R.J. Grey Music
“If I cannot fly, let me sing.”
― Stephen Sondheim
THE 7TH GRADE CLASSROOM
EVERYDAY, three concepts guide our instruction...
Everyone
can play
or sing
Hearing
is not
listening
Different music needs
different ears
THINGS TO KNOW...
Music is a "pass or fail" class. Students are expected to participate with a good attitude, always doing their best.
Our classroom encourages failures and mistakes. There is no way to practice without messing up. A LOT.
In order to pass the class, students MUST turn in a final project. For more on that click here
IN OUR ROOM STUDENTS WILL...
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be exposed to lots of musical variety
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sing. yes. sing. It's gonna be ok.
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play percussion instruments and boomwhackers
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learn to write and read music
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compose their own songs
THE FINAL PROJECT...
The end of term song writing project asks students to use all of the skills they learn cummulatively throughout. All of the work will be done IN CLASS during CLASS TIME. No student is required to bring their work home unless they would like to. (Many do, by the way!)
The project walks them through the step by step process of turning words into music, writing their own lyrics, accenting stressed syllables, turning word stress into simple rhythms, and melodicizing those rhythms. The biggest challenge of the project is...
FOLLOWING ALL THE DIRECTIONS IN EVERY SINGLE STEP.