Music Education: General Vocal (BM)
The Bachelor of Music Degree in Music Education: General-Vocal offers the curricular content required by the Department of Education of Puerto Rico for Teacher Certification in Fine Arts with a specialization in Music Education: General-Vocal, applicable to the elementary and secondary (K-12) levels. Graduates from the program also qualify as teacher in the Specialized Schools of Music. The program is designed for future teachers of voice, piano, guitar, and choir directors.
The study program has been conceptualized under the firm conviction that the perception, understanding and sensitivity towards the art of music are fundamental in the formation of teachers committed to the evolution of music and its teaching. This formation is promoted by means of the study of the processes in the creation of music, including its history, literature, analysis techniques, its conducting and performance.
Participation in the creation of music of a high artistic value is an integral part of the study program. Students will have the opportunity to take individualized classes in their main instrument, also in piano, guitar and in a secondary instrument. They will also participate in chamber ensembles, and in one of the Department’s choral ensembles.
The musical knowledge and skills are integrated with theory and practice in the music education courses, and in the education courses. The education courses deal with topics such as: techniques for choral or instrumental teaching, teaching methodologies, technology and teaching experiences.
Students entering the program will take a placement test in rudiments of music and in their instrument. This test must be approved more with a minimum of 70 percent; otherwise students must take preparatory courses. Preparatory courses exist for those students who need them.
All students in the Bachelor of Music Degree in Music Education: General-Vocal must comply with the admission requirements, the Satisfactory Academic Progress Norms, the graduation requirements established by the Teacher Education Program (TEP) and with the Music Practice Teaching requirements. Students in this major will take MUED 1091 instead of EDUC 1080, MUED 2080 for EDUC 2890, MUED 3080 for EDUC 3015 and MUED 4915 or 4916 for EDUC 4015.
The San Germán Campus is authorized to offer this Program.
Competencies Profile of Graduates
The Bachelor of Music in is designed to develop the competencies that will enable students to:
Knowledge
Demonstrate knowledge and understand:
- The materials, methodologies, curricular development and technologies to design significant educational experiences.
- The diverse techniques of musical arrangement.
- The processes to adapt music by using arrangement techniques for a variety of instrumental and vocal sets.
- The theoretical foundations and the appropriate auditory skills to harmonize music on the keyboard or the guitar.
- The main historical periods in the analysis, preparation of scores for practice and performance of representative repertoire of different styles, forms and cultures.
- The elements of music as they have evolved through different historical and cultural periods: tempo, melody, harmony, tone, texture and form.
- The process of musical composition, solving arguments on the esthetic properties and style of an ample selection of representative literature of the main eras, genres and composers.
- The music education curriculum for the elementary and secondary levels and their historical, philosophical, esthetic, methodological, psychological and educational foundations.
- The particular mechanisms of evaluation and assessment for the teaching of music, appropriate for the elementary and secondary levels.
Skills
- Interpret music at first sight with the exactitude necessary to contribute successfully to the development of the sets in which they participate and to use that knowledge as an indispensable tool when giving class and when selecting repertoire of different levels of difficulty.
- Develop their musical quality and the technical skills necessary to obtain an expressive musical performance, when presenting a repertoire of varied styles as a soloist, in sets and as a teacher in the classroom.
- Demonstrate the capacity to use their conducting technique as a means to effectively communicate an interpretation that is musical and aesthetically convincing.
- Fortify their skills on the piano keyboard and on the guitar, so that they can use both instruments as additional learning tools for themselves and in the design of experiences for their students in the classroom.
- Develop skills to take rhythmical, melodic and harmonic dictation.
- Demonstrate the use of advanced auditory skills that will allow them to read and sing the parts of a musical score for instrumental or vocal groups for analysis, preparation for practice or conducting.
- Use their auditory skills to detect and to correct melodic and rhythmical errors, or those of interpretation in practices and in a classroom.
- Organize successful practices for instrumental and vocal sets.
- Develop skills and the necessary technical knowledge in conducting, to take a score and to prepare it for practice, locating indicators that will allow for giving form to an appropriate interpretation.
- Perform an ample selection of repertoire.
- Use technology to strengthen the pedagogical and professional work.
Attitudes
- Form a good documented judgment on the capacity that the historical and cultural context has to influence the musical production of a country.
- Value Puerto Rican and Latin American music, its history and its musical genres, in the planning of a curriculum that includes a variety of musical experiences, such as playing, creating, listening, improvising, arranging and appreciating, among others.
- Show commitment with the scope of music education.
- Regard technology as a process, a tool able to extend their musical and creative capacities.
Requirements for the Bachelor of Music Degree in Music Education: General Vocal
| General Education Requirements |
48 credits |
| Core Course Requirements |
31 credits |
| Major Requirements |
65 credits |
| Prescribed Distributive Requirements |
6 credits |
| Elective Courses |
3 credits |
| Total |
153 credits |
General Education Requirements - 48 credits
Forty-eight (48) credits of General Education are required for this Program. In addition to GEHS 2010, students will take GEHS 4020 or 4030 in the Historical and Social Context category. Students will take courses GEPE 4040 and GEPE 3010 or 3020 to fulfill the six credits required in the Philosophical and Esthetic Thought category.
Core Course Requirements - 31 credits
Note: Course MUSI 1401 requires courses MUSI 1111 and 1112 or the passing of a placement test.
Major Requirements - 65 credits
Prescribed Distributive Requirements - 6 credits
Six (6) credits selected from the following courses: