Greenwich Public Schools Electronic Music Curriculum 9-12

Overview

Electronic Music courses at the high school are elective music courses. The Electronic Music Units of Instruction includes two strands—Meter & Rhythm, and Timbre.

Table of Contents

Intro to Electronic Music Units 2 Meter & Rhythm 2 Timbre 4

Electronic Music 1 Units 6 Meter & Rhythm 6 Timbre 8

Electronic Music 2 & 3 Units 10 Meter & Rhythm 10 Timbre 12

Title: Introduction to Drum Beats Course: Introduction to Electronic Music Topic: Meter/Rhythm Grades: 9-12 Stage 1—Desired Results Established Goals: National Standards Standard 2: Performing on instruments, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music. Standard 5: Reading and notating music. Standard 6: Listening to, analyzing, and describing music. Standard 8: Understanding relationships between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts.

GPS Overarching Big Ideas Making meaningful expression/performing Interpreting symbolic expression/literacy Making connections to and through the arts Understandings: Essential Questions: Students will understand that… Performing Performing • How do the arts express ideas, feelings, and • Playing an instrument allows a musician to experiences? express musical ideas that exceed the range, • How does working in a group influence timbre, and dynamics of the voice. expression? • Performing involves interpretive decisions. Literacy Literacy • Why do I need to be literate in my chosen art • Each arts discipline is a language unto itself, form? communicated through a unique system of • What does having a common system of symbols symbols and terms. and terms for the arts allow us to do, and why is • Literacy in the arts is valuable in facilitating the this important? transfer of artistic expression. • Why do composers use standard notation? • Notational literacy empowers independent • Is notation “music”? musicians. • What is the value in becoming musically literate? • Notation gives permanence to a composition. • What would change if we didn’t have a system of • Standard music notation includes symbols that written music notation? visually represent sounds, and a universal set of Connections terms that aid understanding. • How do artists from different eras and cultures • Since music is an aural art form, aural literacy explore and express similar themes? (e.g. listening critically) is an important • How does my artistic work connect to other component of being musically literate. subjects I study? Connections • Why is some music timeless? • The arts connect to other disciplines, personal experiences, and daily life. • There are similarities and differences in the arts produced among cultures and across time. • Music connects us to the past, present, and future.

Students will know… Students will be able to… • The names and meanings for the following • Perform, from notation, rhythm patterns in 4/4 notation symbols: staff, quarter notes and rests, time, including the following notes: quarter notes eighth notes, sixteenth notes, bar line, measure, and rests, eighth notes, sixteenth notes. time signature, double bar line, repeat sign. • Perform a rhythm to a steady beat and maintain a • Basic techno and rock beats. consistent tempo. • The meanings of the following terms: steady beat, tempo, and metronome marking. Stage 2—Assessment Evidence Performance Tasks: Students will deconstruct, perform, and record basic techno and rock beats. Key Criteria: Students will be graded on the accuracy of their recorded performance of Techno, Rock, and Rock Variation beats using GHS Electronic Music Composition Rubric. Other Evidence: Formative assessments on students’ in-class performance of rhythm patterns selected from Garwood Whaley’s Basic in Rhythm text. Stage 3—Learning Plan Learning Activities: To be developed by individual teacher.

Title: Affecting Timbre with Technology Course: Intro to EMusic Topic: Timbre Grades: 9-12 Stage 1—Desired Results Established Goals: National Standards Standard 4: Composing and arranging music within specified guidelines. Standard 6: Listening to, analyzing, and describing music. Standard 7: Evaluating music and music performances.

GPS Overarching Big Ideas Expressing personal ideas/creating Responding to the arts Understandings: Essential Questions: Students will understand that… Creating Creating • What inspires or moves me to be creative? • Creating in the arts uses imagination, self- • How do my creative choices best express my idea discipline, problem solving and experience. and intent? • Process impacts product. • How does my artistic work impact myself and/or • Composition requires imagining, planning, others? creating, evaluating, and refining one’s musical • How do you know when the creative process is ideas. complete? • Composition results in a work that can be • How do I express my ideas, feelings, or mood performed and replicated. through music? • Improvisation and composition involve guidelines • How can I use the elements of music (e.g. melody, and structure, which may be amended during the harmony, rhythm, timbre, texture, and expressive creative process. devices) to convey my ideas and intent? • Composition can be achieved through using Responding technology or through using an instrument. • How do we perceive, interpret, and engage with • Composition and improvisation is not merely an art? activity to be undertaken by accomplished • How does knowledge and experience influence musicians, but rather can be achieved by anyone interpretation? as a means of expressing their own musical ideas • How do style/genre/subject matter/media influence to the extent their musical development and how you feel about the work? understanding will allow. • How is music different from noise? Responding • Why do we listen to music? • Artistic expression can be analyzed, described, • Why do we like the music we like? How can we and evaluated, both intellectually and emotionally, be open to liking music we do not understand? in a variety of ways. • Responding to the arts enhances one’s life and influences one’s personal expression. • The depth of musical knowledge one possesses impacts how, and to what degree, one analyzes, describes, and evaluates music.

• The music to which one has been exposed influences one’s musical preferences. • Listening to music evokes emotions, whether or not one has chosen to listen to it. • All music contains a tonal and metric context and uses unity/variety and tension/release, and these elements can be aurally identified. • Students will know… Students will be able to… • The basic functions of the computer program • Create a unique instrument using the software GarageBand (e.g. create a new track, edit a instrument edit functions in GarageBand. track, locate the track edit functions, etc.). • Demonstrate an understanding of how basic • The meanings of the following terms as applied to audio engineering techniques effects timbre manipulating & clarifying sound: timbre, panning, through creation of unique instrument sounds. volume, track automation, stereo imaging. • Demonstrate how basic audio engineering techniques allows multiple instruments that are played simultaneously to be heard clearly in their mix. • Listen to, analyze, and describe how they and others manipulate timbre by using basic audio engineering techniques. • Evaluate their use and others’ use of basic audio engineering techniques to manipulate timbre in terms of musical effectiveness and personal taste. Stage 2—Assessment Evidence Performance Tasks: Students will use basic audio engineering techniques including, panning, volume & track automation to create a two-dimensional image that allows for each instrument to be clearly heard in the mix. Students will listen to their own and others’ arrangements and critique them using music terms. Key Criteria: Students’ arrangements will be evaluated on the following criteria: following basic guidelines of the assignment, use of track automation, use of panning & volume. Students will listen to their own and others’ arrangements with an ear to analyzing and evaluating its effectiveness in achieving the stated goals. Students will verbally share analysis and evaluation of others’ arrangements. Other Evidence: Teacher check in-progress work of individuals. Students listen to each others’ projects and offer advice. Stage 3—Learning Plan Learning Activities: To be developed by individual teacher.

Title: Intermediate Drum Beats Course: Electronic Music 1 Topic: Meter/Rhythm Grades: 9 -12 Stage 1—Desired Results Established Goals: National Standards Standard 2: Performing on instruments, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music. Standard 5: Reading and notating music. Standard 6: Listening to, analyzing, and describing music. Standard 8: Understanding relationships between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts.

Overarching Big Ideas Making meaningful expression/performing Interpreting symbolic expression/literacy Making connections to and through the arts Understandings: Essential Questions: Students will understand that… Performing Performing • How do the arts express ideas, feelings, and • Playing an instrument allows a musician to experiences? express musical ideas that exceed the range, • How does working in a group influence timbre, and dynamics of the voice. expression? • Performing involves interpretive decisions. Literacy Literacy • Why do I need to be literate in my chosen art • Each arts discipline is a language unto itself, form? communicated through a unique system of • What does having a common system of symbols symbols and terms. and terms for the arts allow us to do, and why is • Literacy in the arts is valuable in facilitating the this important? transfer of artistic expression. • Why do composers use standard notation? • Notational literacy empowers independent • Is notation “music”? musicians. • What is the value in becoming musically literate? • Notation gives permanence to a composition. • What would change if we didn’t have a system of • Standard music notation includes symbols that written music notation? visually represent sounds, and a universal set of Connections terms that aid understanding. • How do artists from different eras and cultures • Since music is an aural art form, aural literacy explore and express similar themes? (e.g. listening critically) is an important • How does my artistic work connect to other component of being musically literate. subjects I study? Connections • Why is some music timeless? • The arts connect to other disciplines, personal experiences, and daily life. • There are similarities and differences in the arts produced among cultures and across time. • Music connects us to the past, present, and future.

Students will know… Students will be able to: • The names and meanings for the following • Perform, from notation, rhythm patterns in 4/4 notation symbols: staff, quarter notes and rests, time, including the following notes: quarter notes eighth notes and rests, sixteenth notes and rests, and rests, eighth notes and rests, sixteenth notes dotted eighth notes, bar line, measure, time and rests, dotted eighth notes. signature, double bar line, repeat sign. • Perform a rhythm to a steady beat and maintain a • Basic hip hop beats. consistent tempo. • The meanings of the following terms: steady beat, tempo, and metronome marking. Stage 2—Assessment Evidence Performance Tasks: Students will deconstruct, perform, and record Hip Hop beats. Key Criteria Students will be graded on the accuracy of their recorded performance of slow, basic, and advanced Hip Hop beats using GHS Electronic Music Composition Rubric. Other Evidence Formative assessments on students’ in-class performance of rhythm patterns selected from Garwood Whaley’s Basic in Rhythm text. Stage 3—Learning Plan Learning Activities To be developed by individual teacher.

Title: Affecting Timbre with Technology Course: Electronic Music 1 Topic: Timbre Grades: 9-12 Stage 1—Desired Results Established Goals: National Standards Standard 4: Composing and arranging music within specified guidelines. Standard 6: Listening to, analyzing, and describing music. Standard 7: Evaluating music and music performances.

• The music to which one has been exposed influences one’s musical preferences. • Listening to music evokes emotions, whether or not one has chosen to listen to it. • All music contains a tonal and metric context and uses unity/variety and tension/release, and these elements can be aurally identified. • Students will know… Students will be able to… • The basic functions of the computer program • Affect the timbre of an instrument using plug-in Logic Studio (e.g. create a new track, edit a presets Logic Studio. region, accessing the plug-ins, etc.). • Demonstrate an understanding of how • The meanings of the following terms as applied to intermediate audio engineering techniques effects manipulating & clarifying sound: timbre, single timbre through creation of customized track band EQ, linear phase EQ, panning automation, settings. volume automation, gated reverb and adaptive • Demonstrate how intermediate audio engineering limiter. techniques allows multiple instruments played together to be heard clearly in the mix. • Listen to, analyze, and describe how they and others’ manipulated timbre by using intermediate audio engineering techniques. • Evaluate their use and others’ use of intermediate audio engineering techniques to manipulate timbre in terms of musical effectiveness and personal taste. Stage 2—Assessment Evidence Performance Tasks: Students use plug-ins in Logic Studio to customize tracks. Students will use intermediate audio engineering techniques to create a three-dimensional image that allows for each instrument to be clearly heard in the mix. Students will listen to their own and others’ arrangements and critique them using music terms. Key Criteria: Students’ arrangements will be evaluated on the following criteria: following basic guidelines of the assignment, intermediate use of EQ, compression & track automation volume, use of panning & reverb. Students will listen to their own and others’ arrangements with an ear to analyzing and evaluating its effectiveness in achieving the stated goals. Students will verbally share analysis and evaluation of each other’s arrangements. Other Evidence: Teacher check in-progress work of individuals. Students listen to each other’s projects and offer advice. Stage 3—Learning Plan Learning Activities To be developed by individual teacher.

Title: Advanced Drum Beats Course: Electronic Music 2 & 3 Topic: Meter/Rhythm Grades: 9-12 Stage 1—Desired Results Established Goals: National Standards Standard 2: Performing on instruments, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music. Standard 3: Improvising melodies, variations and accompaniments. Standard 4: Composing and arranging music within specified guidelines. Standard 5: Reading and notating music. Standard 6: Listening to, analyzing, and describing music. Standard 8: Understanding relationships between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts.

Overarching Big Ideas Making meaningful expression/performing Expressing personal ideas/creating Interpreting symbolic expression/literacy Making connections to and through the arts Understandings: Essential Questions: Students will understand that… Performing Performing • How do the arts express ideas, feelings, and • Playing an instrument allows a musician to experiences? express musical ideas that exceed the range, • How does working in a group influence timbre, and dynamics of the voice. expression? • Performing involves interpretive decisions. • How does having an audience impact the Creating performers? Is the audience an essential • Creating in the arts uses imagination, self- component of a performance? discipline, problem-solving and experience. Creating • Process impacts product. • What inspires or moves me to be creative? • Improvisation expresses ideas and feelings in the • How do my creative choices best express my idea moment. and intent? • Composition requires imagining, planning, • How does my artistic work impact myself and/or creating, evaluating, and refining one’s musical others? ideas. • How do you know when the creative process is • Composition results in a work that can be complete? performed and replicated. • How does improvisation differ from composition? • Improvisation and composition involve guidelines How are improvisation and composition similar? and structure, which may be amended during the • How is composing more satisfying or less creative process. satisfying than performing works of other Literacy composers? How is performing my own • Each arts discipline is a language unto itself, composition more satisfying or less satisfying communicated through a unique system of than performing works of other composers? symbols and terms. • How do I express my ideas, feelings, or mood • Literacy in the arts is valuable in facilitating the through music?

transfer of artistic expression. Literacy • Notational literacy empowers independent • Why do I need to be literate in my chosen art musicians. form? • Notation gives permanence to a composition. • What does having a common system of symbols • Standard music notation includes symbols that and terms for the arts allow us to do, and why is visually represent sounds, and a universal set of this important? terms that aid understanding. • Why do composers use standard notation? • Since music is an aural art form, aural literacy • Is notation “music”? (e.g. listening critically) is an important • What is the value in becoming musically literate? component of being musically literate. • What would change if we didn’t have a system of Connections written music notation? • The arts connect to other disciplines, personal Connections experiences, and daily life. • How do artists from different eras and cultures • There are similarities and differences in the arts explore and express similar themes? produced among cultures and across time. • How does my artistic work connect to other • Music connects us to the past, present, and future. subjects I study? • Why is some music timeless? Students will know… Students will be able to… • The names and meanings for the following • Perform, from notation, rhythm patterns in 4/4 notation symbols: staff, quarter notes and rests, time, including the following notes: quarter notes eighth notes and rests, sixteenth notes and rests, and rests, eighth notes and rests, sixteenth notes dotted eighth notes, bar line, measure, time and rests, dotted eighth notes. signature, double bar line, repeat sign. • Perform a rhythm to a steady beat and maintain a • Basic techno, rock, and hip hop beats. consistent tempo. • The terms steady beat, tempo, and metronome • Compose a drum beat with at least three layers. marking, and their definitions. Stage 2—Assessment Evidence Performance Tasks: Students will compose an original drumbeat with at least three layers. Key Criteria: Students will be graded on the accuracy and creativity of the recorded performance of their original drumbeat using GHS Electronic Music Composition Rubric. Other Evidence: Formative assessments on students’ in-class performance of rhythm patterns selected from Garwood Whaley’s Basic in Rhythm text. Students will submit a Final Piece to the NSBA/MENC Electronic Music Composition Competition by April 1. Stage 3—Learning Plan Learning Activities To be developed by individual teacher.

Title: Sound Design with Technology Course: Electronic Music 2 & 3 Topic: Timbre Grades: 9-12 Stage 1—Desired Results Established Goals: National Standards Standard 4: Composing and arranging music within specified guidelines. Standard 6: Listening to, analyzing, and describing music. Standard 7: Evaluating music and music performances.

• The music to which one has been exposed influences one’s musical preferences. • Listening to music evokes emotions, whether or not one has chosen to listen to it. • All music contains a tonal and metric context and uses unity/variety and tension/release, and these elements can be aurally identified. • Students will know… Students will be able to… • The advanced functions of the computer program • Affect the timbre of an instrument by manipulating Logic Studio (e.g. accessing the plug-ins, the sound module in Logic Studio. accessing the sound modules, manipulating the • Create new, unique instruments in the sound sound modules, etc.). modules. • The meanings of the following terms as applied to • Demonstrate an understanding of how advanced sound design: waveform, sine wave, square audio engineering techniques effects timbre wave, triangle wave, sawtooth wave, low through creation of customized sound module frequency oscillators, filter settings, filter settings. envelope, high pass, low pass. • Demonstrate how advanced audio engineering techniques allows multiple instruments played together to be heard clearly in the mix. • Listen to, analyze, and describe how they and others’ manipulated timbre by using advanced audio engineering techniques. • Evaluate their use and others’ use of advanced audio engineering techniques to manipulate timbre in terms of musical effectiveness and personal taste. Stage 2—Assessment Evidence Performance Tasks: Students will customize the sound modules in Logic Studio to create unique instruments and design their own customized sound settings. Students will use advanced audio engineering techniques to create a three-dimensional image to allow for each instrument to be clearly heard in the mix. Students will listen to their own and others’ arrangements and critique them using music terms. Key Criteria: Students’ arrangements will be evaluated on the following criteria: following basic guidelines of the assignment, advanced use of wave form manipulation, filters & envelopes & oscillators, advanced use of EQ, compression & track automation volume, use of panning & reverb. Students will listen to their own and others’ arrangements with an ear to analyzing and evaluating its effectiveness in achieving the stated goals. Students will verbally share analysis and evaluation of each other’s arrangements. Other Evidence: Teacher check in-progress work of individuals. Students listen to each other’s projects and offer advice.

Stage 3—Learning Plan Learning Activities To be developed by individual teacher.