Music - 4th Grade

Utah State Office of Education
Elementary Fine Arts Core Curriculum

Introduction

The Core Curriculum for Elementary Fine Arts is written to communicate what students are expected to know and be able to do in dance, music, theater, and visual arts. The intended result is to effect in students: (a) the development of affective, cognitive, and psychomotor skills in the arts, (b) the joy of self-expression and aesthetic awareness, (c) a personal connection with community heritage and varied cultures, and (d) the achievement of Life Skills. The Core espouses no specific methodologies but supports the experiential development of primary arts skills as the natural vehicle for discovering the attendant history, culture, aesthetics, critiquing, and other relevant connections to the student's world in and out of school.

The Core centers on discovering the joy, richness, and depth of the arts through active involvement with the art form. It is designed to strengthen and advance the kinetic, pragmatic, playful, curious, creative, sensitive, and imaginative nature of elementary students through self-expression, heightened perception, and development of skills indigenous to dance, music, theater, and visual arts. To deepen understanding of the traditions and cultures of various peoples and communities, recommended music, art, literature, and folk arts are coordinated with the topics in the Social Studies Elementary Core Curriculum.

Implications for Implementation

The Core Curriculum for dance, music, theater, and visual arts provides the basis of professionalism and accountability for teachers, and defines the expectations and achievement standards for students. Curriculum standards create strength, unity, and heightened concern for the achievement of essential learning objectives. Each student and teacher must view these standards as both essential and desirable. Students have the prime responsibility for their own artistic achievement. The success of these curriculum standards will only be accomplished by the broad-based acceptance of classroom teachers, students, administrators, parents, artists, and dance, drama, music, and visual arts specialists from kindergarten through college throughout the state of Utah.

Teachers are the guides who provide direction for learning by continuing their personal professional development and collegial collaborations and by offering students engaging and positive opportunities for skill development, high caliber models of artwork, authentic and accurate sources of information, relevant connections to the student's world, and guidance in formative self-assessment. The role of administrators is to provide the necessary leadership, instructional time, qualified personnel, facilities, professional development, technological support, materials, and administrative support for achieving the Fine Arts Core Curriculum.

Parents are encouraged to supplement classroom learning through encouraging the study and appreciation of art, music, dance, and theater as a family, listening and being informed of school activities and requirements, and personal involvement in school and community activities as appropriate. Professional artists can provide models of career opportunities, expertise, local relevancy, and opportunities for teachers and students to collaborate in the professional setting.

Organization, Sequence, Format

The Elementary Fine Arts Core Curriculum appears in alphabetical order: Dance, Music, Theater, and Visual Arts. The curriculum for each is organized into four standards, with accompanying objectives and assessment indicators. A statement of student work clarifies the parameters of each standard. The objectives articulate specific goals to be accomplished by the student. The assessment indicators are tools designed to measure achievement of the objective through relevant performance tasks. Examples of instructional strategies and literature have been thoughtfully included in many instances.

All standards are printed in boldface type. Boldface type words found elsewhere in the document signal the reader that a definition may be found in the glossary. All assessment indicators are set apart with a bullet, and all strategy examples are underlined. Correlations to other elementary core documents have been footnoted to identify possibilities for integrated instruction.

The numbering system works as follows: The kindergarten numbers for dance begin with 1400, music with 1500, theater with 1300, and visual arts with 1000. The last two numbers of the four digits change according to grade level; e.g., first grade dance being 1410, second grade music being 1520.

The number of the standard is the underlined figure appearing after the hyphen. The specific number of each objective appears as the last two underlined digits in the series of four numbers which indicate the standard and the objective; e.g., 0102 means the second objective of the first standard, 0401 means the first objective of the fourth standard.

Elementary Music Core Curriculum

Mission Statement

Music has the power to touch children. It reaches the perceptual, intellectual, cultural, emotional, and spiritual dimensions of their lives. It promotes creativity, thinking, and joy. The Music Core Curriculum is dedicated to provide a complete, balanced, and sequential music education for every child in Utah.

Philosophy

The basic role of music education is to contribute to the development of the whole person through affective, cognitive, and psychomotor experiences in music. Music as a curriculum should provide opportunity for individual growth and positive recognition. The power of music education inherently promotes within students lifelong learning, complex thinking, effective communicating, compassion, aesthetic awareness, collaborative skills, responsible citizenship, and career readiness.

Experiences in music should provide a conceptual understanding of the basic properties of the elements of music; e.g., rhythm, melody, texture, harmony, form, timbre, and expressive qualities. To achieve its role, music requires a well-balanced, sequential course of study.

The Core represents only the essential concepts and skills that every student should master and includes guidance in providing added proficiencies and mastery where conditions permit. In general, the overall music program should create a positive bridge between the school and the community, both in cultural awareness and in collaborative participation.

Overview

The transformation of a child into a knowing musician involves the ability to use a variety of musical skills and knowledge. Students work toward comprehensive competence from the early grades by being exposed to a full, balanced, and sequential curriculum. The Elementary Music Core is designed to keep the joy of creating, making, and experiencing music at the center by involving children in developmentally appropriate and holistic learning experiences in singing, playing, creating, and listening.

The success of any educational program design and implementation rests on many shoulders. We acknowledge the contribution of classroom teachers, music specialists, parents, state and district curriculum specialists, and the college/university community.

Elementary Music Standards

Standard 1: Singing

The student will develop the voice and body as instruments of musical expression. This standard provides students with ability to recognize and take satisfaction in good singing. Activities include exploring the potential of the human voice to make sounds, using body movement to internalize sounds, and discovering how songs and singing games reveal history and ways of thinking. Developing an understanding of the historical and cultural context of the music being studied fosters unity with, and understanding of, one's family, classmates, school, community, and various cultural traditions.

Standard 2: Playing

The student will play instruments as a means of musical expression. Learning how to read music notation and evaluate the development of one's own playing skills accompanies this study. As is the case with singing, successfully playing a musical instrument nurtures self-discipline, cooperation, sensitivity, attentiveness, responsibility, and the joy of self-expression.

Standard 3: Creating

The student will create music through improvising, arranging, and composing. Involvement in the creative process is collaborative. The making of something new enables students to absorb the enthusiasm and joy of imagining, improvising, problem solving, synthesizing, decision making, evaluating, and refining. Activities include experimentation with timbres, dynamics, tempi, melodic and rhythmic patterns, textures, forms, and styles. Explorations include communicating aesthetically, relating the creative/experimental process in music to other fields, and representing musical sounds through notation.

Standard 4: Listening

The student will listen to, analyze, and describe music. Activities include learning how to evaluate quality while creating and performing music, finding personal meaning/purpose in various music selections, and the opportunity to become intimately acquainted with the nature and use of the music elements. Familiarity and understanding of these elements enables students to recognize how they are used in music to create meaning and communicate ideas and feelings about life. Students will gain familiarity with the musical works of many great composers and folk musicians. Students will gain understanding of how music affects an environment; how it relates to science, art, theater, dance, mathematics, health, humanities, and the media; and how it provides a means for enriching and responding to life.

Glossary

Beat: The steady, unchanging pulse in the music.

Dynamics: The various levels of volume.

forte (f): loud
piano (p): soft
crescendo (<): gradually get louder
decrescendo (>): gradually get softer

Fermata: Hold the note until satisfied.

Form: Structure, organization of the music.

Theme and Variations (A A'A''A'''): A form in which the same section (theme) is presented several times with a different variation of it each time.
AB (verse/refrain): A two-part, or binary, form with contrasting sections.
Solo/Chorus (call/response): A form consisting of the alternation between a solo and a responding chorus or individual.
ABA (ternary): A three-part form with a contrasting middle section.
Rondo (ABACA): A form that keeps bringing back the "A" section after each new section.
Coda: A special ending.
Introduction: A "preface" to the music.

G-Clef: Signifies the treble clef or notes of the upper half of the piano. Specifically marks the G-line in the treble clef.

Key Signature: None, one, or more sharps/flats that indicate which notes are to be raised/lowered a half step. Enables one to locate do and/or la in the music.

Leger Line: An extra piece of a line to locate additional pitches that go above or below the regular five staff lines.

Meter: A regular pattern of recurring accents on the beat, usually in twos, threes, or fours.

Natural Voice: An unforced voice, free from strain or distortion.

Note Values: Quarter notes are the basic unit of time. Half notes receive twice the time value. Whole notes receive four times the time value. It takes two eighth notes to equal the time of one quarter note and four sixteenth notes to equal the time of one quarter note. There are corresponding rests to signal the same time values, but instead of sound, they symbolize silence.

Ostinato: A short repeating pattern of rhythm and/or melody.

Pentatonic Scale: The pentatonic scale includes do, re, mi, so, and la, high or low octaves. Fa and ti are omitted.

Rhythm: A pattern of short and long sounds and silences. The rhythm is usually superimposed over an implied steady beat. Rhythm is the end result of starting with a beat, establishing a tempo for the beat, putting a pattern of accents on the beats, organizing them into a meter; then, working with those elements as a base, composing/improvising a rhythmic pattern that rides on top of the beat, tempo, and meter.

Rhythm Instruments: Simple classroom instruments that are played by striking: drums, rhythm sticks, maracas, claves, triangles, cymbals, castanets, tambourines, tone bells, xylophones, (Orff instruments), cow bells, jingle bells, etc.

Sharp/Flat: A sharp raises a pitch one half step; a flat lowers a pitch one half step.

Singing Game: A song that has a game to be played while singing it; e.g., Ring around the Rosy, London Bridge, Patty Cake.

Solfege: The system that names pitches: do, re, mi, fa, so, la, and ti.

Staff: The five lines and four spaces used to diagram music.

Style: A type of music distinguished by its characteristic use of rhythm, timbre, melody, lyrics, texture, harmony, form, dynamics, and tempo; e.g., jazz, blues, gospel, classical, country, rock, popular.

Syncopation: The occurrence of an accent on a normally unaccented beat.

Tempi: The plural of tempo.

Andante: A walking pace.
Allegro: A lively pace.
Accelerando: A gradual speeding up of the established tempo.
Ritardando: A gradual slowing down of the established tempo.
Largo: A slow pace.
Moderato: A medium pace.

Tempo: The speed of the beat in music.
Texture: The layers of sound in music, and the type of layer each one is.

Unison (monophonic): One layer of sound--a single melodic line.
Melody with accompaniment (homophonic): A predominant melody with some type of accompaniment. The accompaniment can be an ostinato, chords, harmony, descant, etc.
Competing Melodies (polyphonic): Melodies of equal importance occurring simultaneously. Common examples are rounds, canons, partner songs.

Timbre: The "color" of the sound. Often referred to as the tone color or quality. The timbre of a voice can be rough, nasal, squeaky, etc. The timbre of a trumpet, for example, is different from the timbre of a flute or a violin.

Time Signature: An indication at the start of a piece of music of the number and type of note values in each measure. The top number indicates how many beats per measure; the bottom number is an abbreviation for the type of note to receive one beat.