Ancient Greece from Musical Contexts provides a range of fun and exciting
music activities and learning opportunities combining singing, performing,
composing and listening and appraising with all of the resources you’ll need
in one place! Ideal for non-specialist music teachers (with a wealth of
supporting media files to model tasks and a detailed scheme of work and
lesson plans) and a wealth of fresh inspiration for music specialists. Whether you’re exploring the popular
primary history topic of Ancient Greece or The Greeks, there’s something within this unit that will
hopefully inspire both you as a teacher and your pupils, there’s something
within this unit that will hopefully inspire both you as a teacher and your
pupils. his unit contains a variety of ideas suitable for KS2 classes
that wish to link their music with the history unit based on Ancient
Greece. The activities all have a clear music focus and draw upon a
history element as a starting point or stimulus. Like the Primary/Key
Stage 2 Unit - “Ancient Egypt”, this unit does not attempt to explore music
of the time, since at KS2 level, the historian would be relying heavily on
supposition based upon wall paintings, artefacts and such like to ascertain
what the music may or may not have sounded like! Rather, the activities
open up opportunities for the creation of pupil’s own music as a response to
some of the stimuli associated with Ancient Greece. The unit begins with an exploration
into triple time - inspired by the three prongs on Poseidon’s trident.
Pupils use the repeating sequence of the border from a Greek plate to perform
and compose rhythms in triple metre. Pupils then move onto explore the
Pentatonic Scale (made up of two Greek words in itself! - “pente” (five) and
“tonic” (tone)), creating and performing pentatonic melodies, again using the
border pattern of a Greek plate to structure their pieces. Pupils then
move onto explore the leitmotif, used to represent a certain character.
Using the features, attributes, associations and characteristics of various
Greek gods and goddesses, pupils create their own leitmotifs to represent
these through music and sound. Finally, pupils explore the Greek myth
of “Perseus and Medusa”. Firstly, pupils hold a class competition to
create a leitmotif for the hero, Perseus, using the Pentatonic Scale and
Triple Time. Next, they create leitmotifs for other characters within
the myth and sound effects for different situations, while the “winning
Perseus leitmotif” group adapt their leitmotif to respond to the different
situations the hero finds himself in. This culminates in a class
performance – a narrated tale with leitmotifs and sound effects being
performed at the appropriate points. The unit ends with pupils
exploring “Greek-inspired” music from a range of different times and places |
Learning, Listening, Composing & Evaluating Activities
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Starter & Plenary Activities
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Performing Activities - Songs & Scores
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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
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effect and no refund given in respect of this. |
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Scheme of
Work |
Lesson Plan
(PDF) |
Lesson Plan
(DOC) |
Lesson
Bundles (ZIP) Download all the resources you need for each lesson
(excluding video files) in a ZIP file. |
Lesson 1 Exploring Triple Time & Rhythms through Greek
Plate Patterns |
Resource
Bundle |
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Lesson 2 Exploring the Pentatonic Scale |
Resource
Bundle |
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Lesson 3 Exploring Leitmotifs for the Greek Gods |
Resource
Bundle |
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Lesson 4 Exploring a Leitmotif for Perseus |
Resource
Bundle |
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Lesson 5 Exploring the Myth of Perseus & Medusa |
Resource
Bundle |
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Lesson 6 A class performance of “The Myth of Perseus &
Medusa” & exploring Greek-inspired music |
Resource
Bundle |
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Greek Gods Leitmotif Composing Cards |
Greek Gods & Goddesses Rhythm Matching |
Greek Plate Composing Sheet |
Example Greek Plate Composition (Example on MIDI 5) |
Evaluating Greek Plate Compositions |
The Myth of Perseus and Medusa (with thanks to the BBC) |
Composing a Leitmotif for Perseus |
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The Myth of Perseus and Medusa Transcript (given on Audio 10) |
The Myth of Perseus and Medusa Performance Plan (also on Presentation 3) |
Evaluating Greek Gods Leitmotifs |
The Myth of Perseus and Medusa Composing Cards |
The Myth of Perseus and Medusa Evaluation Sheet |
Listening to “Greek-inspired” Music (Uses Audio 12) |
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Song Sheet 1 - Songs & Rounds in 3 Time Audio 1 - Music is Fun; MIDI 1 - Music is Fun (as a 4-part
round) Audio 2 - Kite Flying High (with
ostinato); MIDI 2 - Kite Flying
Higher (as a 3-part round) Audio 3 - Trav’lin’ Round (with
ostinato); MIDI 3 - Trav’lin’
Round (as a 4-part round) |
Poseidon’s Greek Plate Rhythm Score (Also given on
Presentation 1) |
The Pentatonic Scale (Also given on Presentation 2) |
Knock Knock! (Example on MIDI 4) |
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Poseidon and his Trident |
Slow Waltz - Don’t Close your Eyes |
Moon River - Andy Williams |
Sleeping Beauty Waltz - Tchaikovsky |
2 beats or 3? |
Introducing Leitmotifs |
Listening to Music describing the Greek Gods (uses Audio 11) |
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Clash of the Titans (original and remake comparison) Perseus slays Medusa scene (144 MB) |
My Ancient Greece Learning |
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