Welcome to Musical Contexts |
MUSICAL
CONTEXTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS -
Resources written and compiled and website designed and maintained by Rob
Blythe with invaluable assistance with imaging and layout advice from Angela
Blythe. Supported Self Study Audio
narrations by Lesley Blythe. Huge
thanks to Kevin Griffin and to Seamus and Felix for unending support. |
What is Musical Contexts?
Musical Contexts is a website providing teachers with
a bank of quality, "ready to use", tried and tested and
professionally presented resources for use in the Primary and Secondary music
classroom. The Primary/Key Stage 2 Musical Contexts resources aim to combine music with
established popular Primary class Topics/Themes adding a cross-curricular
approach to learning. Each of the Primary/Key Stage 2 Musical Contexts units draws inspiration from either History-themed
topics/units e.g. Ancient Egypt,
Ancient Greece, The Victorians or Science, Geography, Technology &
Nature-themed topics/units e.g. Machine Music, Water Music, Weather &
Seasons. |
What kind of resources does Musical Contexts
offer?
Musical Contexts contains a wide variety of different
teaching and learning resources. At
Primary/Key Stage 2 and Secondary/Key Stage 3, these include Teacher Schemes
of Work with Lesson Overviews, Knowledge Organisers, Learning, Listening,
Composing and Evaluating Worksheets, Performing Activities including Songs
and Scores, 5-Minute Reading Tasks, supporting Cover and Homework
activities and Audio and MIDI files . |
An example of “Lesson Pathways” from the
Secondary/Key Stage 3 - Hooks and Riffs - Scheme of Work |
An example of a Knowledge Organiser from the
Secondary/Key Stage 3 Building Bricks unit. |
An example of a Performing Task from the
Secondary/Key Stage 3 Soundtracks unit. |
An example of a Listening Task from the
Primary/Key Stage 2 Ancient Egypt unit. |
An example page from the Rhythms of the World
GCSE Music Study & Revision Guide |
An example page from the Conventions of Pop
GCSE Music Knowledge Organiser |
An example GCSE-style Listening Question from
the Film Music Area of Study |
Examples from the Musical Contexts Cover Bank |
Contacting Musical
Contexts |
The Secondary/Key Stage 3 Musical Contexts resources aim to build on
traditionally popular units frequently taught by secondary music specialists
and to prepare pupils for GCSE Music specifications e.g. Building
Bricks (Exploring the Elements of Music), I’ve Got Rhythm (Exploring Rhythm
and Pulse), Sonority City (Exploring Instruments of the Orchestra) and include a range and variety of
resources, together with Schemes of Work and a range of “Lesson
Pathways”. At GCSE Music level, Musical Contexts offers Study & Revision Guides,
Knowledge Organisers, sample GCSE-style Listening Questions to support the OCR GCSE (9-1) Music
Areas of Study. There are also a range of other areas
within the site providing ‘instant’ resources: the Musical Contexts
Music Cover Bank, 2 ‘Warm-Up Compendia’, SQUILT Listening Exercises, World
Music Resources and Music History and Theory Resources. |
From time to time, Musical Contexts will also add Seasonal Topic
Packs covering areas
such as Christmas, Halloween, Bonfire Night, Microsoft and Google Forms Quiz
Bundles and End of Term Music Quizzes.
These are not included within the “full-site subscription” due to
costs in obtaining copyright permissions to use songs, scores and audio
materials contained within them. These
can be purchase as “add-on” items (normally at £12.50 per pack) via the
Musical Contexts Shop. |
The
ever-popular Musical Contexts
Music Cover Bank, provides teachers with a wealth of ready to use
music resources for cover, many of which do not require ICT for those
last-minute moments! |
Please feel
free to copy, modify, customise, personalise and use Musical Contexts resources for your own use, with your students and pupils, within your
own school or college and on internal Virtual Learning Environments
(VLEs). Please
use the resources responsibly and ethically, as continued irresponsible free
sharing and poaching of paid published resources (particularly “free sharing”
to Facebook groups and the current trend of setting up “free” music resource
websites using Musical Contexts and other published resources) is not only a breach of copyright, but
the implications of making these publicly available on websites, even if only
for a short period of time, are that other schools and teachers can freely
access them meaning a loss of earnings for authors and publishers,
jeopardising future resource development for YOUR subject specification and
will only sadly see the demise of sites such as Musical Contexts which rely on
the support (and honesty) of schools and teachers for future
development. Musical
Contexts is unitedly working with a range of
publishers together to monitor Facebook groups for such “free sharing” and
regular checks to the web are made using a program which scours the web for
PDFs using automated code (scrapers). Any subscriber found freely
sharing Musical Contexts resources online will have their log-in cancelled with immediate
effect and no refund given in respect of this. |
At GCSE level, Musical Contexts offers Study and Revision Guides,
Knowledge Organisers and sample GCSE-style Listening Questions to support the
new 2016 OCR GCSE (9-1) Music Areas of Study. |
As part of Musical Contexts’ drive to cut down on printables and
reduce copying costs, all “Starter and Plenary Activities” within the
Primary/Key Stage 2 and Secondary/Key Stage 3 units are being combined into a
“DOITNOW” and “Plenary” PowerPoint Presentations, complete with embedded
audio and video files. The range and
content of each presentation varies according to the topic/unit, but DOITNOW
activities include: What do you see? Key Word Definitions, Sort
them out!, Mix and Match, Silent Debate, Musical Anagrams, Connect Fours,
Connections, Compare and Contrast and What do you hear? |
Examples of DOITNOW activities from the
Musical Contexts Secondary/Key Stage 3 units |
Warm-ups,
including vocal warm-ups, tongue twisters, body percussion and rhythm games,
are a popular way to start music lessons or as an introduction to practical
activities.
The Musical Contexts Complete “Warm-Ups
Compendiums” contains a wealth of short activities - old and new - supported by
teaching notes, scores and audio and video files all contained within
two (very large!) Presentations and
suitable for the Primary and Secondary music classrooms. |
Examples from the Musical Contexts Complete
“Warm-Ups Compendiums” Volumes 1 & 2 |
AS & A-Level Music Resources Shop |
Home |
About Musical Contexts |
Subscribe to Musical Contexts |
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)/Help |
Musical Contexts Year 7 Baseline Assessment |
2016 GCSE (9-1) Music Resources Index |
Musical Contexts Music Cover Bank |
Musical Contexts Shop & Seasonal Topic Packs |
Musical Contexts Topic Exploration Packs |
Musical Contexts “Warm-Ups” Compendiums |
Musical Contexts World Music Resources |
Musical Contexts Music History & Theory Resources |
Primary/Key Stage 2 Music Resources Index |
Secondary/Key Stage 3 Music Resources Index |
Musical Contexts SQUILT |
Examples from the Musical Contexts Year 7 Baseline Assessment Listening Test |
The Musical Contexts
Baseline Assessment Listening Test provides a vital way of
measuring pupil's understanding in music at the start of Year 7. |
The Musical Contexts Plenary Review presentations focus on
a brief review of learning from the lesson. |
Examples of Plenary Review Activities from the
Musical Contexts Secondary/Key Stage 3 units |
The Musical
Contexts SQUILT Listening
Exercises provide a bank of general listening tasks on a variety of music
from different times and places - great for homework or home learning! |
Musical Contexts
Music Theory Microsoft/Google Forms Bundle Available via the
Musical Contexts Shop as an ‘add-on extra’, these 10
ready-made online music theory quizzes are available in either Microsoft or
Google Forms formats and provide an excellent way of assessing pupil’s
knowledge and understanding of music theory.
All 10 quizzes are worth 20 marks and include: Treble and Bass Clef Staff Notation;
Note Values and Rests; Dots, Ties and Triplets; Time Signatures; Tempo and
Dynamics, Sharps and Flats, Tones and Semitones; Major and Minor Scales; Key
Signatures; Intervals. |
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Contact Musical Contexts to obtain further details on how to
set up your own username and password for full access to all of the resources
or any other general enquiries or feedback |
Contact Musical Contexts with any technical support problems
or issues (also see the
Frequently Asked Questions page) |
Contact Musical Contexts with any payment or invoice
enquiries |
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Musical Contexts Office Hours Monday - Thursday: 8am-8pm Friday - Sunday: 8am-12noon |
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