Stageworthy by Widy

Teaching Grade 2 music lessons without a music degree can be tough. The guide below covers each element of music that should be taught in an order that makes sense.

2nd Grade Music Lesson Plans

The grade 2 music curriculum is all about setting up a strong foundation in basic concepts. Repetition is extremely important, especially with core concepts in beat, rhythm, and pitch.

I strongly recommend teaching the concepts in the following order, as it is easy to build each skill on the back of the one before it.

Duration (Rhythm) Guide for Grade 2 music curriculum

Duration refers to the length of time that a sound lasts. Many people confuse the terms “beat” and “rhythm”. Beat refers to the steady pulse of the music – this is what determines the “tempo” or speed of the music. Rhythm refers to the patterns of short and long sounds that you hear in the melody or accompaniment.

• Beat vs Rhythm
• Fast & slow tempo
• 2/4 and 4/4 metres – whether a song is written in sets of 2 beats (2/4) or 4 beats (4/4)
• quarter note, eighth note, quarter rest – note values
• rhythmic ostinato – a repeated rhythm that creates a simple accompaniment

Melody / Pitch Guide for Grade 2 music curriculum

Pitch refers to how high or low a sound is. In grade 2, we build off the high/low skills learned in grade 1 to explore melodic contour and expand our knowledge of solfege.

• High & Low
• melodic contour – how pitches in a melody move up and down in a sequence
• Solfege: mi, so, la

Music Expression Guide for Grade 2

In the Grade 2 music curriculum students continue to develop their listening skills by identifying the differences in dynamics (crescendo – getting louder, and decrescendo – getting softer) and expression (staccato – choppy, and legato- smooth).

• Dynamics: Crescendo & Descrendo
• Expression: Staccato & Legato

Timbre Guide for Grade 2

Timbre is the quality of a sound that makes it unique from other sounds, even if they have the same pitch and volume. It’s what allows you to distinguish between different musical instruments or voices. Timbre is determined by several factors, such as the shape of the sound wave, the number and strength of the overtones or harmonics, and the way the sound is produced. It can be described using words like warm, bright, mellow, harsh, or metallic.

• Vocal Quality
• Body percussion
• Pitched & unpitched instruments
• Environmental and found sounds

Form & Texture for Grade 2

Form and texture basically refers to how a piece of music is organized.

Music texture refers to the way different musical elements, such as melody, harmony, and rhythm, are combined to create the overall sound of a piece of music. It can be thought of as the “thickness” or “layers” of the music.

• Texture
• single melodic line (monophony)
• Phrase
• Call and response