What's happening in Music this year?

Students in the 7th and 8th grade are learning a variety of topics this year in music class!  The following are some of those topics:

Opera and Musical Theater

~Students will learn about how opera relates to other genres of music, including rock and musical theater.  

~Students will study the opera La Boheme and relate it to the musical Rent.  

~Students will learn about recitative by creating their own compositions that use musical recitative in partners.

~Students will pretend that they are to write an opera by coming up with a topic and song titles that would chronologically occur during the performance.  They will then actually compose a song for one of their song titles.

~Students will learn about The Magic Flute.  In groups, they will each re-write one scene to make it more modern.

~Students will learn about Les Miserables by singing and acting.

~Students will create their own musical theater scenes, using dialogue, music, and choreography.



Music in Cinema: Students will learn about how music in motion pictures and television affect the tone of the story.

Music in Video Games: Students will learn about how music in video games affects the tone of the story.

Technology in Music: Students will learn about how technology has affected the sound of various instruments, including the telharmonium, theremin, musique concrete, and synthesizer.



Musical Genres

Jazz/Blues: Students will learn about the history of instrumental jazz.  They will also learn about various artists, including Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong, and Charlie Parker.  In addition, they will learn how to "trade-fours" by improvising on xylophones.

Rock 'n Roll: Students will learn about and listen to music by Elvis Presley, the Beatles, and Aerosmith.

Hip-Hop: Students will use an early hip-hop karaoke track to write their own raps.

21st century: Students will research the lives of early composers.  They will then take that information and create a skit that includes their composer and what they think the composer's interactions with the world may have been like in the 21st century.