The musical pulse of the Siskiyou School beats steadily, flowing through every classroom and breathing life into assemblies, lessons, recesses, and everything in between like a great river nurturing the land. In music class, this life force is introduced as an old friend that can tellingly be found anywhere that life itself blooms; music is everywhere, and music welcomes you.
In 1st Grade, the students’ Will Forces are being tended and encouraged. We practice rhythm through games and body percussion, intonation and memorization through call and response, and dynamics through story and imagination–the Pentatonic Scale is our guide through these first years. By the 3rd Grade, students are introduced to the diatonic scale. The major and minor keys, different time signatures, and a wide variety of traditional, regional, multicultural, and popular songs show us that the different parts of music can be combined like colors on a canvas to create unique experiences and emotions. By the 5th Grade, part-singing and sight-reading on recorder or xylophone are practiced every class. The Middle School students are approaching music and sight-reading in a more academic environment: 6th Graders will soon learn to transpose and compose their own Gregorian Chants; 7th Graders are immersed in their African Drumming Block; and the 8th Graders are learning about American Music History from the pre-colonial era to the present. This will culminate in studies on African-American music, and the students come full-circle as they discover that the Blues Scale is their old, 1st-Grade friend, the Pentatonic Scale, making little effort to disguise itself!
The holiday season may just be the perfect time to let music show us that harmony often means having many different parts that hold each other up, that we can express ourselves while also learning about others, and that while we each have our own, special voice, we sing stronger together.
Warmly,
Mr. Cord
