Grade 2 students at ISB receive two 40-minute music classes every 6-day cycle with specialized elementary music teachers.
By the time they are in Grade 2, students are already very confident with their singing voices, are able to match pitch, and are ready to learn some simple two-part songs, such as rounds and partner songs.
Grade 2 students learn to read, sing, play, dictate and compose using a much broader range of notes. They now work with Do, Re, Mi, Sol, La and high Do – this makes up the complete pentatonic scale (a scale based on 5 notes). They are able to write short patterns and sing them, sight-sing short melodies, and label notes of songs they are learning.
Grade 2 students continue to play non-pitched and pitched percussion instruments to accompany songs and games. Now, more than one part may be added to the ensemble at one time. Students are able to listen to one another, and are gaining the skills to blend with a group. A normal Orff ensemble in Grade 2 consists of a bass part, a bordun pattern, and a complimentary non-pitched percussion part, as well as singing the song. This is not so easy! But Grade 2 students have the skills to do it.
Grade 2 students also learn a lot about form in music. We review what we know about Rondo form, from grade 1, and we write our own class rondo. We also study the Rondos of famous composers, and create movement and drama to go with such famous Rondos as “The Viennese Musical Clock” by Zoltan Koda’ly, or “Eine Kleine Nachtmuzik” by Mozart. We then also learn about the concept of a phrase, as a musical “sentence” or idea. We create movement to go along with songs to illustrate the phrasing we hear, and move to famous music with strong phrases such as “In the Hall of the Mountain King” by Edward Grieg, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5.
With Grade 2 music class comes a lot of new musical discoveries, opportunities for creativity and dramatic expression through movement and compositions, and knowledge of new musical vocabulary when describing what we hear. We are well beyond the first steps now…we are independent musicians! We can sing on our own or with a group, with confidence! We can read, play and compose more complex melodic and rhythmic material! What is next for us in Grade 3?? Haven’t we learned it ALL yet? ☺