Autumn 1 – On this Island: British Sounds and Sound

As musicians, we learned to sing a traditional British folk song and create a seaside soundscape using our voices, bodies and instruments. After singing the folk song 'Lavender's Blue', we consider what we might see and hear in the British countryside, and perform a countryside soundscape. After singing 'London Bridge is falling down', we try to recreate the sounds they might hear in the city, using a city image as inspiration. Working in groups, we choose a setting (seaside, countryside or city) for which to compose our piece of music. Finally, we combined our learning from the previous lessons to compose a piece of music that takes them on a journey through Britain, from the seaside to the countryside to the city.

Autumn 2 - Dynamics, timbre, tempo and motifs (Theme = Space)

As musicians, we have been developing our knowledge and understanding of dynamics, timbre, tempo and instruments as well as learning to compose and play motifs. In the first lesson we used our voices to make sounds to represent space, creating atmosphere by using dynamics. Then we listened to space-inspired music, and responded creatively by drawing what they hear and then identifying the dynamics, instruments and mood of the pieces of music. We then compared two pieces of music by the same composer, using our developing musical vocabulary to explain differences and changes in tempo, dynamics, timbre and the instruments used. In the fourth lesson, we played and created motifs (short sequences of sound), notating or writing down their compositions. Finally, we combined our soundscapes from Lesson 1 with our motifs from Lesson 4 to create and perform a longer piece of music.

Spring 1 - West African Call and Response Song (Theme: Animals)

As musicians, the children started this term by using instruments to replicate some of Africa’s most notorious animal sounds and experimenting with the variations of timbre. Then the children went on a safari around the classroom listening to drumming music and learning to clap back the animal rhythms in time to the music. They also had the opportunity to learn a traditional Ghanaian call and response song called ‘Che Che Kule’. To develop their rhythmic response pupils were given examples of ‘calls’ to which they beat the ‘response’, using an instrument; they then worked together to invent their own animal call and responses, recording their notations. Finally, the children used musical instrument to play their call and response song. Pupils focussed on improving the sounds they made by varying the dynamics. To finish up it was time for the performance to their peers.

Spring 2 - Orchestral Instruments (Theme: Western Stories)

As musicians, we were introduced to the instruments in the orchestra, and then try to identify the instruments within a piece of orchestral music based on the familiar story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Then we moved onto focusing on the story of The Snow Queen, and we analyse how music can convey different moods or aspects of the narrative. The next fairy tale was Red Riding Hood and we used our understanding of timbre, tempo, and dynamics to tell the familiar story. Working in groups, we planned how to tell the story of Jack and the Beanstalk through music, expressing our knowledge and understanding of dynamics, timbre, and tempo. Finally, we performed our own musical version of Jack and the Beanstalk using our plans from the previous lesson.

Summer 1 – Myths and Legends

As musicians, we created rhythms and put them into an order, or structure, to tell the story of St George and the Dragon. We listened to a piece of music about the legend of King Arthur and identify the structure of the piece. We had the chance to identify different layers within a piece of music, based on the myth of Orpheus and Euridice, and then show these layers on a graphic score. Working in groups, we composed a piece of music with a given structure and create a written score for their piece. We rehearsed and performed their compositions from the previous lesson, learning to perform as a group and to follow their graphic scores accurately.

Summer 2 - Musical Me

As musicians, we learned how to sing, 'Once a man fell in a well' and use untuned percussion instruments to play the pulse and imitate specific words from the song before performing as a class. Then we began to understand that all instruments have their own unique ‘timbre’ and that composers use this and dynamics to show different emotions in their music. We had the chance to experiment this by singing 'Once a man fell in a well' in different ways. Then we learned that letter notations are used to record the names of the notes and the order in which they are to be played; using this understanding we played a song using tuned percussion instruments and practice performing in time as a class. We then created a melody of our own, first making up the music, and then writing it down using the letter-name notation. Finally, working in groups, we composed a piece of music that uses dynamics and timbre to reflect an emotion, first choosing and playing our instruments and then making decisions about the structure and sound of the piece before rehearsing and performing.