dynamics, tempos, expressive styles, and meters
-will develop aural perception of melodic steps and skips, ascending and descending and repeated patterns
-will develop audiation skills with familiar patterns and songs
-will follow basic musical cues while singing including dynamic changes, fermatas, releases, and preparatory breaths
- Performing on instruments, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music.
-will explore percussion instruments and body percussion for sound effects in stories, poems, mini-dramas, rhymes, and songs
-will identify names of percussion instruments used in class both by sight and sound
-will develop awareness of timbre and specialization: woods, shakers/scrapers, metals, sound effects, drums/skins, and melody instruments
-will identify differences between Soprano, Alto, and Bass Orff instruments
-will demonstrate correct playing techniques of percussion instruments with special attention to mallet technique on Orff instruments
-will echo rhythmic patterns on instruments and body percussion accurately
-will maintain steady beat (bilaterally and alternating) on Orff instruments while singing, chanting, or listening
-will accurately perform a simple ostinato pattern on instruments and body percussion, first with speech and then while internalizing speech parts
-will develop basic ensemble skills: awareness of several parts at the same time, maintaining a steady beat across the ensemble with little help from teacher
-will show proper care of instruments during routines
-will show manners and patience during instrument routines (taking turns)
- Improvising melodies, variations, and accompaniments
-will experience improvising percussion accompaniments to nursery rhymes, songs, chants, and recorded music
-will improvise short vocal answers in game songs with appropriate speaking or singing voice
-will improvise simple rhythmic phrases in call and response form
-will improvise on Orff instruments in pentatonic scales with a given rhythmic phrase
- Composing and arranging music within specific guidelines.
-will create and arrange music to accompany readings or dramatizations
-will help choose characteristic instrument sounds for various roles in stories, songs, or chants, and will explain their choices through class discussion
-will help to compose original verses to familiar songs
-will compose movement and instrumental introductions to familiar folk songs and speech pieces
-will compose their own S-M-L songs and 4-beat rhythmic patterns
-will create a contrasting B section in a class composition of AB form through change in dynamics, timbre, tempo, or texture
- Reading and notating music.
-will use solfege and Curwen hand signs when echo-singing while relating to the solfege ladder
-will identify the music staff, numbered lines and spaces, line notes, space notes, and treble clef
-will identify the basic line-space pattern of diatonic musical scale in relation to the solfege scale ladder
-will be able to read simple four beat melodic combinations of S, M, L, R, and D on the music staff
-will use standard rhythmic notation to notate simple four-beat rhythmic dictation phrases including quarter note and rest, paired eighth notes, half note, and whole note, and selected ternary beat divisions (three eighths, dotted quarter,quarter-eighth)
-will perform simple four measure phrases on percussion instruments and body percussion by reading standard rhythmic notation, alone and with class
-will interpret vocal exploration iconic notation (up/down/same) and relate it to standard pitch notation on the music staff
-will identify step and skips on the music staff, as well as numeric intervals without M/m quality
-will identify the rhythm and number of syllables in words and phrases
- Listening to, analyzing, and describing music. (Movement-see below)
-will demonstrate appropriate listening behaviors for classroom activities and audience members
-will identify the composer and title of the piece, identify a brief history of the composer’s life, and understand the broad format of multi-movement works
-will identify known instruments in listening examples by picture and name including flute, violin, piano, trumpet, and all percussion instruments
-will demonstrate ability to follow one instrument/melody line in a piece with multiple parts
-will identify the tempo of the piece by accurately finding the steady beat
-will experience music that has no steady beat
-will identify if there are singers, instruments, or both
-will identify the texture of the piece as one, few, or many
-will identify male, female, and child voices
-will follow age-appropriate listening maps
-will create listening maps for simple musical excerpts
-will describe musical experiences using appropriate music vocabulary
-will experience many genres of music and compare/contrast them using appropriate music vocabulary
-will identify and illustrate emotional and expressive qualities of music and text
-will experience programmatic music
-will identify if parts of the music are the same or different and label parts accordingly, using simple two part patterns: AB, ABA, AABB, etc.
-will identify ascending, descending, and repeated patterns in music
-will experience and label “home” and away for tonal centers
- Evaluating music and music performers.
-will be given the opportunity to express their opinion/thoughts/preferences for music heard in the classroom through discussion
-will share “self-critiques” about their own performances
-will participate in class discussions following music or video clip examples of how the music made them feel or act
-will describe the roles of participants in a performance
-will capture and share music through a recording or performance
- Understanding relationships between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts.
-will experience literacy in the music classroom through theater pieces and by simply adding music to stories and poetry
-will perform mini-dramas from fairytales and fables using expressive voices and movement
-will experience picture books with music accompaniment and discuss the differences between reading it both ways
-will identify related patterns in rhythm, musical forms, and math
-will identify similarities and differences in the meanings of common terms used in the various arts and other content areas
-will identify the relationship between music and dance, and between music and theater
- Understanding music in relation to history and culture.
-will learn folk songs and children’s games from various cultures
-will discuss and understand roles of music in a different cultures
-will attend live performances and concerts in their community and school
-will share their musical experiences with the school community
-will identify music makers in their families, schools, and communities
-will understand that music reflects a composer’s ideas, emotions, life experiences, imagination, and cultural context
Additional standards inspired by Dalcroze and Orff-Schulwerk:
- Movement and Dramatic Play:
-will move purposefully to show expressive elements, musical events, and prominent musical characteristics in a specific piece of music
-will demonstrate importance of beginning and ending a piece with stillness
-will be able to find and move to the steady beat using music that has a well-defined and even pulse; move to a variety of tempos
-will be able to change movement accordingly to tempo changes and beat duration changes
-will be able to demonstrate a varied repertoire of non-locomotor and locomotor movement skills including but not limited to: walk, run, hop, march, skip, gallop, sway, glide, jump, twirl, pat, tap, stomp, clap, snap, bend, balance, shake, stretch, etc.
-will demonstrate ability to control their movements inside of their own personal space
-will be able to form and move in a line (follow-the-leader), a circle, and in free space with little assistance
-will move with a variety of emotions, energy levels, and moods
-will use a clear speaking voice with a variety of expressive qualities
-will create movements to songs and poems for performances
-will experiment with pathways in the air and on the ground
-will coordinate their individual locomotor movements during a singing game or circle dance with those of the entire class
-will explore concepts of large and small, heavy and light, tension and flow, accented and unaccented
-will demonstrate movements of various durations and levels related to rhythmic or melodic patterns
-will demonstrate ability to change between two movements on predetermined musical cues
