5 Elements of Music

Middle school music has begun its exploration of music by answering the question: “What is music?” We’ve adopted the composer John Cage’s definition -“Music is organized sound”- as a starting point.

For everything we do in music class -singing songs, playing instruments, composing, improvising- we will explore 5 important elements that musicians must consider when ‘organizing’ sound.

5th graders have been working on Pitch and Rhythm through creating their original one measure melodies. 6th, 7th and 8th graders have explored many uses of timbre through their found sound compositions.