The primary goal of the music program is to cultivate our students’ relationship with their own capacity to make music wherever they go. Participatory singing has been at the heart of our music program since its inception. Singing is part of Morning Circle every day. Grades school students and teachers gather each Friday morning to sing together throughout the year. Collective song is a vital component of all of our festivals, and it is at the core of the students’ twice-per-week music classes.
In the early grades, music class finds students immersed in an enchanting world of story, games, and movement accompanied by songs that engage the imagination. Rounds and echo songs meet the 2/3 graders’ awakening sense of self and other. These form the foundation for the harmony singing that fills the upper grades. In addition to singing, the students explore other realms of our inherent musicality, experimenting with body percussion, creating instruments from found objects, and social dance. By the time Bay School students graduate, they have been deeply steeped in participatory music-making as a means of creating shared beauty, building community, and elevating the spaces within and around us.