Teaching Strategies and Approaches
Good listening skills
- Model and talk about the qualities of a good listener and a respectful audience member.
- Continue to encourage learners to express their own artistic opinion and to explain with increasing detail and appropriate music vocabulary what they liked/disliked about the music and why. Model and encourage learners to ask relevant questions and build on the contributions of others e.g. ‘What are the different instruments in a samba band?’, or ask a performer ‘What is the highest pitch your instrument can play?’
- Provide opportunities for learners to listen to and evaluate their own and others’ work, using appropriate music vocabulary e.g. ‘Could the main melody be played louder?’, ‘I like the repeated rhythm section’.
Selecting music to listen to (see Listening List for suggestions)
- Talk to the children about when and where they listen to music and find out about the music that they/their families like to listen to. Share with the children the music that you listen to and why you like it. Create playlists with the children for use a different times during the day e.g. tidying up, calming down after lunch, warming up for P.E. Playlists could also be created with the children to link with social studies topics e.g. music from a particular country or time period.
- Select short excerpts of music that can be listened to multiple times – start around 30 seconds and gradually build this up. A longer piece of music could be listened to in shorter sections before listening all the way through.
- Select music from a wide range of musical genres and styles, including styles and cultures that will be familiar and music which will expand their musical experiences e.g. Pop/Rock, Classical (orchestra, choir, chamber ensemble), Opera, Musical Theatre, Scottish (folk, pipe band), Latin American, Indian, Jazz, Blues, Rap.
- Select music which will inspire different feelings, images or memories for the children e.g. pieces with a contrasting mood/atmosphere.
- Select music with clear contrasts in tempo, dynamics or instrumentation, repetitive melodies or rhythm patterns for the children to identify and respond to. Select music which features a particular group of instruments/voices e.g. the families of the orchestra (strings, woodwind, brass, percussion)
- Choose music from film, TV and theatre to explore links between image and sound.
Active listening
- A Listening Dice or Question Cards can be used to help stimulate thinking and discussion before and after listening to music. Children could also write their responses on a Listening Mat. You may or may not choose to give the children any information about the music/performer/composer before the first listen.
- After the first listening, start by asking open ended questions which allow learners to express a personal response and to make connections and comparisons with other musical experiences. E.g. How the music make you feel? Why do you think that is? Does it remind you of anything? What did you notice? Can you describe the mood/atmosphere of the music? How is that mood/atmosphere created?
- On the second or third listen, encourage children to identify specific features of the music. You may want to pause at particular points to introduce new music vocabulary or ask questions related to concepts e.g. What type of music ensemble is this? What instruments can you hear which tell you this? How many sections are there in the music? Are any of the sections repeated? Is there more that one instrument playing the melody? Is the melody accompanied or unaccompanied?
- Watch video clips of musicians performing and explore groups of instruments and how they are played so that children become increasingly familiar with the timbre (sound quality) of a range of instruments from different styes and cultures.
Responding creatively
- Provide opportunities for learners to keep the beat along to music with different time signatures (simple & compound time) using movement, body percussion and instruments. Ask learners to identify and copy rhythm patterns in the music and then create their own to play along.
- Support learners hear simple melodies in the music and perform them using voice or work out the pitches using music technology or on an instrument e.g. tuned percussion.
- Use the analysis of music as a stimulus for children to create their own music in the same style as a particular composer.
- Children can create sequences of movement which represent different sections of the music, responding to tempo, dynamics, shape of the melody, and articulation.
- Provide opportunities for children to respond to familiar and unfamiliar music using art materials to create colours, lines, symbols, shapes or models which represent what they hear. This could lead to the creation of their own graphic score for the music they are listening to.
- Children can listen to music which tells a story and write their own, poem/script/drama to represent what they hear.
End of Level Benchmarks
- Explains preference for music pieces listened to, live and/or recorded, using appropriate music concepts.
- Recognises a range of music styles and identifies some of the main instruments used in, for example, classical music, jazz music, rock and pop music.
- Explains, with supporting reasons, what works well and what could be improved in their own and others’ work, using appropriate music vocabulary.
Interdisciplinary links
EXA 2-05a, EXA 2-09a, EXA 2-13a
LIT 2-11a, LIT 2-02a, LIT 2-07a
HWB 2-01a, HWB 2-11a
SOC 2-19a
TCH 2-01a
