High School Music Repertoire Project
pdf version
See examples of assignment below
The Purpose of this assignment is to help you select music to share with your
students,
Assignment: Find 20 musical selections that you would consider sharing
with your students. Consider the following criteria: ****
- Musical examples must be appropriate for the age and interests of the learners.
Carefully
review the appropriateness of the lyrics for all vocal selections. Consider
length and challenges
the piece might offer to the students
- Musical examples must include a variety
of genres. If the goal of music learning in high
schools is to help students gain musical knowledge that will allow them
to become musically
independent and continue to participate in musical activities throughout
their lives, then music
should be selected from a wide variety of genres. A genre is a classification
of a kind of music.
Genre not only identifies timbral qualities but also the function of
the music within the culture.
Some genres you are familiar with would be: lullabies, children’s
songs, marches, polkas, love
songs, hymns, string quartets, choral, and band music. Consider music
from small and large
ensembles as well as vocal and instrumental music, and consider music
from many different
cultures.
- Musical examples must reflect all musical styles. Although "style" is
often interpreted
differently by different people, for our purposes we will use the term "style" to
refer to music
that has become associated with a certain time and place. Therefore we
may refer to the style of
Beethoven (1770-1827), the style of Elvis Presley (ca. 1965), Classical
European Music 1750-
1800 or The "Golden Age" of South Indian Classical Music (1750-1850).
Consider three broad
categories that help us to choose music from a diversity of styles:
- “Folk” and traditional music is representative
of the many cultures that make up our world.
- “
This Old Man” would be an example of American folk music.
- “Art” music, including music of the master
composers from all cultures and all style periods,
from the earliest known to the music of today.
- “Contemporary” music, such as jazz, rock, musical
comedy, reggae, new age, rap, and
country.
- Music examples must be “music of value.” Ultimately,
the test for inclusion of any musical
example must be based in its power to help individuals find music to be
a source of beauty and
joy, to provide the freedom to participate in the special kind of immediate,
personal expression
that no other form of communication can emulate. It would be wonderful
if there were some hard
and fast rules as to what makes one piece of music more meaningful than
another. Sadly, there
are none. However, some guidelines may be used to help you make choices.
The first is, “Does
the music stand the tests of time?” We are not only talking about
great musical works that have
remained in a culture’s repertoire for centuries. We are also
talking about current time. How
From your repertoire list, you will choose works to
complete the Teacher Work Sample and Teaching Episode assignment. I suggest
you try
to answer the questions
posed by the Facets Model as you develop your list, for it is in your best
interest to have a pool of quality musical works to choose from. Please email
and give me a hard copy of this assignment on or before the date specified
in the syllabus. Write “HS Music Repertoire” in the subject line
of your email.
Evaluation Criteria
- Your list should include the title of the selection, the
name of the composer(s) (if known) or genre, and the publisher (if it is
a piece
to be performed) (10
points)
- Your list should include 10 recordings, include the title
of CD and length of piece in minutes and seconds (Pass or Fail)
- Your list
should
include 10 selections that high school students could perform (Pass
or
Fail)Write a statement about why you are interested in each selection
and/or why you would like to share it with your students (20 points)
- Write
two
paragraphs (one for the recordings and one for the performance
pieces) that thoroughly describe your attempts to meet the four criteria
above: (a) appropriateness; (b) composer and/or genre; (c) style;
(d) value (20 points)
Example I (Annabelle Hummel)
Example II (Janice Janowitz)
Example III (Jason Pergolesi)
**** These criteria were adapted from Musical
Growth in the Elementary School
(6th edition), by Bergethon, Boardman, and Montgomery. Harcourt Brace, 1997