Instrumental Lessons in Music
The pictures show the instrumental lessons across the school. Children learn the importance of playing as part of a whole class ensemble and following the directions of the conductor (teacher or another pupil). Across the school, children have the opportunity to play different instruments and develop their music reading skills by following stave notation.
Exploring Percussion in Reception
The reception children explore the timbres of different tuned and untuned percussion instruments. They use vocabulary such as bang and scrape or shake to explain how to play the instrument and learn how to change the volume of the sound by how hard or fast the instrument is played. The picture show Tempo Teddy being held by the conductor who indicates how loud or soft, fast or slow the instruments should be played by holding it high or laying it on the floor.
Learning Recorder in Year 2
Year 2 have been learning the notes of the treble clef stave and applying this to play the notes B, A and G on the recorder. They have built on their prior knowledge of crotchets, quavers and minims to learn ‘Hot Cross Buns’ as a class and different children have had the opportunity to use conductor signals to lead the whole class performing together.
Ensemble Playing in Year 4
In Year 3, children have continued to learn the recorder and have built on the notes learnt in Key Stage 1 to play a greater range of notes with more challenging rhythms. They have used the Charanga online music programme to accompany backing tracks that play popular songs so they can learn about the structure of songs and the importance of keeping in time together as an ensemble.
Keyboards and Djembe in Year 5
Children in Year 5 has also been using the Charanga online music programme to learn the Keyboards and the Djembes. The picture shows a group leader setting the tempo for the other performers and the group maintaining the rhythm. The conductor indicates when to start, repeat and end the performance and the rhythms build on from those learnt in LKS2.