The Korg Advanced Keyboard Lab Curriculum includes 20 lesson plans written specifically for the Korg Group Education Controller (GEC) and designed for secondary- and college-aged students. These lesson plans serve as a guide for incorporating a GEC keyboard lab into the general music classroom setting. The curriculum includes lessons in the following units: Music Fundamentals, Keyboard Performance, Composition, and Music Production. Written by experienced teachers who teach in a keyboard lab environment, these classroom-tested lessons are presented as a complete curriculum designed for immediate implementation into the music classroom. The musical experiences in each lesson address the National Standards for Music Education and both the 1994 and 2014 NAfME Standards are highlighted in each lesson.

This unit focuses on music fundamentals including rhythmic dictation, melodic play-by-ear, chord inversions, and major vs. minor.

In this lesson students will complete 2-measure sixteenth-note rhythmic dictation exercises.

Over the course of 2-3 class periods, students will practice melodic dictation using a fun “whisper down the lane” style game called Melody Telephone.

In this lesson, students learn how I, IV, V, and V7 chords are derived from a major scale. Students also learn how to invert these chords.

In this lesson, students develop an understanding of the difference between major and minor tonalities. Students also perform the major and minor 5-finger positions on the piano keyboard in C, G, F, and two teacher selected keys.

In this unit students will focus on keyboard performance skills including performing a Boogie Woogie style bass line in a variety of keys, performing an arrangement of When the Saints Go Marching In, improvising over an Eb blues progression, and applying pitch bend in a musical manner.

In this lesson, students will notate a Boogie Woogie bass line in a variety of keys and then notate and perform a Boogie Woogie bass line in a blues progression.

When the Saints Go Marching In is a timeless American song. Students will listen to a variety of recordings of this song and perform an original arrangement of the song that includes the melody (with some variation), chords, and bass parts.

In this lesson, students focus on improvising short two, three, and four note patterns using the Eb pentatonic blues scale. The lesson wraps up with students stringing these patterns together to create a 12-bar blues improvisation.

This lesson teaches the technique of using pitch bend on an electronic keyboard. Students will use this skill to perform scales and a melody with pitch bend.

This unit focuses on teaching advanced composition techniques including composing an 8-bar C major or D dorian melody, composing program music, arranging for four parts, composing in a Bach Invention style, composing with serialism, and composing using contrapuntal devices.

This lesson walks students through composing an 8-bar melody in C major or D dorian using a set of seven guidelines.

Using the 1812 Overture as a guide, students gain an understanding of program music. Students then select a topic of their own, write a summary of the story, choose or compose several themes and compose and record their composition.

Using a given MIDI file with 4 independent voices, students will use notation software to orchestrate the piece, print parts, and perform it on electronic and/or acoustic instruments.

Given only the right-hand part to J.S. Bach’s Invention No. 8 in F Major, students will compose an aesthetically pleasing left-hand part that incorporates their knowledge of canons.

In this lesson, students will compose a 12-tone row matrix and compose a 16-measure composition using the rules of Serialism.

In this lesson, students will use notation software to create an arrangement of Hey, Hoe, Nobody Home! that incorporates retrograde, inversion, augmentation, and diminution of the melody.

In this unit, students will explore music production software to create an arrangement of Are You Sleeping, record a drum beat in multiple tracks, rearrange existing audio to create a new form for a song, record a commercial, score to video, and compile voiceover and music tracks.

In this lesson, students will use music production software to create an arrangement of Are You Sleeping. Students will perform the melody on the piano keyboard and use loops to create the remaining parts (drums, bass, and keyboard or guitar).

Music production software allows the user to compose a single drum beat using multiple tracks. In this lesson, students are given a set of standard patterns for kick drum, snare drum, hi-hat, crash cymbal, and tom-toms that they record and mix in Garage Band.

In this lesson, students learn the concepts of form using popular songs. Students will import a popular song into music production software, chart the form, and create a remixed version with a new song form order.

In this lesson over the course of 2-4 class periods, students will view a short video clip (Duck and Cover). Students will then record an original script and musical accompaniment for the video clip using music production software.

In this lesson, students will develop an audio-only commercial that includes original music (composed in notation software) and an original script (recorded in music production software using a microphone). The commercial can be a public service announcement or an advertisement for an existing product or even a new product that the students create.

In this lesson, students will research and write a short essay about a famous musician. Using music production software, students will record their essay and add commercial recordings of the musician.