Key Stage 2 Unit 1 - Water Music

Learning, Listening, Composing & Evaluating Activities

Performing Activities - Songs & Scores

Starter & Plenary Activities

Exploring Melodic Shape & Dynamics

This unit provides pupils with the stimulus of water as a basis for singing, performing, composing, improvising and listening and appraising to a wide variety of water-inspired music.  Pupils begin by creatively composing in response to a variety of images of water in its various forms before exploring how the composer Smetana describes the course of a river in his tone poem “Vltava”.  Pupils explore the concept of melodic shape, identifying melodies which move by step and leap and compose their own “wandering river” melody using entirely stepwise motion which is used as part of a larger-scale composition describing the various stages of the water cycle.  Pupils move onto the sea and make connections between music and art learning about the impressionist music of Debussy’s “La Mer” and use Monet’s sea paintings as the basis of an improvisation.  Dynamics is a key concept throughout the using including gradations of dynamics and the crescendo.  Finally, pupils use their learning from the unit to add “water sound effects” to a traditional North American-Indian legend before listening to Handel’s “Water Music”.                     

Element Focus - Pitch, Timbre & Dynamics, Melody & Harmony

Home

Sample Materials

Year 7 Resources

Year 8 Resources

Year 9 Resources

GCSE Music
Resources

Year 7 Baseline Assessment

Musical Contexts
“IN ACTION”

Key Stage 2 Music Resources

Email

Frequently Asked Questions

Feedback