Are There Monotones? NO!

Every Student Can Sing In Tune? YES!

Too many music teachers believe that some students "are musically talented" and others "are not." The truth is, singing in tune and performing a steady beat are innate music talents (skills) that ALL students have. Matching pitches is not a matter of talent or hearing ability, as many believe, but a matter of muscular flexibility or inflexibility. Some automatically connect with their singing voices, while others do not. First, help a student "find" his/her head voice through developing flexibility. Then accurate matching pitches and singing in tune is almost instantaneous.

Book 1 of Knauss Music Curriculum, centered on rhythm and tonal skills, reveals tried and true methods from master music teachers from across the nation for teaching ALL students to sing in tune.

Are There Beat-Deficient Students? NO!

Every Student Can Perform a Steady Beat? YES!

Performing a steady beat is a matter of perception. A beat is a perceived musical pulse. Steady beats are pulses perceived at predicatable time units. Once a student is taught how to perceive ahead to "feel" a beat, it is no problem teaching him/her how to keep it steady.

Book 1 of K.M.C., centered on rhythm and tonal skills, features detailed, practical methods from master teachers across the nation for teaching how to perform a steady beat.

Music Has Two Gateway Skills:

(Tonal) Singing in Tune & (Rhythm) Performing a Steady Beat

Once a student learns the two gateway skills of music, singing in tune and performing a steady beat, the whole realm of music participation is opened. In a school setting, all music education in the Kindergarten year should be focused on practicing and these two skills in 100s of different ways, while exposing the student to all Music Concepts. In a well-planned curriculum, every student should (and CAN) be accomplished in these two skills before graduating to First Grade. With the gateway skills mastered, the student becomes a life-long Participator in music. Without them, (s)he is confined to a Spectator! Even music appreciation is greatly diminished without an internal connection to these two gateway skills.

Books 1 and 1A of K.M.C. sequence, according to music learning research, the two gateway skills of music education--rhythm and tonal.

Spiraling and Cycling Music Curriculum

Core-Based Skills Versus the Calendar?

Traditionally, music teachers teach "this" for two weeks, "that" for one week, and "the other" for another two weeks, and so on across the whole year, year after year. This is teaching "to a calendar." But students are not a schedule--they are dynamic human beings. They should learn core-based skills, increasing level upon level, and progress ahead when skill mastery at each level is achieved. Teach sequenced skills instead of the calendar. How? (1) Assess the entry levels of your students by "trying out" certain music activities on them. How competent were they? How much did they succeed? How dependent on you were they? What were their frustrations and failures? (2) Then know the sequence of learning skills and have a well-planned curriculum repository of 100s of well-focused activities at your finger tips. (3) Progress to the next skill level only AFTER the students have mastered their present one. This is teaching core-based skills to students and dynamically applying a curriculum.

Book 2 of K.M.C. is a highly structured spiraling and cycling curriculum in which music skills, understanding, active participation, and artistry are expanded and broadened in each cycle, in which the teacher is a master adapter and facilitator--DYNAMIC!

Is Not Music a Performing Art?

A Regular Music Classroom Becomes a Performing Ensemble? YES!

While many music teachers successfully teach core-based skills to individuals, their students as a corporate whole (classroom ensemble), cannot maintain a corporate ensemble steady beat or consistent meter, or maintain an ensemble consistently accurate tonal center, without direct teacher control. Students are dependent on the teacher's conducting, instead of independent musicians who have the skills internalized.

Book 3 of K.M.C. teaches students to listen to each other while hearing their own parts. Sequenced listening and performance skills turn each classroom into its own performance ensemble. Students are taught to become independent musicians through making their own performance "decisions" while in the act of performing!

Can All Students Be Taught to Improvise and Compose?

Inferential Learning Beyond Discrimination? YES!

Can students be taught to improvise? In the pentatonic? In the diatonic? Compose? In a symmetrical period with a half cadence, melodic linking, and ending on a proper final point? In diatonic major and minor, making tonal sense? How about the blues scale using both major and minor characteristics? Can students audiate the harmonic structure inherent in their improvising and composing? Can students learn to assess and evaluate their own creations with artistic satisfaction and musical accuracy? The answers to these questions and MORE is a resounding YES in Book 4!

Book 4 of K.M.C. is a one-of-a-kind inferential curriculum solidly sequenced and core-skill based on the discrimination learning levels of Books 1-1A-2-3 and sets students free to become creatively proficient!