General Program

The standards of the General Music program at Mantua expand upon the four strands of the Music POS: Perform, Create, Investigate, and Connect.

Perform: The students will learn to participate in music as a musician through singing, playing instruments, and moving to music. Create: The students will explore individual approaches to vocal or instrumental improvisation.

Investigate: The students will identify the style and distinctive characteristics of music, which delineate each of the basic music historical periods, as well as the influence of 20th century technology and compositional techniques employed in all genres of music. Students will also investigate the vocal timbres that are unique to children, adolescents, and adults. Students will be guided in the development of criteria for making informed judgments about music, and the other arts, and for evaluating the role of music in society.

Connect: The students may relate music to foreign languages through music terminology and song text; to poetry through common expressive elements; to mathematics through the principles of rhythm; to science through the study of acoustics; and to history and social science through the musical expression of various cultures and historical periods.

Students at Mantua are offered a minimum of two 30-minute general music classes per week. Balanced, comprehensive, cumulative, and sequential music instruction begins in kindergarten and continues through 6th grade.