Students learn to add music note values, and create compositions in 4/4, common time. Using traditional music  notation students may choose to compose for voice or drums. This ruler composition activity uses a familiar math visual to help students see the length or duration of musical notes. Final compositions can be emailed to the teacher for review.

Students will use a digital composition tool to create a melody with specific parameters, based on grade level goals and standards. The teacher prepares a poem with a rhythm on one note, and students will create a melodic-variation to share with others.

Students create a four-measure rhythm composition using an interactive slide deck. Teachers can provide different guidelines and rhythmic components (time signature, note/rest value) in the interactive slide deck for different grade levels and/or student musical ability. Students then perform their rhythm composition on a digital instrument of their choice from a variety of sources (e.g. Makey Makey bongos, Music K-8 boomwhackers, etc.). Students compare and contrast digital and traditional methods for creating music.

Students will engage in active listening to Yoko Shimomura’s “Dark Star Battle” from the video game Mario and Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story. The students will discover key elements to the composition and explore those elements through composition using Orff instruments.

The music room just became a working professional music studio and live performance venue, complete with a full complement of composers, performers, audio engineers, promoters, stage managers, and a stage crew! Students will work collaboratively to develop understandings of the many careers associated with the performing arts, while composing and premiering an original music work.

Students will compose and perform a melody consisting of quarter notes, eighth notes, and quarter rests using traditional and non-traditional notation. Students will also gain facility performing the notes E, G, A and C on the recorder.