Illinois Arts Learning Standards Music | 15Approved by the Illinois State Board of Education
Digital resources: Anything published in a format capable
of being read by a computer, a Web-enabled device, a digital
tablet, or smartphone.
Digital systems: Platforms that allow interaction and the
conversion between and through the audio and digital
domains.
Digital tools: Category of musical instruments and
tools that manipulate sound using binary code, such as
electronic keyboards, digital audio interfaces, MIDI, and
computer software.
Dynamics: Level or range of loudness of a sound or sounds.
Elements of music: Basic characteristics of sound (pitch,
rhythm, harmony, dynamics, timbre, texture, form, and style/
articulation) that are manipulated to create music.
Enduring understanding: Overarching or “big” ideas that
are central to the core of the music discipline and may be
transferred to new situations.
Ensemble: Group of individuals organized to perform artistic
work: traditional, large groups such as bands, orchestras, and
choirs; chamber, smaller groups, such as duets, trios, and
quartets; emerging, such as guitar, iPad, mariachi, steel drum
or pan, and Taiko drumming.
Essential question: Question that is central to the core of a
discipline – in this case, music – and promotes investigation
to uncover corresponding enduring understanding(s).
Established criteria: Traits or dimensions for making quality
judgments in music of a particular style, genre, cultural
context, or historical period that have gained general
acceptance and application over time.
Expanded form: Basic form (for example, AB, ABA, rondo,
or theme and variation) expanded by the addition of an
introduction, transition, and/or coda.
Explore: Discover, investigate, and create musical ideas
through singing, chanting, playing instruments, or moving
to music.
Expression: Feeling conveyed through music.
Expressive aspects: Characteristics that convey feeling in the
presentation of musical ideas.
Expressive intent: The emotions, thoughts, and ideas that a
performer or composer seeks to convey by manipulating the
elements of music.
Expressive qualities: Qualities such as dynamics, tempo,
articulation which – when combined with other elements of
music – give a composition its musical identity.
Form: Element of music describing the overall organization
of a piece of music, such as AB, ABA, rondo, theme and
variations, and strophic form.
Formal design: Large-scale framework for a piece of music in
which the constituent parts cohere into a meaningful whole;
encompasses both structural and tonal aspects of the piece.
Fret: Thin strip of material placed across the fingerboard
of some stringed instruments, such as guitar, banjo, and
mandolin; the fingers press the strings against the frets to
determine pitch.
Function: Use for which music is created, performed, or
experienced, such as dance, social, recreation, music therapy,
video games, and advertising.
Fundamentals of music theory: Basic elements of music,
their subsets, and how they interact: rhythm and meter; pitch
and clefs; intervals; scales, keys and key signatures; triads
and seventh chords.
Fusion: Type of music created by combining contrasting styles
into a new style.
Genre: Category of music characterized by a distinctive style,
form, and/or content, such as jazz, march, and country.
Guidance: Assistance provided temporarily to enable a
student to perform a musical task that would be difficult to
perform unaided, best implemented in a manner that helps
develop that student’s capacity to eventually perform the task
independently.
Harmonic sequences: Series of two or more chords commonly
used to support the melody or melodies.
Harmonizing instruments: musical instruments, such as
guitars, ukuleles, and keyboards, capable of producing
harmonies as well as melodies, often used to provide chordal
accompaniments for melodies and songs.
Harmonization: Process of applying stylistically appropriate
harmony, such as chords, countermelodies, and ostinato, to
melodic material.
Harmony: Chordal structure of a music composition in which
the simultaneous sounding of pitches produces chords and
their successive use produces chord progressions.
Heterophonic: Musical texture in which slightly different
versions of the same melody sound simultaneously.
Historical context: Conditions of the time and place in which
music was created or performed and that provide meaning
and influence the musical experience.
Historical periods: Period of years during which music
that was created and/or performed shared common
characteristics; historians of Western art music typically refer
to the following: Medieval (ca. 500 –ca. 1420), Renaissance
(ca. 1420–ca. 1600), Baroque (ca. 1600–ca. 1750), Classic
(ca. 1750–-ca. 1820), Romantic (ca. 1820–ca. 1900), and
Contemporary (ca. 1900–).
Homophonic: Musical texture in which all parts move in the
same rhythm but use different pitches, as in hymns; also, a
melody supported by chords.
Iconic notation: Representation of sound and its treatment
using lines, drawings, pictures.
Imagine: Generate musical ideas for various purposes and
contexts.
Imagination: Ability to generate ideas, concepts, sounds, and
images in the mind that are not physically present and may
not have been previously experienced (see “Audiate”)
Improvisation: Music created and performed spontaneously or
“in-the-moment,” often within a framework determined by the
musical style.
Improviser: One who creates music spontaneously or “in-the-
moment.”
Independently: Working with virtually no assistance, initiating
appropriate requests for consultation, performing in a self-
directed ensemble offering ideas/solutions that make such
consulting collaborative rather than teacher directed.
Intent: Meaning or feeling of the music planned and conveyed
by a creator or performer.
Interpret: Determine and demonstrate music’s expressive
intent and meaning when responding and performing.
Interpretation: Intent and meaning that a performer realizes
in studying and performing a piece of music.
Intervals: Distance between two tones, named by counting
all pitch names involved; harmonic interval occurs when two
pitches are sounded simultaneously, and melodic interval
when two pitches are sounded successively.
Intonation: Singing or playing the correct pitch in tune.
Key signature: Set of sharps or flats at the beginning of the
staff, following the clef sign, that indicates the primary pitch
set or scale used in the music and provide clues to the resting
tone and mode.
Lead-sheet notation: System symbol used to identify chords
in jazz, popular, and folk music; uppercase letters are written
above the staff, specifying which chords should be used and
when they should be played.
Lyrics: Words of a song.
Major scale: Scale in which the ascending pattern of whole
and half steps is whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half.
Melodic contour: Shape of a melody created by the way its
pitches repeat and move up and down in steps and skips.
Melodic passage: Short section or series of notes within a
larger work that constitutes a single coherent melodic idea.
Melodic pattern: Grouping, generally brief, of tones or pitches.
Melody: Linear succession of sounds (pitches) and silences
moving through time; the horizontal structure of music.