Syllabus+1-4



Children learn music and language in a similar way. Both are **aural** arts, learned first through listening. Early listening experience in music and language forms the foundation for further learning. What we have learned creates in each of us the **listening vocabulary** to eventually speak, sing and chant, and to hear and understand complex forms.

Lower School General Music instruction is sequenced to parallel this learning process. Students first develop an extensive aural and oral music vocabulary. Only then do we introduce music reading and writing. Because music is learned aurally and orally, the teacher must serve as a model of excellent musicianship. The teacher will sing, chant, move, play and create in order to teach the children successfully.

Lower School students will experience music at BA in a three-stage approach: Whole / Part / Whole.

__In Stage 1__, during Classroom Activities, students will experience music in a holistic way through many tonalities, meters, styles and timbres. They will sing, chant, move, dance, listen, play percussion instruments, bells and chimes, create and improvise, read, write and perform. Music content is introduced in Stage 1.

__In Stage 2__, during Learning Sequence Activities **, ** children will respond alone and in a group to patterns performed by the teacher. In this stage, students study the parts of music by learning a specific vocabulary of tonal and rhythm patterns. Music skills and music reading are introduced in Stage 2.

__In Stage 3__, during Classroom Activities, students will begin to understand music : Content experienced in Stage 1 is woven together with skills learned in Stage 2 to provide understanding and comprehension of music. This understanding results in students engaging in musical activities in a more sophisticated way than they did in Stage 1.

Students will be involved in American folk music as well music of other countries and cultures through songs presented in as authentic a form as possible.

Lower School general music students will have the opportunity to achieve all of the goals as defined for each of the levels within the **National Standards** of the Music Educators National Conference (MENC).

Lower School general music students also have the opportunity to study **instrumental music during the school day** in BA's new, optional **Applied Music Lessons** program. Parents interested in pursuing this opportunity for their child should contact Mrs. Tunnell or Dr. Gene Tunnell. For more information, click here.