Week 1
- History
- Stripped down song; times tables challenge
- Why Music and Math
- Life of Pythagoras
- Music Literacy
- Terms (see glossary)
- Specifically start with 3 fundamentals
- Pitch
- Rhythm
- Tempo
- Math fundamentals
- Using music themed math problems to test basic arithmetic, ratios/fractions/percentages
Week 2
- Rhythm
- Values of beats (eighth, quarter, dotted quarter, half, dotted half, whole note)
- Values of rests (eighth, quarter, half, whole rest)
- Exercises
- Counting beats out loud
- Clapping beats
- Adding and subtracting beats
- Multiplication (e.g. If I have 4 half notes how many beats?)
Most of this work should include fractions (e.g. How many eighth notes make up 2 whole notes plus a quarter?)
Week 3
- Pitch
- 12 different pitches (C, C#/D♭, D, D#/E♭, E, F, F#/G♭, G, G#/A♭, A, A#/B♭, B
- Each step between two adjacent notes is a “half-step”, while two steps is a “whole-step” (image of piano will be helpful here visually)
- There are 7 notes in a scale (8 including the top note again)
- Introduction of musical staff (stick with treble clef for simplicity’s sake)
- Exercises
- Basic intervals between notes (e.g. How many steps between E and G♭?)
- Intervals (minor 2nd, major 2nd, minor 3rd, major 3rd, perfect 4th, tritone, perfect 5th, minor 6th, major 6th, minor 7th, major 7th)
- Potentially also look at inversions
Week 4
- Time Signatures
- What is a time signature? It’s how many beats go in a measure.
- Teach 4/4 and 3/4, 2/4, 6/8, 9/8 time signatures
- How you can fill a measure with notes and rests as long as they add up to the top number of the time signature
- Exercises
- Give a measure with some notes and rests and have the kid fill in the last or last few spaces that fit the time signature
- Listen to songs and have the kids hear and feel the time signature
Week 5
- Musical Scales
- What creates a scale? A regularized sequence of intervals between notes, starting on a specific note (also see scale defn)
- Major Scale (whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half), or alternatively (M2, M2, m2, M2, M2, M2, m2)
- Minor Scale
- Natural (M2, m2, M2, M2, m2, M2, M2)
- Harmonic (M2, m2, M2, M2, m2, m3, m2)
- Exercises
- Formulate all eight note scales for any note, using the templates given above
Week 6
- Comprehensive Review
- Exercises
- Problems that include all the topics covered
- Using intervals, time signatures, and rhythms to test their arithmetic and conceptual skills
- e.g. Considering the given measure, draw in the last note as an F with the right rhythmic value to correctly complete the measure
- e.g Considering the given measure, draw in the last note as a tritone interval with the note before it with the right rhythmic value to correctly complete the measure