COLORADO
MODEL CONTENT STANDARDS
FOR MUSIC

Introduction

Colorado Model Music Standards

Content Standards are broad-based, non course-specific goals for student achievement. They are not curriculum. Decisions regarding local curriculum, teaching materials and instructional approaches will continue to be developed by locally elected school boards. Music Is Important to Life and Learning Music is one of humanity's deepest rivers of continuity. It connects each new generation to those which have gone before. Students need music to make these connections and to express the otherwise inexpressible. Students benefit from music education because it develops the whole person, gradually building music literacy while cultivating intuition, reasoning, imagination, and dexterity into unique forms of expression and communication. If music education is to serve its proper function, each student must develop an understanding of such questions as these:

• Why is music important to individuals and society? How does music relate to the other art disciplines: dance, theatre and visual arts? How do traditional, popular, and classical music forms influence one another?
• How do musicians work and what tools do they use?

As students seek the answers to these questions, they develop an understanding of the essence of music and of the knowledge and skills that enliven it. The content and the interrelatedness of the standards produce such an understanding. Meeting the standards cannot, and should not, imply that every student will acquire a common set of musical values. Standards provide a substantive framework for those who teach music to young people. Music standards can make a difference because they speak powerfully to two fundamental issues that pervade all of education: quality and accountability. The affirmations below describe what happens when students and teachers work together to achieve the standards. These expectations draw connections among the arts, the lives of students, and the world at large:

• Music has worth in and of itself and can also be used to achieve a multitude of purposes: to present issues and ideas, to teach or influence, to entertain, to design, to plan, and to beautify. Music is a way of knowing. Students grow in their ability to comprehend their world when they learn music. As they create all forms of music, they learn how to express themselves and how to communicate with others. Music is indispensable to freedom of inquiry and expression. Music provides forms of nonverbal communication that strengthen the presentation of ideas and emotions. Music plays a valuable role in creating understanding among the people of diverse ethnic cultures and civilizations. Music has value and significance for daily life. It provides personal fulfillment in vocational settings, avocational pursuits, or leisure activities. Lifelong participation in music should be nurtured.
• Critical thinking skills learned in music can be applied to other disciplines that require creative solutions.

Research shows that music provides a firm foundation for connecting concepts, facts, and higher order thinking skills throughout the curriculum. Critical thinking skills can be applied to other disciplines that require creative solutions, and therefore, learning in music is directly related to learning in all disciplines:

• Listing, describing, and comparing ways in which the elements of music and other disciplines are interrelated. Identifying common terms and concepts.
• Comparing, analyzing, and evaluating ways that music and other disciplines describe concepts, ideas, and events.

Music should be an integral part of the program of general education for ALL Colorado students. The attached integration matrix illustrates some of the possibilities for integrating music content standards into other subjects. The standards that follow not only identify what students must know and be able to do in music, but enable students to connect to their culture and heritage, and facilitate a broad-based knowledge in a multitude of areas.

Colorado Model Content Standards
MUSIC

1. Students sing or play on instruments* a varied repertoire* of music, alone or with     others.
2. Students will read and notate* music.
3. Students will create* music.
4. Students will listen to, analyze, evaluate, and describe music.
5. Students will relate music to various historical and cultural* traditions.

*A glossary of terms can be found at the end of this document.

STANDARD 1: Students sing or play on instruments a varied repertoire of music, alone or with others.

RATIONALE
Music-making is one of our oldest, most intimate, and basic forms of communication and cultural expression. Singing, movement, or playing an instrument, provides students with the means of learning musical and developmental skills. Learning to make music enables students to attain individual and group goals, acquire self-discipline, exercise diverse problem solving skills, and opens avenues of success for all students. Growth in singing and playing music occurs by applying skills to increasingly challenging music literature. Grades K-4 In grades K-4, what students know and are able to do includes

• singing or playing music, with appropriate technique, in rhythm, in tempo*, and on pitch; singing or playing music, with appropriate technique, representing musically and culturally diverse* literature; responding to the conductor's cues of rhythm and tempo while singing or playing music; and
• responding to music through movement*.

Grades 5-8 As students in grades 5-8 extend their knowledge, what they know and are able to do includes

• singing or playing, with appropriate technique, music written in two or more parts, in rhythm and in tempo, blending voices or instruments, and matching dynamic levels*; singing or playing an expanding repertoire of music representing musically and culturally diverse literature; and
• responding to the conductor's cues of dynamic levels while singing or playing music.

Grades 9-12 As students in grades 9-12 extend their knowledge, what they know and are able to do includes

• singing or playing, with appropriate technique, music written in multiple parts, improving blend, and matching dynamic levels; singing or playing an expanding repertoire of vocal and/or instrumental literature; and
• responding to the conductor's cues of phrasing* and expression* while singing or playing music.

Memorization of music is viewed as a curricular choice for individual teachers and school districts and not necessarily as a standard to be achieved by all students.

STANDARD 2: Students will read and notate music.

RATIONALE
Learning to read and notate music helps students comprehend and express the universal language of music. Knowledge and understanding of music notation is essential to music literacy. Grades K-4 In grades K-4, what students know and are able to do includes

• identifying whole, half, dotted half, quarter, eighth notes, and equivalent rests; reading simple melodic* and rhythmic notation; identifying symbols and traditional terms referring to dynamics* and tempo; and
• notating simple melodies and rhythms.

Grades 5-8 As students in grades 5-8 extend their knowledge, what they know and are able to do includes

• identifying and reading rhythmic patterns using whole, half, dotted half, quarter, eighth, sixteenth notes, and equivalent rests in the context of a meter signature*; reading melodic and rhythmic patterns; notating rhythmic, melodic, and expressive* musical ideas; and
• identifying appropriate key signatures.

Grades 9-12 As students in grades 9-12 extend their knowledge, what they know and are able to do includes

• identifying, defining, and reading standard notation symbols for pitch, rhythm, dynamics, style*, and tempo; reading advanced rhythmic and melodic notation; and
• notating advanced rhythmic, melodic, and expressive musical ideas.

STANDARD 3: Students will create music.

RATIONALE
Creativity is one of the most important fundamental thought processes of humankind. Through creative activities, such as composing and improvising, students will learn to explore and connect ideas with symbols, sound patterns, and musical elements. Grades K-4 In grades K-4, what students know and are able to do includes

• creating simple rhythmic and melodic patterns; and
• creating short selections, using a variety of sound sources (for example, classroom instruments*, vocal sounds, electronic technology, or other sound-producing objects).

Grades 5-8 As students in grades 5-8 extend their knowledge, what they know and are able to do includes

• creating rhythmic, melodic, and/or harmonic* patterns; creating short compositions; and
• expressing musical ideas using a variety of sound sources (for example, classroom instruments, vocal sounds, electronic technology, or other sound-producing objects).

Grades 9-12 As students in grades 9-12 extend their knowledge, what they know and are able to do includes

• creating rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic patterns or phrases; and
• improvising/creating a melody (melodies) over a chord progression.

STANDARD 4: Students will listen to, analyze, evaluate, and describe music.

RATIONALE
Music is a part of daily life. Students become educated consumers of music by learning to critically listen, describe, analyze, and evaluate music as an expressive art form. Critical listening and thinking skills learned through music are essential to a successful, comprehensive educational experience. Grades K-4 In grades K-4, what students know and are able to do includes

• listening to and identifying simple forms*; identifying contrasts of timbre* in sound; and
• identifying elements and/or expressive qualities in music.

Grades 5-8 As students in grades 5-8 extend their knowledge, what they know and are able to do includes

• identifying and describing simple forms; identifying contrasts in meter*, rhythm, melody and timbre; and
• identifying and examining criteria for evaluating music performances and compositions.

Grades 9-12 As students in grades 9-12 extend their knowledge, what they know and are able to do includes

• describing and comparing forms; describing and evaluating music performance using musical terminology; and
• explaining characteristics that distinguish musical styles.

STANDARD 5: Students will relate music to various historical and cultural traditions.

RATIONALE
Music is an important element of the historical and cultural record of humankind. Students, through the study of music, will develop an understanding and appreciation of various cultures and histories. Grades K-4 In grades K-4, what students know and are able to do includes

• identifying how elements of music are used in examples from various cultures (for example: rhythms found in the music of Africa and rap music from America show commonalities); and identifying the roles of musicians in history and various cultures (for example: Scott Joplin and Billie Holiday were representatives of the early jazz movement in America); and
• demonstrating audience behavior appropriate for the context and style of music performed (for example: It is not appropriate to talk during an orchestra concert in contrast to its permissibility during a rock concert).

Grades 5-8 As students in grades 5-8 extend their knowledge, what they know and are able to do includes

• describing how distinguishing elements of music are used in examples from various cultures (for example: The rhythms present in many examples of Latin American music are derived from dance rhythms. Dance is an integral part of that culture); and
• describing the roles of musicians throughout history and in various cultures (for example: the Medieval European Minstrel served as a storyteller and a news broadcaster, as well as a musician. The American folk singer serves much the same function).

Grades 9-12 As students in grades 9-12 extend their knowledge, what they know and are able to do includes

• identifying and explaining the features of a given musical work in its historical or cultural context (for example: many African songs are constructed in the call and response form because they originally functioned as work songs. It was not necessary to read musical notation to learn, sing or enjoy this type of music): and
• comparing and evaluating the roles of musicians throughout history and in various cultures (for example: Haydn was able and willing to work under the system of royal patronage whereas Mozart would struggle with it and Beethoven would completely rebel against it due to the social influences exerted by the American and French revolutions).

A Matrix Illustrating Cross-Disciplinary Connections among
Colorado Model Content Standards

Glossary

Classroom instrument - Instruments typically used in the general music classroom, including recorder-type instruments, chorded zithers, mallet instruments, simple percussion instruments, fretted instruments, keyboard instruments, and electronic instruments.

Cultures - A style of social and artistic expression unique to a particular community of people.

Dynamic levels, dynamics - Degrees of loudness.

Elements of music - Pitch, rhythm, harmony, dynamics, timbre, texture, and form.

Expression, expressive - With appropriate dynamics, phrasing, style, and interpretation and appropriate variations in dynamics and tempo.

Form - The overall structural organization of a music composition (for example, AB, ABA, call and response, rondo, theme and variations, sonata allegro) and the interrelationships of musical events within the overall structure.

Harmony/Harmonic - The simultaneous combination of notes in a chord.

Historical and cultural traditions - styles of social and artistic expression unique to a particular community of people that have been inherited or established and serve as a vehicle to promote cultural continuity.

Improvise or Create - To compose, recite, play, or sing extemporaneously.

Instrument - In the broadest sense, a device used to produce music. More specifically used here to indicate the typical band instruments (flute, clarinet, oboe, bassoon, saxophone, trumpet, French horn, trombone, baritone, tuba and percussion instruments), or orchestral instruments (violin, viola, violoncello and bass) and keyboard instruments traditionally found in instrumental music classrooms.

Melody/Melodic - A rhythmically organized sequence of single tones so related to one another as to make up a particular musical phrase or idea.

Meter - The grouping in which a succession of rhythmic pulses or beats is organized; indicated by a meter signature at the beginning of the work.

Meter signature - Numbers placed at the beginning of a musical composition which indicate the division of rhythmic pulses.

Movement - To move rhythmically, usually to music, using prescribed or improvised steps and gestures. Movement can be dance (i.e., folk, ballroom, ethnic or improvised) or it can be a kinesthetic gesture indicating pitch, phrasing, form, dynamics, or other musical elements.

Musical Diversity - Music literature drawn from a variety of historical periods, world cultures, musical styles and forms.

Notation - A system of figures or symbols used to represent numbers, qualities, or other facts or values as in musical notation.

Phrase/Phrasing - A segment of a composition, usually consisting of four or eight measures.

Repertoire - A comprehensive list of compositions, songs, pieces, or parts of pieces that a person is prepared to perform or recite.

Style - The distinctive or characteristic manner in which elements of music are treated. In practice, the term may be applied to, for example, composers (the style of Copland, the style of Bach), periods (Baroque style, Romantic style), media (keyboard style, vocal style), nations (French style, Russian style), form or type of composition (fugal style, contrapuntal style) or genre (operatic style, bluegrass style).

Tempo - The relative speed at which a composition is played.

Timbre - The character or quality of a sound that distinguishes one instrument, voice, or other sound source from another.

General Reference:

Ambach, G.M. "Music Education, Arts Standards, and Student Performance." In Aiming for Excellence: The Impact of the Standards Movement on Music Education. Reston, VA: Music Educators National Conference, 1996: 5-14.

Apel, Willi. The Harvard Dictionary of Music. 2nd ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975.

Austin, J.R.; Montgomery, J.; McCaskill, L.; Hanley, D. "The National Standards for Music Education: A Survey of Colorado Music Teachers' Knowledge and Beliefs." Paper presented at the Southeastern Music Education Symposium. University of Georgia, Athens, GA: (May 1996).

Boston, B. Perspectives on Implementation: Arts Education Standards for America's Students. Reston, VA: Music Educators National Conference, 1994.

National Standards for Arts Education. Consortium of National Arts Education Associations. Reston, VA: Music Educators National Conference, 1994.

Standards 1 and 2

Carder, Polly, ed. The Eclectic Curriculum in American Music Education: Contributions of Dalcroze, Kodaly, and Orff. Reston, VA: Music Educators National Conference, 1990.

Choksy, Abramson, Gillespie and Woods. Teaching Music in the Twentieth Century. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1986.

Davidson, Lyle; McKernon, Patricia; and Gardner, Howard. "The Acquisition of Song: A Developmental Approach." In Documentary Report of the Ann Arbor Symposium: Applications of Psychology to the Teaching and Learning of Music. Reston, VA: Music Educators National Conference, 1981: 301-315.

Gordon, Edwin E. "The Nature and Description of Development and Stabilized Music Aptitudes: Implications for Music Learning." In Music and Child Development. Frank Wilson and Franz Roehmann, eds. St. Louis: MMB Music, Inc., 1990.

Standards 1 and 3

Bacon, Denise. "Kodaly and Orff: Report from Europe." Music Educators Journal 29 no. 7 (September 1971): 26-27.

Banks, Susan. "Orff Schulwerk Teaches Musical Responsiveness." Music Educators Journal 68.

Edwards, Lorraine. "The Great Animating Stream of Music." Music Educators Journal 57 no. 6 (February 1971): 38.

Shamrock, Mary. "Orff-Schulwerk: An Integrated Foundation." Music Educators Journal 72 (February 1986): 51-55.

Thomas, Judith. "The Orff-Based Improvisation." In Elementary General Music. Betty Atterbury, ed., Reston, VA: Music Educators National Conference, 1992: 109-112.

Warner, B. Orff-Schulwerk: Applications for the Classroom. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1991.

Zinar, Ruth. "Highlights of Thought in the History of Music Education." American Music Teacher 33 no. 5 (1984): 18-21.

Standard 4

Abeles, Harold; Hoffer, Charles; and Klotman, Robert H. Foundations of Music Education. NY: Schirmer Books, 1984.

Campbell, Don G. and Brewer, Chris B. Rhythms of Learning: Creative Tools for Developing Lifelong Skills. Tucson, AZ: Zephyr Press, 1991.

Council of Arts Accrediting Associations. "Briefing Paper: Policy-Making, the Arts, and School Change." Reston, VA: National Office for Arts Accreditation in Higher Education (November 1991): 1-15.

Ecker, David W. "Identity and Alienation: Cultural Problems of Our World and the Duties of Music Education." International Music Education Yearbook 13 (1986). (Papers from the 17th ISME Conference, Innsbruck, Austria, 1986): 31-35.

Gardner, Howard. Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. NY: Basic Books, 1983.

Goodlad, John I. Facing the Future: Issues in Education and Schooling. NY: McGraw-Hill, 1976.

Jordan, Daniel C. and Streets, Donald T. "The Anisa Model: A New Basis for Educational Planning." Young Children 28.5 (June 1973): 289-306.

Standard 5

Anderson, William M., and Campbell, Patricia S., eds. Multicultural Perspectives in Music Education. Reston, VA: Music Educators National Conference, 1989.

Anderson, William M. "Teaching Music of the World: A Renewed Commitment." Music Educators Journal 39 (September 1980).

Anderson, William M. "The Teacher as Translator of Culture." Music Educators Journal 32 (May 1983).

Banks, J. Multiethnic Education: Theory and Practice. 2nd ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1988.

Dodds, Jack. "Music as Multicultural Education." Music Educators Journal 69 (May 1983): 33-34.

O'Brien, James P. "Integrating World Music in the Music Appreciation Class." Music Educators Journal 39 (September 1980).

Staunton, Irene. "Arts Education in a Multi-Cultural Society." Music Teacher (April 1981): 10-11.

Cross-Content Theory

Drake, S. M. Planning Integrated Curriculum: The Call to Adventure. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1993.

Gardner, Howard. The Unschooled Mind: How Children Think and How Schools Should Teach. NY: Basic Books, 1991.

Zinar, Ruth. "Reading Language and Reading Music: Is There a Connection?" Music Educators Journal 62:7 (March 1976): 70.

To Return To
Colorado State
Standards Page