SHARED FACILITIES PARENT CURRICULUM COMMUNICATION
      3rd Quarter 2011

MUSIC TECHNOLOGY:

As we approach the spring months and 3rd quarter of the school year I continue to be impressed by the quality of work of our students at Disney. If you would like to see some student work take a couple of minutes visiting my website at www.disneymagnetmusic.blogspot.com to see some of the incredible creations done by our Upper Grade classes.

In the Upper Grades students will continue their study of music’s use in media. In the third quarter the primary focus was on the use of music to change perception. Students completed videos where they used different sounds to represent the different actions of the short travels of a Bunny. Students also applied previous concepts learned about the elements of music and how they are used to represent various actions of a character. As we move to 3rd quarter students will study the use of music in marketing and how it is used to caterer to various populations. Through the study of music and marketing, students will be able to see how different styles and elements of music are used in media to target the population the product is marketed to. In addition to learning about music’s use in marketing student will also create their own songs that will be used to market their “own” product which will be market to a chosen population.

In the intermediate grades students will further their learning on the relationships between math and music. Last quarter students developed a thorough understanding of the note values of whole, half, quarter, and eighth notes. Students also began to develop an understanding of the use of time signatures in music and their impact on measure duration and note relationships. In the third quarter students will be learning the impact of symbols on musical note length. Learning that a dotted half note is different than a normal half note allows students to apply basic algebraic concepts learned in math to music. In addition to acquiring the knowledge of how music is related with math students will work on STMath. STMath is a great program that uses the spatial aspects of math to teach advanced grade level concepts.

In the primary grades students are learning the piano! Students will be using two programs to learn the basics of the piano. Music Ace and Piano Suite will allow students to learn simple songs on the piano and the basic elements of music. The treble clef, dynamics, and note values are just some of the concepts that the individualized programs allow students to learn. By the end of the quarter every student will learn how to play a basic song with one hand on the piano. Piano gives students the foundation for learning many of foundation skills of music making.

If there are any questions regarding your child or curriculum please do not hesitate to contact me at jfahrenbach@cps.edu.

Sincerely,
Jason Fahrenbach
Music Technology and Chorus Teacher