Music

Filling the Halls with Melodies

Whether the door is open or not, you can’t contain the beautiful sounds made by the children coming from the music room. If the door is open, you can hear the music coming down the hall!

Music classes at Rossman are a joyful mix of singing, dancing, and playing drums, xylophones, recorders and other instruments. Children experience a multitude of opportunities for creativity and improvisation.

A varied program of music appreciation allows the children to become familiar with jazz, classical, and multicultural music, composers and styles.

In the early grades, children learn the concepts of steady beat and rhythms through nursery rhymes, chants and poetry.

Join us for our traditional Holiday Program or Grandparents' Day performance — or both — and you'll hear our young musicians performing enthusiastically!

Teacher
view the faculty page

Jane Brader

Grades Taught and Length of Class Periods

Junior Kindergarten through Grade 2 (Lower School) – 30 minutes twice a week

Grade 3 through Grade 6 (Upper School) – 45 minutes twice a week

Lower School

Music classes involve singing, listening, playing (rhythm instruments) and movement. Children learn to match pitch and to clap or play rhythmically with the beat of a song in simple meter. By second grade, children have sung, played or heard 250 songs, games and rhymes. Creative dramatics using the stage in the Pratt Performing Arts Center are also incorporated into the program.

Upper School

The components of singing, playing, listening and movement are incorporated into lesson plans. In fourth grade, children learn to play the recorder and begin the process of learning to read music notation. Harmony is emphasized through the singing of rounds, countermelodies and descants.

By sixth grade, two-part harmony is mastered as well as some three-part singing. Xylophones, metallophones, glockenspiels and rhythm instruments are used to make music.

A varied program of music appreciation allows the children to become familiar with jazz, classical orchestral and multicultural music composers and styles.

The program of creative dramatics continues and expands throughout Upper School. An elective afterschool enrichment class that includes a formal play production for fifth and sixth grade children is offered through the joint leadership of Rossman and the Center of Contemporary Arts (COCA).