Music Theory II

(.5 credit)

Approved May 2011

Ear Training

(ongoing throughout the semester)

Essential Understanding:
  1. Music is written following an established format and conventions that transcend time and location.

Content Standard:
  1. Sing alone and with others a varied repertoire of songs
  2. Read and notate music
  3. Learn and use the vocabulary of music and music notation

Essential Questions: Why is it necessary to be able to sing intervals and melodies. Why is it important to be able to transcribe single note melodies by keyboard dictation?
Learning Goals: Students will be able to:
Sing melodies by utilizing solfeggio syllables
Sing intervals: M2, M3, P4, P5, M6 M7, and P8
Transcribe keyboard-dictated melodies
Identify intervals and minor scale forms through keyboard dictation.
Suggested Strategies /
  • Daily class work in singing scales and sight reading melodies using solfeggio syllables.
  • Daily classwork using keyboard piano dictation.
  • Have students transcribe outer voices (soprano –bass) on manuscipt paper

Suggested Assessments /
  • Students will sing for the instructor one at a time to demonstrate solfeggio proficiency.
  • Students will have periodic keyboard dictation quizzes and tests.

Suggested Resources /
  • Melodia by Samuel W. Cole and Leo R. Lewis

Suggested Tech Integration /
  • Teoria.com

Content Vocabulary /
  • Do, di, re, ri mi, fa, fi sol, si, la, li, ti do Do, ti, te, la ,le, sol, se, fa, mi, me, re, ra, do, intervals, melodic/harmonic, pure minor, chromatic

Lifelong Learning/21st Century Skills /
  • Produce Quality Work

Advanced Four-Part Chorale Writing

Essential Understanding:
  1. Music is written following an established format and conventions that transcend time and location.

Content Standards:
  1. Compose and arrange music within specified guidelines
  2. Learn and use the vocabulary of music and music notation

Essential Questions: How does the use of non-chord tones (passing tones, neighboring tones, suspensions, appoggiaturas, anticipations, and pedal tones) add “tension and release” and overall interest to a composition? What is the role of the secondary dominant chord?
Learning Goals: Students will:
Understand that early four-part chorale writing followed a strict set of rules.
Know the five basic rules of the 4-part chorale tradition.
Be able to compose a 16 bar chorale utilizing the five basic rules of 4-part chorale writing.
Know how to incorporate non-chord tones.
Know how to incorporate secondary dominant chords
Suggested Strategies /
  • Study chord progressions from other chorales

Suggested Assessments /
  • Homework, quizzes and tests

Suggested Resources /
  • Elementary Harmony by Robert W. Ottman

Suggested Tech Integration /
  • Compose chorales on Finale 2009 and use MIDI playback for self assessment of musical arrangement

Content Vocabulary /
  • Contrary motion, oblique motion, parallel motion, similar motion, tri tone resolution, voice leading, closed position chord, open position chord, passing tones, neighboring tones, suspensions, appoggiaturas, anticipations, and pedal tones.

Lifelong Learning/21st Century Skills /
  • Produce Quality Work

Harmonization of Melodies

Essential Understanding:
  1. Music is written following an established format and conventions that transcend time and location.

Content Standards:
  1. Listen to, describe, and analyze music
  2. Compose and arrange music within specified guidelines

Essential Questions: How does harmony support a written melody? How can different chord progressions change the way we hear the same melodic line?
Learning Goals: Students will be able to:
Understand how a melody can be enhanced by the chord progression that supports it.
Understand how various chord progressions can alter the way we listen to and process the same melodic line.
Be able to harmonize simple familiar folk songs with a variety of chord progressions.
Be able to make MIDI recordings of simple familiar folk songs with a variety of chord progressions
Suggested Strategies /
  • Students will harmonize melodies based on notes in the melodic line.

Suggested Assessments /
  • Class discussion analyzing each other’s work followed by a harmonization written test

Suggested Resources /
  • Master Theory Workbook #4; Charles S. Peters and Paul Yoder, KJOS Publications

Suggested Tech Integration /
  • Cakewalk MIDI recording software

Content Vocabulary /
  • Melody, harmony, tonic, subdominant, dominant 7th, cadence

Lifelong Learning/21st Century Skills /
  • Produce Quality Work

Song Form

Essential Understanding:
  1. Music is written following an established format and conventions that transcend time and location.

Content Standards:
  1. Read and notate music.
  2. Listen to, describe, and analyze music.
  3. Learn and use the vocabulary of music and music notation.

Essential Questions: How does song form help composers organize their compositions? How does analyzing and recognizing song form help the listener to better understand a composition?
Learning Goals: Students will:
Define song form
Know the functions of motive and phrase
Understand how repeated and/or contrasting phrases contribute to song form
Be able to hear the form or pattern of a piece of music by focusing on how the composer has organized phrases
Understand basic song form styles by identifying phrases or sections of a composition using Letters (ie. A-B-A or A-A B-A)
Understand the parallel relationship between the form of symphonic music and popular/jazz music
Suggested Strategies /
  • Listening/analyzing form of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony Mvt 1, Beatles Music, Jazz Standards

Suggested Assessments /
  • Quiz / Test

Suggested Resources /
  • Innovative Learning Designs

Suggested Tech Integration /
Content Vocabulary /
  • form, melodic variation form, single repetition, binary form (A-B), ternary form (A-B-A), sonata form (4 part form A-A-B-A)), exposition, development, recapitulation, rondo form (five part A-B-A-C-A)

Lifelong Learning/21st Century Skills /
  • Produce Quality Work

Transposition of Band Instruments

Essential Understanding:
  1. Music is written following an established format and conventions that transcend time and location.

Content Standards:
  1. Learn and use the vocabulary of music and music notation
  2. Solve problems and think critically using the creative process
  3. Read and notate music
  4. Compose and arrange music within specified guidelines

Essential Questions: Why do instruments have different sounding pitches when fingering identically written or notated notes? Why don’t all instruments shift their fingering scales to match the concert pitch instead of transposing the written notation?
Learning Goals: Students will:
Understand how symphonic wind instruments’notations are shifted in order to play the same concert pitches with one another.
Know the families of instruments that are voiced in non-concert pitch
Know how concert and non-concert pitched instruments are notated.
Be able to transpose for all non-concert pitched band instruments: Bb clarinet, Bass Clarinet, Eb Alto Saxophone. Bb Tenor Sax, Eb Baritone Sax, Bb Trumpet, F Horn, Bb Euphonium.
Know where the band instrument ranges lie in the full range of the keyboard: AAA, AA, A, a, a1, a2, a3 etc
Suggested Strategies /
  • Learn to transpose for instruments by instrument family groups, Brass, Clarinet, Saxophone – exercises from Master Theory Book 5

Suggested Assessments /
  • Test on transposing instruments and key signatures.

Suggested Resources /
  • Master Theory Book #5, Charles Peters and Paul Yoder KJOS Publications

Suggested Tech Integration /
Content Vocabulary /
  • Transposition, key signatures, interval, concert pitch, bass clef, treble clef

Lifelong Learning/21st Century Skills /
  • Produce Quality Work

Basic Concert Band Arranging

Essential Understanding:
  1. Music is written following an established format and conventions that transcend time and location.

Content Standards:
  1. Solve problems and think critically using the creative process
  2. Read and notate music
  3. Compose and arrange music within specified guidelines
  4. Learn and use the vocabulary of music and music notation

Essential Questions: How do the various instruments of the wind band function within the ensemble? What specific physicalfeatures of any particular instrument lend themselves to these tendencies.
Learning Goals: Students will:
Know how each instrument typically functions in a wind band ensemble.
Be able to arrange one of their own previously written 4-part chorales for band.
Be able to properly assign correct instruments for a given voice of the four part chorale
Suggested Strategies /
  • Show examples of good and poorly arranged instrumentation.

Suggested Assessments /
  • Have concert band perform chorales
  • Make audio recordings of all performances
  • Analyze performances in theory classroom.

Suggested Resources /
  • Master Theory Book 5- Charles Peters and Paul Yoder – KJOS Publications

Suggested Tech Integration /
  • Finale software

Content Vocabulary /
  • Range, transposition, interval, key signature, chord, voicing.

Lifelong Learning/21st Century Skills /
  • Produce Quality Work

Arrangement for Concert Band

Essential Understanding:
  1. Music is written following an established format and conventions that transcend time and location.

Content Standards:
  1. Solve problems and think critically using the creative process
  2. Read and notate music
  3. Compose and arrange music within specified guidelines
  4. Learn and use the vocabulary of music and music notation

Essential Question: How does a band arrangement make the most effective use of instrument combinations?
Learning Goals: Students will:
Understand how all instruments sound and function within the concert band
Know how to properly assign correct instrument for a given voice of the composition
Understand how issues like texture and contrast are addressed with the use of certain instrument combinations
Be able to arrange a composition, either self composed or one of another composer, for concert band
Suggested Strategies /
  • Show examples of good and poorly arranged instrumentation.

Suggested Assessments /
  • Have concert band perform arrangements
  • Make audio recordings of all performances
  • Analyze performances in theory classroom

Suggested Resources /
  • Master Theory Book 5- Charles Peters and Paul Yoder – KJOS Publications

Suggested Tech Integration /
  • Finale software

Content Vocabulary /
  • Range, transposition, interval, key signature, chord, voicing.

Lifelong Learning/21st Century Skills /
  • Produce Quality Work

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