Category Archives: Lessons that might have happened

65/100 Pentatonic Composition

Here’s an idea for call-and-response pentatonic song composition. I started by teaching the song “Hill ‘n’ Gully Ride-a” – but you can skip this step if you like. The children just need to understand the concept of call-and-response; here’s an example; … Continue reading

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Issue 120: Stickers for a young violinist

  Tonight I was running through the piano accompaniments for a young (and very tired) violinist preparing for Grade 3. One piece has a couple of Grade 1 standard A major and D major arpeggios, and she was consistently playing them … Continue reading

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Issue 61: The Three Little Pigs

This half of term I have been looking at “timbre” with a year 1 and 2 class, working towards performing a “musical” version of the Three Little Pigs. This fitted in nicely with their class topic of “Traditional Stories”. We … Continue reading

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Issue 8: Mass Migration of Wildebeests

One of the QCA units for class music in year 3 and 4 is called “Animal Magic”.  It is a unit that I enjoy teaching, as it is easy to find suitable music to listen to, and there are so many opportunities for … Continue reading

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Issue 7: Class music – keystage 1 – Castles

“Our topic this week is castles – can you do something about castles in music this afternoon?”  Umm; I am completely out of ideas for songs about castles; the only music I can think of is “The Old Castle” from pictures … Continue reading

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Issue 5: Dishing Out The Instruments

I reckon this is about the most complicated part of your average music lesson.  I learned how to manage this “the hard way”.  Actually, I am still learning how to do this – but it is getting easier as the … Continue reading

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Issue 3: First Lesson of Term; Wider Opportunities; Lyons C Clarinets

We’ve done the warm up, the song, and the game, and it’s the moment the children have been waiting for. Everyone is persuaded to sit down; the clarinets are handed out with instructions NOT TO OPEN THEM YET.  The inventory numbers on … Continue reading

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Issue 1: First keyboard lesson of the year with a Wider Opportunities class

Oh joy! This is one of my favourite lessons of term! This is the day that the children are introduced to their keyboards; let’s not kid ourselves that any formal music teaching is going to take place but it is … Continue reading

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