Concert Band Course Syllabus

2007-2008

Instructor: Mr. White

Text:  Method book, individual music handouts

Grade Level:  9-11                                

Course Credit: 1/2 credit per semester

Community Service: Up to 4 hours may be received per Fall/Winter/Spring Concerts

Prerequisite: Beginning Band or middle school orchestra

Course Outline:

This course is designed to provide students with the opportunity to develop and refine technical skills, which will enable them to perform music at the Grade 2 - 4 level of difficulty.  Students continue to experience specially arranged repertoire from all historical periods, study the characteristics of each period, and learn the correct styles of performance.  A variety of traditional instrumental musical forms and the social, historical, and intellectual elements that influenced the creation of the works being studied are examined.  Basic skills of major and minor scales, expanding range, and the study and performance of triads are included.  Written projects in the areas of music history, performance critiques, and musical composition, etc., may be used to reinforce other areas of the curriculum.  Skills in the criticism of musical performance continue to be developed.  Additional experiences include, but not limited to pep band, pit orchestra, and solo and chamber music performances.  This course may be repeated for credit.  The concert band represents the school in public performances.

Course Outcomes:

The student will be able to:

1. Follow classroom rehearsal procedures

2. Meet individual responsibilities for care and preventive maintenance of a musical instrument

3. Follow concert performance procedures

4. Meet performance obligations as indicated on the school's comprehensive instrumental calendar

5. Care for a concert uniform where applicable

6. Demonstrate basic competencies of instrumental performance in the areas of tone production, intonation, articulation/bowing, range, and memorized scales (refer to specific performance criteria outlined in the handbook

7. Perform music from the different historical periods employing the correct style and performance practices of the period

8. Identify the technical elements and make the necessary required stylistic adjustments when switching from one type of music ensemble to another, e.g. string orchestra to quartet, band to orchestra, band to jazz ensemble, etc.

9. Identify types of expanded musical forms to include music for instruments with voices, explain the structure, and perform representative works from instrumental repertoire, e.g. opera, oratorio, musical theatre

10. Demonstrate skills in harmonic analysis aurally and visually

11. Identify types of large musical forms, explain their structure, and perform representative works in the instrumental repertoire, e.g. sonata, suite, symphony, concerto, etc.

12. Interpret and apply more advanced musical terms and symbols in Grade 3 – 4 music

13. Identify and illustrate the use of some basic music compositional devices, e.g. augmentation, diminution, inversion, retrograde, fragmentation

14. Construct and demonstrate major scales and arpeggios

15. Identify aurally and visually major and some minor triads, arpeggios, and diatonic intervals within an octave

16. Apply aesthetic evaluative criteria to live and recorded instrumental performances

Grading policy, calendar of events, procedures, etc. are provided on separate pages in the Instrumental Music Handbook.