Massachusetts Music Curriculum

Core Concept

In music people express ideas and emotions that they cannot express in verbal language alone. In order to understand the range and depth of the human imagination, one must have knowledge of the arts.

Guiding Principles

  1. An effective music curriculum provides a sequential program of music instruction for all students beginning in preschool and continuing through high school
  2. An effective music curriculum emphasizes development of students’ skills and understanding of creating, performing, and responding.
  3. An effective music curriculum promotes knowledge and understanding of the historical and cultural contexts of the arts.
  4. An effective music curriculum uses a variety of assessment methods to evaluate what students know and are able to do.
  5. An effective music curriculum provides opportunities for students to make connections among the arts, with other disciplines within the core curriculum, and with arts resources in the community.

Music Strands and Learning Standards

The Bellingham Music Department follows the Massachusetts Curriculum Arts Frameworks, which are categorized into the following strands:

  1. Singing. Students will sing, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music.
  2. Reading and Notation. Students will read music written in standard notation.
  3. Playing Instruments. Students will play instruments, alone and with others, to perform a varied repertoire of music.
  4. Improvisation and Composition. Students will improvise, compose, and arrange music.
  5. Critical Response. Students will describe and analyze their own music and the music of others using appropriate music vocabulary. When appropriate, students will connect their analysis to interpretation and evaluation.
  6. Purposes and Meanings in the Arts. Students will describe the purposes for which works of dance, music, theatre, visual arts, and architecture were and are created, and, when appropriate, interpret their meanings.
  7. Roles of Artists in Communities. Students will describe the roles of artists, patrons, cultural organizations, and arts institutions in societies of the past and present.
  8. Concepts of Style, Stylistic Influence, and Stylistic Change. Students will demonstrate their understanding of styles, stylistic influence, and stylistic change by identifying when and where art works were created, and by analyzing characteristic features of art works from various historical periods, cultures, and genres.
  9. Inventions, Technologies, and the Arts. Students will describe and analyze how performing and visual artists use and have used materials, inventions, and technologies in their work.
  10. Interdisciplinary Connections. Students will apply their knowledge of the arts to the study of English language arts, foreign languages, health, history and social science, mathematics, and science and technology/engineering.