P1-4 pupils were treated to an afternoon of music today, led by Helen from Lighthouse Musicians. We started off with an opposites game to help pupils get their listening ears on. We then had to copy Helen by repeating different rhythms, created using body percussion. This led nicely into a discussion about different note values, such as crotchets and quavers.

We then looked at various Italian musical terms for the different dynamics of music (pp = very quiet; p = quiet; f = loud; ff = very loud). We also learned some new terms today – Crescendo, which means getting louder, and Diminuendo, which means getting quieter.

To put our new learning into practise, we played a game of ‘Hot or Cold’ but used our voices to direct the person to the hidden object. Helen hid a beanbag somewhere in the room and the pupils sang ‘Where’s the Beanbag?’ to the tune of Frere Jacques. They sang louder when the person got closer to the beanbag, and got quieter when the person moved further away from the beanbag.

We finished off with a bit of music appraisal – discussing the different instruments we could hear in a piece of music that was played, the dynamics we heard, the tempo and why we liked it or not.

Huge thank-you to Helen for popping in this afternoon – we had a lovely Tuneful Tuesday afternoon!