5th Grade Music Overview

Music courses in elementary school allow students the opportunity to create and experience beauty through the performing arts. Students are taught musical concepts by exploring folksongs of diverse cultures, performing and composing rhythms and melodies, and listening critically to works by master composers. 

Music courses are generally broken into three overarching categories: 

• Music Theory
• Music History
• Choral Performance 

5th GRADE FALL SEMESTER~

• Notation: Students will review keyboard labeling, sharps, flats, naturals, diatonic movement, whole and half steps. Students will build the major scales on the keyboard and staff, and learn to identify major key signatures.
• Rhythm: Students will review note and rest values of whole, half, quarter, eighth, and sixteenth. Students will review dotted half, quarter, and eighth notes. Students will continue to practice sight-reading rhythms using dotted notes, as well as learn to write in the counting for a rhythmic example. Students will continue practice of compound meters and add 9/8 and 12/8. Students will practice sight-reading rhythms in conjunction with melodies.
• Solfege: Students will review the pentatonic scales. Students will practice identifying do as the tonic of major keys. Students will use all Solfege to sight-read melodies.
• Music History: Students will experience five different composers and learn to describe and analyze music using correct terminology.
• Performance: Students will learn four songs in preparation for a winter concert at the end of the semester. 

5th GRADE SPRING SEMESTER~ 

• Notation: Students will learn to identify major key signatures. Students will identify la tonality as the minor key and build the natural minor scale on the staff and the keyboard. Students will identify minor key signatures. Students will identify relative minor scales as those sharing the same key signature with a major scale.
• Rhythm: Students will continue to practice known rhythms and patterns. Students will identify syncopation and its variations in compound meters. Students will use ostinato in writing variations of folk tunes and master works.
• Solfege: Students will identify raised solfege si and fi as the raised so and fa in a given scale. Students will practice in major and natural minor keys.
• Music History: Students will experience five different composers and learn to describe and analyze music using correct terminology. Students will learn to identify rondo form and concerto form, as well as discover theme and variations.
• Performance: Students will learn three to five songs in preparation for a spring concert at the end of the semester. 

*Taken from Great Hearts Faculty Resource Core Curriculum Documents