Year+2+Music

Year 2 || =Listening skills=
 * MUSIC


 * Information ||

Objectives
• To listen carefully and respond to sounds using movement • To begin to create their own soundscape, using their ability to listen carefully and discriminate between similar sounds

Prior learning
To benefit from this lesson, children should: • have listened to, and be able to identify, different sounds; • be able to use appropriate words to describe sounds; • be able to use a tape recorder confidently to record sounds; • have had the opportunity to explore simple classroom instruments.

Vocabulary
dynamics – loud, quiet; tempo – fast, slow; pitch – high, low; timbre – creaking, whispering, scraping, moaning (words referring to the //quality// of the sound); banging, shaking, knocking (these words describe how sounds are //produced//)

Resources
• an appropriate poem that evokes sounds • tape recorder(s) and blank tapes • microphone(s), if necessary • a variety of musical instruments

ICT skills needed by teachers
To teach this unit, teachers need to know how to: • use a tape recorder

Preparation for this lesson
Read the poem several times before the lesson and have your own mental picture of the piece, so that you can share your thoughts after you have heard the children’s ideas, or to prompt them if they find it hard to express themselves. If you are using a lengthy poem and the children are not used to listening to poetry, just read a short extract to begin with and then talk about it; then read another short extract. Gradually build the children’s ability to listen to a longer extract (still of only a minute or two). Encourage the children to pause and reflect. You don’t need to go far to record sounds for the children’s soundscape, there will almost certainly be useful sounds around school, in the playground and on the school field. You can also create sounds with your own instruments and any that the children might be learning themselves. Record sounds as a class or group activity – if you have a teaching assistant he/she could do this with a group at a time. Decide as a class what sort of sounds you want to record and then record a whole range of appropriate sounds. Then give the children time to listen to what they have recorded and decide what really works and describes whatever mood they have decided on. In order to be a soundscape, the sounds literally need to be joined together without gaps, and possibly overlapping, unless silence is a sound-bite you want to include. The children will need to be helped to understand that silence is like another sound in their sound palette and that in written music it has its own special signs (called rests). There are enough ideas here for a whole series of lessons, which might well be related to other texts you are using in literacy, this term’s history theme, etc.


 * Lesson extract ||

Introduction – warm-up
Spend a few minutes using the tape recorder to record some immediately accessible sounds, e.g. the ticking of the classroom clock, the scraping of a chair, shutting a door, sounds the children can make with their own voices. Listen to what has been recorded – could we use those sounds to create a simple composition? Ask the children to think about which sounds and musical instruments would best create the impression of different kinds of weather, seasons and events. Explain that music often creates clear pictures in people’s minds, but that the picture may well be different for different people and that there is no right or wrong mental image.

Main activity
Read your chosen poem. This could be a poem that the children have composed or helped to compose. Read each line, pausing at the end of the line to allow the children to think about the sounds that might be suggested by the different words in the poem. Q What sounds does this word / line make you think of? You might want to go back and read the line again. Once the children have made some suggestions, then begin to think about ways that you could make these sounds: Q How might you make these sounds with musical instruments? Discuss which instruments you could use to make these sounds. You can broaden the discussion to consider other ways of making the sounds, beyond musical instruments: Q How could we compose a piece ourselves when we might not be able to play an instrument and we don’t know how to ‘write’ music? Talk about what you could use instead of/as well as instruments – could you record sounds that are already there in the environment or that could be made with your own bodies and put them together? Use a discussion of the answers to this question to establish what sounds should be recorded and how.

Discuss how to put the different sounds together to make a soundscape: Q How could we create a soundscape with these sounds? Some pupils might want to put sounds on top of each other (layering) as well as end to end. Talk about how you could do that (using several different sound sources, more than one tape recorder, etc. Having agreed the sounds to be recorded and how to create a soundscape, the whole class can make a joint class composition, pooling their ideas. Alternatively, the poem may be split and children may record appropriate sounds and music for their assigned lines of the poems. At this stage the children can record their soundscape. Read the poem with the appropriate recording(s) as a background.

Plenary
Remind the class what they have said about: • how they can sometimes see a picture in their mind when they are listening to music; • the words that might suggest different sounds; • the different ways they can create music themselves.

Next steps
Talk about composers – what makes them want to write music, what are they trying to convey? Do they sit down and write a piece straight off, or does it evolve over a period of time? Where might they get their ideas from, other than from a poem? Use other stimuli for composition, e.g. photographs, a silent video clip.


 * Notes ||

Links to QCA schemes of work
The lesson links to: QCA Music Unit 9: Animal magic - Exploring descriptive sounds

Subject links
Sounds created as in this lesson can be linked to work in dance, art, and creative language work.

Why use ICT?
The advantages of using ICT are as follows. • ICT allows children the ability to test ideas and to modify their music, giving them the confidence to explore sounds and create more complex pieces. In particular, they do not need to ‘remember’ in order to perform their compositions.

Year 2 || =Feel the pulse=
 * MUSIC


 * Information ||

Objectives
• To begin to internalise and create rhythmic patterns • To recall and perform rhythmic patterns to a steady beat

Prior learning
To benefit from this lesson, children should: • have had lots of experience of making simple rhythms using untuned percussion instruments.

Vocabulary
beat, pulse, rhythm, tempo, fast, slow

Resources
• data projector or interactive whiteboard linked to a laptop • ICT suite or set of laptops • untuned percussion instruments, such as drum, cymbal, tambourine, including body percussion • simple music software, which allows for composition using rhythm (in this Example, //MusicBox 2, Beat Box//) • traditional story or rhyme with repetitive phrases such as //Humpty Dumpty//, //The Three Little Pigs//, //The Gingerbread Man// • tape or mini-CD recorder

ICT skills needed by teachers
To teach this unit, teachers need to know how to: • use rhythm-composing software.

Preparation for this lesson
Set up the computers and software in readiness for the lesson.


 * Lesson extract ||

Introduction
Play a ‘Copy cats’ game. Clap a short simple rhythm. Ask the children to clap it back, repeating any rhythms that they find difficult. Take one simple rhythm and clap it a few times, getting faster and slower. Ask: Q What do you notice about the rhythm that you have been clapping? Read a traditional fairy tale or rhyme with repetitive rhythms, such as //Humpty Dumpty//, //The Three Little Pigs//, //The Gingerbread Man//. While you are reading the story, ask children to use untuned percussion instruments to beat out the repetitive phrases, such as ‘Let me in, let me in’.

Main activity
Explain to the class that they are going to be working with rhythms with a simple rhythm-composing program. Say that they are going to use phrases from a story or rhyme (e.g. //Humpty Dumpty//) to compose a simple rhythm piece. Ask the children to think of a rhythmic pattern individually or in pairs (e.g. ‘Sat on a wall, sat on a wall’ or ‘Humpty Dumpty’) and to practise beating it out it until they are confident and consistent. Then group the pairs into fours and ask the children to play their patterns to each other. Build the activity up until they are playing two or three rhythms together. Using the computer, ask children to input their rhythms by clicking into the grid provided one at a time, playing the rhythm and saying the words to check that they have it correct. (Children should be able to turn down each individual rhythm while they are inputting their own.) Once the rhythms have been recorded, ask children to change the tempo of their piece and describe what happens to the rhythm. Q Can you still hear the words? Q Can you distinguish between the rhythms? Ask children who are not using the computer to record their work on the tape or mini-CD recorder.

Plenary
Bring the class together. Ask each group of four to perform their rhythmic pattern. Discuss each performance with the rest of the class. Ask children to change the tempo, making their performance faster or slower. Round off by playing ‘Pass the tambourine’. Get the children to sit in a circle. Shake a tambourine. Get the children to pass another tambourine around the circle until you stop shaking yours. Beat out a rhythm on your tambourine. The child who has the tambourine has to copy this rhythm.

Next steps
Children could experiment with the rhythms and effects using different instruments, exploring different dynamics, pitch and tempo. They could try to create a piece called ‘Scary repetitions’ using the different effects that they have explored.


 * Notes ||

Links to QCA schemes of work
The lesson links to: QCA Music Unit 4: Feel the pulse National Curriculum programme of study for music for Key Stage 1: 1b, 1c, 2a, 2b, 3b, 4b

Subject links
Possible links could be made to reading and writing activities in the literacy hour and work in dance, drama or art and design.

Why use ICT?
The advantages of using ICT are as follows. • ICT allows children to compose, play, refine and record music in ways that would not otherwise be possible. The ability to test their ideas and modify their music gives children confidence to explore sounds. • ICT gives children access to sound effects and musical instruments that would not normally be available in the primary classroom.

MUSIC Year 2 || =Exploring musical elements=

Information ||

Objectives
• To explore a range of sounds and compare with similar sounds • To describe sounds using appropriate vocabulary • To create a descriptive composition (e.g. bell music) that explores sounds and manipulates and refines them using effects

Prior learning
To benefit from this lesson, children should: • be familiar with the terms pitch, duration, volume.

Vocabulary
volume, pitch, duration, sound wave, file, insert, import

Resources
• data projector or interactive whiteboard linked to a computer • Internet access and web browser • the computer’s own sound recorder (check that this has adequate controls to support the lesson activity) (in this Example, //Windows 98 Sound Recorder//) • an audio recording program, (in this Example, //Audacity 1.2.1 sound editor// []) • microphone and good amplification (if possible, use the school’s hi-fi amplifiers and speakers or PA system, since they typically give better sound quality and more powerful amplification than the speakers that come with a computer) • a range of tuned and untuned percussion and sound makers

ICT skills needed by teachers
To teach this unit, teachers need to know how to: • use an audio recording program; • connect and use a microphone and amplifiers.

Preparation for this lesson
Study the help files in Audacity. For further support, refer to [|www.ictadvice.org.uk/musicinset], where there are support files on this and other music programs that will be available until November 2004. Set up the software and project it using a data projector or interactive whiteboard linked to the computer.

Lesson extract ||

Introduction
Organise the class to sit on chairs in a circle. Ask the children to select some sounds to record, such as a cymbal crash or a repeated sound on a woodblock. Record the sounds using the selected audio recording program. Discuss them with the children. Q How would you describe this sound? (e.g. fast, slow, harsh, gentle, sharp, soft, loud, like the buzzing of a bee, like a ringing bell) Ask children to compare sounds and say which is louder, or which is more like the sound of the sea, and so on. Then ask them to suggest ways to change the sound using the effects controls e.g. speed up, slow down. Demonstrate changing the duration, pitch and volume as follows. • Record a wood block and a chime bar or cymbal. Compare the lengths of the sound waves, then use the recording program’s effects facilities to stretch the duration of the recording. • Record a single strike on a chime bar, then use the recording program to lower or raise the pitch, if possible without changing the duration. • Increase or decrease the volume of the recording. In each case, ask: Q How is the new sound different from the original sound? (e.g. it’s higher, longer, louder) Save the changed sound files under different file names.

Main activity
Ask children to help you to start creating sequences and combining sounds in order to compose a descriptive piece, e.g. bell music. Open a saved sound file (e.g. a chime bar) then import another file that has an element changed (e.g. the same chime bar recording but with the pitch lowered or raised). Use the audio recording program to move the imported sound to a chosen position in time relative to the original sound. Continue this idea by inserting and positioning other files derived from the original sound. Now ask the children to direct the composition of their piece. For example: • record a chime bar – save this; • lower the pitch of the recording – save under new file name; • lower the pitch again – save under new file name; • combine the three sounds to create a bell/chime sequence.

Plenary
Evaluate the effectiveness of the piece. Ask children: Q How might you use the sound effects that you have explored? (e.g. to create sound effects to accompany a story, to put into presentations and to use as sound effects in a school play)

Next steps
The children can begin to build up their own bank of soundscapes and sound effects to support work in other subjects. These could be saved on the school network for other pupils and teachers to use. Sounds created in audio recording programs can be used alongside other sounds (e.g. live percussion sounds) to create new stories or sequences.

Notes ||

Links to QCA schemes of work
The lesson links to: QCA Music Unit 2: Exploring sounds QCA Music Unit 5: Exploring pitch National Curriculum programme of study for music for Key Stage 1: 2b, 3b, 4c

Context for this lesson
This lesson uses recorded sounds, which are saved then changed and saved as new files. The files are combined to create interesting musical pieces.

Subject links
Sounds created as in this lesson can be linked to work in dance, art, and creative language work.

Why use ICT?
The advantages of using ICT are as follows. • ICT allows children to compose, play, refine and record music in ways that would not otherwise be possible. The ability to test ideas and to modify their music gives children confidence to explore sounds and create more complex pieces. In particular, they do not need to ‘remember’ in order to perform their compositions. • ICT gives children access to sound effects and musical instruments that would not normally be available in the primary classroom.