Designing a curriculum is like designing a 12-course meal.

Imagine that you are chef, planning an elaborate dinner. You know the flavors and ingredients you want to present, the wines you want share. But how do you present them in a sequence that makes sense?

If you serve your spicy garlic dip too early, it will overwhelm delicate flavors later. If you start with bread, your guests fill up too soon. You need balance. You need sequencing. You need to know what your guests can handle, how their taste buds work.

Similarly, we also need balancing and sequencing when we plan a music curriculum. We need to understand how people learn music.

Fortunately, we don’t have to start from scratch. Some research has already been done on how people learn music. Music Learning Theory (MLT), which I have written about earlier, provides us with information about how children learn music. It gives us hints about WHAT needs to be learned (the content), and WHEN to learn it (the sequence).It’s like a recipe book that gives us tips on what ingredients to use, and when to serve them.

What MLT doesn’t tell us is HOW to present content. MLT gives us a framework, but it’s our job as curriculum designers to figure out how much to present, and how to present it. (For more on this idea, see Eric Bluestine’s Book “The Ways Children Learn Music”).

This process of figuring out what to present is not trivial. We need to balance constraints. We need to think like engineers. Or chefs.

We need to think about how we present the dishes to our patrons. What portion sizes do we use? What kinds of garnishes? How often should we throw in something spicy?

We need to think about our tools and technology. How many spoons will we need? How many frying pans will the kitchen need? Will there be enough time for things to bake in the oven?

We need to think about costs and prep time. Will saffron dishes be too expensive? Will it take too long to cut all the artichokes?

This is why curriculum design is both challenging, and interesting. It’s a puzzle that’s an art and a science. There’s the puzzle of making everything fit together. And then there’s the puzzle of presenting it in a way that’s fun and beautiful.

So let’s start cooking.

I’m thinking about online curriculum design here: https://github.com/musikata/musikata.curriculum.

Do you know about any interesting curriculum design project? Let’s jam on reddit. Or contact me here: http://music-ed-notes.tumblr.com/ask .