593112

research-article2015

GMTXXX10.1177/1048371315593112General Music TodayGiebelhausen

Column

In the Beginning of the Middle:

Curriculum Considerations for Middle
School General Music

General Music Today

2015, Vol. 29(1) 4145
National Association for
Music Education 2015
DOI: 10.1177/1048371315593112
gmt.sagepub.com

Robin Giebelhausen1

Abstract
Middle school general music is an experience that numerous music educators feel underprepared to teach. Because
many undergraduate programs spend little time on this teaching scenario and because the challenges of middle school
general music are different from those of elementary general music or middle school ensembles, teachers often lack
the knowledge to create an appropriate curriculum for the clientele. The author will share her insight on teaching in
this atypical scenario by looking at the middle school child and the middle school experience.
Keywords
secondary general music, movement, music creativity, middle school, adolescence, singing
When I graduated from my undergraduate institution
with a bachelor in music education, I did not see myself
becoming a middle school general music teacher. I could
see myself teaching choir in middle or high school, or
elementary general music; middle school general music
was not on the agenda of potential futures. To my surprise, there was where I landed and taught for quite some
time. Little did I know that I would become passionate
and an advocate for secondary general music. However,
there are real challenges that occur inside the middle
school general music classroom.
Middle school general music does not occur in public
schools with the frequency of either elementary general
music or high school large ensemble music classes.
Because of the inconsistency of secondary general music
in schools, music education undergraduate degree programs seldom spend extensive time in their curriculum
discussing this scenario. Most undergraduate students
leave their college experience feeling underprepared to
teach general music in a middle school setting. This was
my experience, and I was not prepared for the challenges
I would face in a middle school general music program.
The challenge in a middle school general music program is twofold. The first is the clientele. As mentioned
above, there is a concern about how to best educate this
age-group whose challenges are different from the
younger elementary or older high school population. The
second challenge is the curriculum. Middle school general music should not and cannot be like its partner elementary general music nor should it be a high school
music appreciation course. This middle child needs a

middle-sized curriculum. This article will explore two

important considerations when creating a middle school
general music curriculum: the middle school child and
middle school experience.

The Middle School Child

The next time you are with a group of adultsteachers or
notask them about what they remember from middle
school. I would be shocked if you did not receive a collective groan. Very few people have overall positive memories from this time. Middle school is a hard time for most
people because of the large amounts of change. During this
age, change occurs physically, emotionally, and environmentally. Physically, middle school children are beginning
the process of puberty and are frequently caught unaware
as these changes often come hard and fast. Emotionally,
students are starting to notice socially acceptable ways to
interact with the world. Environmentally, the middle
school is a time of transition between elementary school
and high school.
Usually in elementary school, students are in one class
for the majority of their day and focus on the requirements
of one teacher. In high school, the school is much larger,
and students are responsible to get themselves to all classes,
1

University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA

Corresponding Author:
Robin Giebelhausen, University of New Mexico, MSC04 2570,
1 University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001, USA.
Email: rgiebelhausen@gmail.com

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General Music Today 29(1)

Table 1. Example Middle School Team Organization.

6th-Grade Cherry team
English Teacher A
Math Teacher A
Social Studies Teacher A
Science Teacher A

6th-Grade Grey team

English Teacher B
Math Teacher B
Social Studies Teacher B
Science Teacher B

7th-Grade Grey team

English Teacher A
Math Teacher A
Social Studies Teacher A
Science Teacher A

7th Grade-Cherry team

English Teacher B
Math Teacher B
Social Studies Teacher B
Science Teacher B

Cross-team teachers
Physical education
Music
Art
Drama
Applied technology

each with a different teacher with different expectations.

Prior to the 1960s, these middle years of education were
adjusted into either K8 elementary schools or junior high
schools. A K8 school models the education of older students as advanced elementary school, whereas junior high
schools are set up like a high school but for younger students. In the 1960s, William Alexander proposed a new
setup for these pivotal years. From his proposal, the middle
school movement began (Alexander & Williams, 1965).
The classic middle school bridges the experience of both
elementary and high school. In this middle school setup,
the teachers are grouped together by teams. A student is on
a specific team and travels a small part of the school to see
teachers grouped within that team. The team has agreed on
a series of expectations that will be bridged across all classrooms (National Middle School Association, 2003). As
Table 1 showcases, no matter how the middle school is
organized, most special teachersart, music, physical
education, and othersare cross-team teachers. Your
classroom will be outside their team. This will present you
with problems associated with that issue, primarily trust
and reputation.
Gaining trust will be the first step in a middle school
music class. Middle school students have the desire to
play and enjoy their education, but seldom will show that
desire. They first need to know that you are someone who
is worthy of their trust. Adolescents are at the point where
they realize they should not tell the world everything they
are thinking; students will not share as readily as they do
in elementary school. Certain details of who they are and
what they do are precious morsels of information to be
shared with select circles, if at all. Their words are only to
be heard in a safe environment. A safe environment is the
first thing to establish in a middle school classroom. To

create a safe environment, students need to know that

their words and experiences will be heard and honored in
your classroom. There is no room to demean the ideas of
others.
Reputation also holds weight in the middle school
classroom. If I am the sort of teacher who honors student
intentions and ideas, the word gets out quickly. In my first
job, I was a part of an arts block. The sixth-grade students
would have music for 6 weeks every day and then rotate
to a different class. The first 6 weeks were completely
different from every other rotation. In the beginning of
the year, the students were new to middle school and
were quite unsure. By the second rotation, the atmosphere
was much changed. The students walked into my classroom on the first day of music saying, I hear we get to
. . . or I cant wait to . . . Students share information
about one teacher with other students. All of this discussion between students established my reputation among
the student body.
Connecting with the grade level teachers can further
your reputation. One of the benefits of the team system
established in many middle schools is that team teachers
tend to meet regularly. Even if a cross-team teacher is not a
traditional member of a grade-level team, these meetings
are excellent opportunities to meet and understand curricular dimensions of the team and find opportunities to intersect. It was during one of these weekly meetings that I
discovered how sixth-grade language arts teachers were
focusing on stems (a stem is a section of a word, sometimes called suffixes and prefixes, that can be used to trigger understanding of the whole word). On hearing this, I
realized I had an opportunity to connect with content that I
was already teachingdynamics (see Table 2). Rather
than simply listing the words and their meaning, by using
stems students in my class found the connection much
more powerful. They could see the crossover between
what we were learning in music and the manner in which
they were learning in their language arts class.

Middle School Music Experience

I was always aware that for many students in my music
classroom, this might be their last formal music education
experience. I wanted to give these children an experience
that would stay with them for a very long time and help
these students have ownership with music in whatever
role music will play in their life. I wanted them to want
music in their lives. I wanted them to want music in the
lives of their children. I wanted them to be an advocate
for music in the lives of all people. The experience they
had with me in middle school general music could either
cement or repel this idea.
The more my reputation and trust was established in
my middle school, the more I realized that the students

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Giebelhausen
Table 2. Dynamics Understanding Through Stems.
Stem

Meaning

Pian(o)
Fort(e)
Issi
Mezzo

Soft
Loud
Very
Medium

genuinely wanted to play. Middle school general music

does not need to be a tamed down version of a music
appreciation class where active music making is avoided.
They really want to play. They really like music! But
middle school students are socially unsure of the safety
inside the middle school general music classroom. As the
teacher, you need to establish a safe environment where
any intolerance for others will have consequences. They
need to feel safe to share music with you and their peers.
To help the students feel safe, I started with musicmaking activities that involved low personal risk. I moved
from outward music making towards inward. Essentially,
I started with instruments and then worked toward singing. In my own experience, almost all adolescent children
enjoy singing, but some students will sing only if they
believe no one is watching them. This kind of curriculum
supports that social need. If the curriculum begins with
music made from instruments, this lets the students feel
comfortable in the environment but still allows for an
active music-making experience. Drums, mallet keyboards, recorders, hand percussion, ukuleles, or anything
else that is at your disposal are excellent tools for beginning middle school general music.
In elementary music, Kodly, Orff, and Gordon advise
beginning with singing and working toward instrument
playing (Choksy, 1981; Gordon, 2007; Keetman, 1984).
This supports internal thinking about music but also supports the physical capabilities of the child (Campbell &
Scott-Kassner, 2012). They are physically ready to sing
when they are young, but most children are not ready for
instrument playing, especially in a large classroom situation. As children become older, their hand-eye coordination improves, they are able to isolate muscle groups, and
their lung capacity can support wind instruments. In middle school general music, there are fewer issues with dexterity and students are physically ready to play instruments
as a class.
Alongside the instrument activities, movement games
are an excellent place to begin students in middle school
general music. These movement games should connect to
music concepts. Dalcroze, Orff, Kodly, and Gordon
advocate for a strong foundation in movement alongside
music making (Choksy, 1981; Gordon, 2007; Keetman,
1984; Mead, 1996). Do not avoid movement activities
with middle school students simply because you are not

sure they will buy in. If you buy in, so will the students.
With movement activities, be willing to be as participatory as possible and middle school students will take the
opportunity to move. Beside physical education, nowhere
else in their day are they consistently allowed to move in
school. Music can be another place that students experience kinesthetic education.
Once students have started to move and play instruments in a safe and trusting environment, a middle school
curriculum can introduce both chants and singing. It is
wise to incorporate these concepts with either movement
or instrument playing and then work toward singing without a secondary distraction. Ukuleles and/or guitars are
an exceptional tool for synchronous instrumental and
vocal performance. If using chords as the focus of the lesson, the child will quickly notice how unsatisfying it is to
play without singing. They have the instrument, they can
play the instrument, but it is a more musical experience if
they sing while they play (Fox, 2014).
Growing from these initial experiences with instruments, movement, and some chanting and singing naturally leads to the time to build skills. General music,
elementary or middle school, should not be a place to
play without content or skill building. After the initial
experiences students have in middle school general
music, the teacher should build up a music and language
vocabulary. Music vocabulary includes rhythmic and
tonal patterns. Kodly, Gordon, and Orff approach pattern-work in different ways, but the key idea is to be consistent. In my classroom, I would alternate major tonal
patterns for a few days, then duple rhythm patterns, then
minor, and then triple before starting the cycle over.
Pattern-work never lasted very long (35 minutes), but
over time, the students were able to amass a large skill set
in performing, hearing, analyzing, and reading various
patterns in music. Language vocabulary can also be
instilled after a few experiences with music in your classroom. Language vocabulary includes practical understanding of the terms melody, music form, harmony, and
other terms you use in your classroom. While you can
start imparting this information immediately, students are
often confused with the definitions until they have had a
few concrete experiences that showcase the definitions in
practice.
Next, it is important to show the students they also
have something to share about music. Middle school
students are at an ideal age when it is possible for them
to differentiate music composition from improvisation.
Younger children have a harder time creating and repeating an idea that is the same every performance, but older
students understand the idea of repeatability (Kratus,
1989). While it is an exciting concept to explore with
this age, it is easy for a composition assignment to get
bogged down in notation. However, composition

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General Music Today 29(1)

Table 3. Sample Lesson Format.

General action
Listening (1 or less minutes)

Daily quiz (1 minute)

Pattern work (5 minutes)
Movement (5 minutes)
Vocabulary (5 minutes)

Creative task (1520 minutes)

Final rehearsal (5 minutes)

Share (5 minutes)

Specific action
Sei Ma Le Losa (Putumayo World Music, 2004) plays as students enter; students fill out
listening worksheet about the music and the country of origin; this music is a reflection of
last weeks vocabulary: melody; answers for worksheet are displayed at the front of the
class
Review of last weeks vocabulary: melody; quiz is multiple-choice and taken on classroom
portal on Schoology (www.schoology.com/home.php)
Duple rhythm patternsverbal association
Exercise 2B1 (Gordon, 1990)
Pachelbels Canon in D: Students are taught a movement exercise that can be performed
in a round; they learn through simultaneous imitation four beats at a time; example of the
lesson and movement can be found at www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_aBuWuCHS4
Round and Canon (focus for creation)
Definition for students
Canon: A piece of music in which two or more voices (or instrumental parts) sing or play
the same music starting at different times
Round is a type of canon, but in a round each voice, when it finishes, can start at the
beginning again so that the piece can go round and round (Canon [music], 2015)
The teacher should then give music examples to demonstrate and solidify. It is highly
advisable to have students
Narrative to students
Create a 16-beat macrobeat body percussion that can be performed in a round; make sure
you showcase movement that displays
both macro- and micro-beat rhythm
all four levels of body percussion: stomp, patch, clap, and snap
at least two entrances of the movement canon
You will be assessed on your ability to complete these three tasks and your effort in your
group
5-minute warning to practice like you will perform it
Live performance and/or recorded in groups and shared online

assignments do not have to begin with notation. In fact,

by focusing on the sound first, middle school general
music teachers can establish a layer of importance in
music creation. The most important thing is the sound.
The notation is merely the way we communicate the
sound. As Rena Upitis (1992) suggests, even when we
do incorporate notation, it does not need to be completely accurate when children first experiencing music
notation in composition. In some cases, teachers might
find more success by doing activities that focus on
arranging music first rather than expecting a completely
new work of music. This allows the students to show
their understanding of the music they have encountered
before your class, and it further fortifies the safe environment that you previously established. Maud Hickey
(2012) shares many composition assignments that are
ideal for the middle school classroom in her book Music
Outside the Lines.
Finally, consider new ways for the students to share
their music. While live performance for both their peers
and an outside audience is certainly an option, it is not the

only way to share a performance created by the students.

In this technology age, it is becoming easier and easier to
share music online. Audio-recording equipment is available on most computers, tablets, and phones. Equally
accessible are video-recording devices. By sharing all
student work online, no matter the final result, you show
them that they have a voice in music and it is worthy to be
shared with others. See all of these curricular concepts
being connected together in the sample lesson format in
Table 3. This outline can be resituated to build various
music skills and keep students engaged in music
processes.

Outside and Inside the Middle

I currently supervise undergraduate students who go into
public schools and observe all ages of music students. I am
always interested to hear what the music majors have to
say about middle school students after their observations.
Theyre crazy! is a phrase often repeated from several
mouths. I enjoy telling them, And so are you!! This

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Giebelhausen
moves toward a discussion about the need to empathize
with these children and their situation. Middle school students have not learned how to deal with their bodies and
emotions, and they are moving forward into a more complex academic world. Despite these challenges, this does
not mean they are incapable of enjoying and learning about
music. Every single student in middle school can learn and
enjoy something in a middle school general music class.
We just have to be willing to understand their world. We
just have to be willing to meet them in the middle.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.

References
Alexander, W. M., & Williams, E. L. (1965). Schools for the
middle school years. Educational Leadership, 23, 217223.
Campbell, P. S., & Scott-Kassner, C. (2012). Music in childhood: From preschool through the elementary grades (4th
ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.
Canon (music). (2015, May 6). In Simple English Wikipedia, the
free encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://simple.wikipedia.
org/w/index.php?title=Canon_(music)&oldid=5127134
Choksy, L. (1981). The Kodly context (1st ed.). Upper Saddle
River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Fox, C. (2014). Choose your uke and teach it, too: A guide
to the ukulele in the general music classroom. Michigan
Music Educator, 52(1), 1315.
Gordon, E. E. (1990). Jump right in: The music curriculum,
rhythm register book one (Rev. ed.). Chicago, IL: GIA.
Gordon, E. E. (2007). Learning sequences in music: A contemporary music learning theory. Chicago, IL: GIA.
Hickey, M. (2012). Music outside the lines: Ideas for composing in K-12 music classrooms. New York, NY: Oxford
University Press.
Keetman, G. (1984). Elementaria: First acquaintance with
Orff-Schulwerk. London, England: Schott.
Kratus, J. (1989). A time analysis of the compositional processes used by children ages 7 to 11. Journal of Research
in Music Education, 37, 520.
Mead, V. H. (1996). Dalcroze Eurhythmics in todays music
classroom. New York, NY: Schott.
National Middle School Association. (2003). This we believe:
Successful schools for young adolescents. Westerville, OH:
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Putumayo World Music. (2004). South Pacific Islands [Audio
CD]. Charlotte, VT: Author.
Upitis, R. (1992). Can I play you my song? The compositions
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Author Biography
Robin Giebelhausen specializes in both elementary and secondary general music at the University of New Mexico. For 9
years she taught preschool to 8th-grade general music in both
public and private schools. Her research interests include secondary general music, music technology, gender issues in
music, and music composition pedagogy.

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