Renaissance Academy

Building Lifelong Learners

Ms. O'Leary's Music Courses

High School Chorus	Introduction to Guitar	Middle School Chorus	Middle School General Music	3rd Grade
This course is designed to help students achieve greater vocal independence, confidence, inner hearing, and quality tonal production.  Students will study a variety of musical styles and work as an ensemble to perform and share music with friends, family, and the community.	This course will teach students to play rhythm guitar in a variety of strum patterns and finger picking styles using classic folk guitar performance technique. Students will memorize chords and chord progressions. Students will read, write, and perform melodies on strings one through six. Students will tune their instruments using relative tuning and electronic tuners.	Through group exercises, individual practice, demonstrations, and warm-ups students will become more comfortable in their vocal range, focus on proper breathing, and blending pitch.  Each student experiences a unique and positive atmosphere in which they learn to be a better performer.	Identify and describe characteristics of genre, form, and style in a variety of musical examples. Perform layered rhythmic patterns on a variety of percussion instruments with accurate rhythm and technique. Create an original work in Garageband using the principles of form and style. Examine various careers in music and describe the skills needed to achieve a professional career.	The Kodaly philosophy is a child developmental approach.  It follows the way a child learns naturally in a step-by-step sequence.  It is highly structured and sequenced and is related to the child’s own development, physically and intellectually.   The major body of teaching materials always lies within the child’s capabilities.  The overall sequence of materials in the curricula is  determined by the song material used in the lesson.  The voice is the instrument that is used.