Teaching Strategies and Approaches
Good listening skills
- Model and talk about how to be a good listener / audience member when listening to live or recorded performances e.g. use appropriate body language, look at the performer(s).
- After listening, encourage learners to express their own artistic opinion and to explain what they liked/disliked about the music and why. Model and encourage learners to ask relevant questions after listening, e.g. ‘I wonder what instrument was playing the very low sound?’, or ask a performer ‘How do you make a louder sound with that instrument?’
- Provide opportunities for learners to listen to and evaluate their own and others’ work, using appropriate music vocabulary e.g.‘The crescendo towards the end worked well’, ‘Could you play more quietly at the beginning?’.
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. Learners could choose a favourite pieces of music/songs for the class to listen to and give a short talk about the music and why they like it.
- Select short excerpts of music that can be listened to multiple times, starting with 20-30 seconds, and gradually build this up.A longer piece of music could be listened to in short sections rather than all the way through.
- Select music from an increasing 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, Classical, Scottish (folk, pipe band), Latin American, Indian, Jazz.
- 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 childrento 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 DiceorQuestion Cards can be used to help stimulate thinking and discussion before and after listening to music. Children could also write or draw 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. E.g. How the music make you feel? Why do you think that is? Is there a there a picture in your head? What did you notice? Is the music the same all the way through?
- 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 instrument is playing the main melody here? How has the tempo changed in this section? Is this a solo or group performance?
- Watch video clips of musicians performing and begin to introduce groups of instruments and how they are played, so that childrenbecome familiar with the timbre (sound quality) of different instruments.
Responding creatively
- Explore different ways to keep the beat along to a piece of music using movement, body percussion or instruments. Children should begin to copy simple rhythms and melodies that they hear using body percussion/voice/instruments and then create their own simple rhythms to play along with the music.
- Children can create sequences of movement which represent different sections of the music, responding to tempo, dynamics, shape of the melody, and articulation (smooth / detached sounds)
- Give 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 scorefor 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
- Shares thoughts and feelings by expressing personal views in response to musical experiences such as performances, school shows and music from different styles and cultures.
- Shares views and listens appropriately to views of others, suggesting what works well and what could be improved in their own and others’ work, using some music vocabulary.
Interdisciplinary links
LIT 1-01a, LIT 1-02a, 1-07a, 1-09a
MNU 1-07a, MTH 1-13a
HWB 1-10a, HWB 1-11a
TCH 1-01a
