Music

Music is woven into throughout the Catherine Cook experience, developing students who see themselves as confident performers, creative composers, and thoughtful appreciators of music as they progress through the curriculum from Early Childhood to Lower School and Middle School .  Students from Preschool through eighth grade attend music classes twice weekly. An early childhood music specialist encourages children's natural love of music making through songs, musical games, rhythm awareness, and simple musical instruments. In the Lower School, the program incorporates a variety of Orff instruments as students begin to create and perform their own compositions and develop knowledge of music theory. In the Middle School, instruction centers on vocal training and choral repertoire.

In addition to the regular music curriculum, Middle School students who wish to participate in the school's annual musical may audition for singing, acting, and technical support roles. Students from fourth to eighth grades may also join the extracurricular band program whether or not they have played an instrument previously. Private instruction is also available in piano, violin, guitar, and percussion.

Lower School

Music Curriculum

First Grade

• Melody: recognizing upward and downward melody: reading simple notation; recognizing, moving to, and playing created high and low melodic patterns
• Rhythm: reviewing steady beat, quarters, eighth, halves, whole notes, and quarter rests; imitating, reading, creating, and playing simple rhythm patterns and short melodies
• Harmony: singing with and without accompaniment, playing do/sol and simple accompaniments
• Tone Color: experiencing and listening to various kinds of environmental sounds, exploring uses of the voice
• Form: recognizing like and different phrase structures; experiencing, recognizing, and responding to simple AB and ABA forms
• Expressive Qualities: identifying and moving to music with a variety of dynamic levels; identifying and moving to music of various tempi

Second Grade

• Melody: identifying steps, leaps, and repeats in notation; use solfège in a do-to-do scale; beginning to sing simple rounds and partner songs
• Rhythm: reading, playing, notating, and creating simple rhythm patterns based on previously learned note values; creating a rhythmic answer to a given question using vocal, body, percussion, and non-pitched percussion sound sources
• Harmony: identifying harmony as two or more pitches sounding simultaneously; identifying music in major or minor tonalities
• Tone Color: recognizing various vocal tone qualities produced by individuals and groups; playing and creating sound accompaniments for songs, poetry, rhymes, and movement
• Form: identifying, creating, and performing introductions and codas; identifying and performing simple structures in AB, ABA, and rondo form; identifying repeat and da capo al fine
• Expressive Qualities: identifying piano, forte, crescendo, decrescendo markings; identifying fast and slow tempi and noting gradual changes; developing control of instruments in expressive playing

Third Grade

• Melody: reading simple melodies from notation and identifying treble clef lines and spaces, demonstrating correct finger technique and tone production on the recorder
• Rhythm: identifying music in groups of 2s, 3s, 4s; identifying meter changes
• Harmony: identifying, experiencing, and performing choral harmony accompaniments; singing or playing ostinatos, partner songs, counter melodies; creating vocal accompaniments
• Tone Color: singing in various combinations of voices; playing instrumental countermelodies; making reasoned tone color choices when creating various kinds of accompaniments
• Form: experiencing song forms and solo/chorus forms; identifying, playing, and creating introductions, interludes, and codas; identifying, playing, and creating larger music structures in AB, ABA, AABA, and rondo forms
• Expressive Qualities: identifying fast and slow tempi as well as allegro, andante, accelerando and deccellerando; experiencing and identifying various styles in music; identifying single bar, double bar, repeat sign, first and second ending

Fourth Grade

• Melody: identifying and reading from treble notation including upper and lower ledger lines; identifying skips, steps, repeats, melodic contour, and sequences; improvising melodies in diatonic, pentatonic, and modal scales; continuing to identify melody in major and minor modes and experiencing and playing in Dorian and Aeolian modes
• Rhythm: recognizing beats, offbeats, rests, fermata; identifying four-sixteenth notes and related patterns; recognizing and moving to meter changes; identifying and performing tied note values and the upbeat quarter or eighth notes
• Harmony: identifying and playing chord changes; identifying monophonic, homophonic, and polyphonic textures; creating accompaniments in various textures and performing with three or more melodic ostinatos
• Tone Color: singing solos and in duets, trios, and chorus; identifying various vocal groups by name; creating original percussion compositions
• Form: recognizing, creating, and playing theme and variation form; creating call-and-response-style pieces
• Expressive Qualities: identifying previously learned dynamics and tempo markings and making appropriate choices for their use in music; analyzing and making interpretations of mood in music  

Co-curricular opportunities extend learning with opportunities for instruction in piano, drums, and guitar. Students may learn a band instrument and develop musicianship through participation in the co-curricular band program starting at fourth grade.

Middle School

Music Curriculum

• Students in grades five through eight continue the work introduced in the Lower School while challenging themselves to hone individual talents and broaden their knowledge.
• Solo performances following individual evaluation of tonal quality and pitch ability are an important part of the program.
• Support of the voice, technique, showmanship, stage presence, and following a conductor are addressed in the Middle School. Students have the co-curricular opportunity to audition for and perform in an annual school musical.
• Understanding of and appreciation for world cultures are taught in the context of musical experience. These include the history, development, and sound of mariachi music; didgeridoo music from Australia; meringue, rumba, salsa, and cha-cha from Spain and Latin America; French traditional and operatic songs, etc.
• Students learn the meaning of Latin terms for music and music note values: breve, semibreve, minim, crotchet, quaver, semiquaver, etc.
• Lessons include singing in three and four parts in harmony.
• Classes explore the topic of music as communication, the development of musical taste, and the impact of music on the adolescent mind.
• Dance is studied as an art form and in its historical context in conjunction with the humanities curriculum. Students learn ancient Egyptian and Native American dances as well as swing and jitterbug.
• Pop music is discussed as it relates to the development of blues, jazz, and hip-hop.
• Students study and discuss an opera and its composer, and attend a full performance at the Lyric Opera of Chicago.
• Co-curricular opportunities are offered to learn an instrument and develop musicianship through the school band, as well as instruction in piano, guitar, and drums.