You’ve probably been hearing a lot about the new core standards for music. Consonus presented a session at the recent NAfME National In-Service Conference in Nashville on Blended Learning, and mapping guitar curriculum to the new Music Core. Here are some questions we heard frequently and thought you might be wondering about.

Are the Core Music Standards part of the Common Core?

The new standards are not the Common Core. The Core Music Standards were created by music educators not legislators. Although not mandatory, many states and school districts should and will adopt them.

What has changed since the 1994 MENC standards?

While the 1994 standards emphasized the body of music skills and knowledge that students should master on their instruments, the new Core Music Standards expand the scope to overall music literacy.

What do they mean by music literacy?

Music literacy moves beyond the performance of music to include the skills of creating and responding to music. So in addition to playing music, students will learn how to compose, improvise, select, program, critique, and listen to music.
This approach recognizes that while most students won’t go on to a professional career in music they can enjoy music throughout their lives as players, and educated consumers and appreciators of music.

Why is this important to me as a classroom guitar teacher?

In the new standards music is broken down into 4 strands including:

• Ensemble
• Guitar & Keyboard (harmonizing instruments)
• Composition & Theory
• Electronic Music

Guitar accommodates 3 of the 4 strands. This fact recognizes that the guitar is extremely versatile and has the capacity to provide a comprehensive music experience for students. It also means that the bar is necessarily being raised in both the curriculum that classroom guitar students learn from, and the skills that teachers should possess to produce successful results.

Consonus can help teachers to easily and confidently produce excellent results, with standards based blended learning curriculum, and professional development resources for classroom guitar educators.

To learn more about what Mike talked about at the NAfME conference watch this webinar.