Welcome!
These teacher resources provide an overview of the YPG Music Appreciation Mini Curriculum including summaries the units and activities with guidance on implementation.
We created this curriculum after seeing students continually placed in music classes with no interest in the subject. With no relationship to music and no frame of reference, it can be difficult for students to engage. This curriculum seeks to kick start students’ musical lives and help them see the connections between music and larger forces in culture and media.
Students should finish the curriculum with an answer to this question:
Why do I like the music I like?
With that answer, they’ll have a compass they can use to find their way through the world of music as a consumer and a creative.
Summary of Music Production 1 Units
SOUNDS AND LAYERS
Sounds can be broken down into categories. We divide sounds into high, mid, and low groups. High, mid, and low sounds come together as layers to create larger pieces of music.
THE WAY SOUND SOUNDS
Sounds are waves in the air. The simplest wave is a sine wave with one frequency. White noise contains all of the frequencies. Every other sound goes somewhere in between.
THE LANGUAGE OF MUSIC
Analyzing music words, including the word music itself.
SONG STRUCTURE
All songs have structure. Traditional pop songs often follow a Verse, Chorus, Bridge form, but songs can follow any form.
Activities
The Music Appreciation Curriculum is all about listening, processing, and understanding music, both on its own and in its cultural context.
There are a few Soundtrap Activities throughout the curriculum, but the emphasis of the material is on listening and writing. If your school already has a Soundtrap license, that’s great! But, we want all schools, regardless of what resources they have available, to be able to benefit from this curriculum.
Many of the writing activities require students to gather media and write responses and analyses. We have templates to aid students in gathering and organizing that information. We hope that this scaffolding helps students as they engage with music in a new way and helps teachers implement these materials.
As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please reach out to us at curricula@youngproducersgroup.com.