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Musical Contexts Year 7 Baseline Assessment |
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Primary/Key Stage 2 Music Resources Index |
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Secondary/Key Stage 3 Music Resources Index |
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Musical Contexts SQUILT |
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Exploring
Popular Songs and Musical Arrangements |
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This unit begins by exploring
‘What Makes a Good Song?’ through practical musical investigation of two
‘good’ songs as case studies: “Shape of
You” by Ed Sheeran and “Shotgun”
by George Ezra.
Pupils explore Hooks/Riffs, Structure, Melody and Lyrics through
listening and analysis and performing parts of each song as short musical
arrangements. Pupils learn about the
importance of Hooks and Riffs, Popular Song Structure and the various
difference components/sections within, Melodic Motion (Conjunct and Disjunct
Motion) and Lyrics within both these case studies and a range of other
popular songs. Lead Sheet notation is used
throughout the unit and pupils are encouraged to confidently navigate around
lead sheets evaluating what musical information is, and is not, included in
this form of notation. The
unit ends with pupils creating their own musical arrangement of a popular
song from a Lead Sheet in their chosen style/genre. This
concept of “cover version” is explored by listening and examining a range of
different musical arrangements of the same song for stylistic and elemental
changes. Pupils
are encouraged to explore the resources available to them, the musical
information included (and not included) on their lead sheet and to
manipulate, refine and adapt existing (and include new) musical material to
create their final arrangement. |
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What Makes a Good Song? -
Cover and Homework Activities |
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What Makes a Good Song? -
Popular Songs Case Studies |
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What Makes a Good Song? -
Scheme of Work and Lesson Pathways |
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What Makes a Good Song? -
Scheme of Work and Lesson Pathways Includes Scheme of Work Overview,
Unit Learning Objectives, Learning Outcomes and Lesson Pathways. |
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What Makes a Good Song? -
General Resources |
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free to copy, modify, customise, personalise and use Musical Contexts resources for your own use, with your students and pupils, within your
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What Makes a Good Song? -
DOITNOW (Starters) and Plenary Activities |
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What Makes a Good Song? -
“DOITNOW” Presentation Cutting down on printables, file
storage and media files, the “new look” Musical Contexts “DOITNOW” What Makes a Good
Song? lesson openers
Presentation contains a wealth (only
two samples shown here), of effective “DOITNOW’s” when delivering the What Makes a Good
Song? unit in just one place
- all audio and video files are embedded and there’s accompanying Teacher’s
Notes in the “slide comments” section.
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What Makes a Good Song? -
Plenary Review Activities A series of lesson reviews where
pupils review their learning and understanding. |
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What Makes a Good Song? -
5 Minutes Silent Reading For teachers who prefer to begin
their lessons with quiet, focused openers.
All contain “Questions to Think About” which can also be used as Cover
or Homework tasks. |
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1. What Makes a
Good Song? 2. Song
Structure 3. Lead Sheets 4. Primary and
Secondary Chords 5. Song
Textures 6.
Song Timbres and Sonorities |
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What Makes a Good Song? -
Music Theory and Melodic Dictation |
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What Makes a Good
Song? Theory - Melodic Motion: Conjunct and Disjunct Exploring melody lines in songs from different times and places in
terms of melodic motion and movement using the terms Conjunct (stepwise) and
Disjunct (leaps) |
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What Makes a Good
Song? — Melodic Dictation Treble clef melodic dictation from riffs and melodies of famous
popular songs. Answers provided. All of the
accompanying audio extracts are provided on the audio file. |
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What Makes a Good Song? -
Song Structure Resources |
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What Makes a Good
Song? - Lead Sheets, Performing &
Arranging Resources |
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Pupils label parts and components of a diagram
of a Recording Studio and match definitions to descriptions of items found in
a recording studio. Can be done without using ICT. |
Comprehension activity on song recording and
the recording studio. Can be done without using ICT. |
Pamphlet or presentation activity on aspects
of selling a song arrangement. Can be done without using ICT. |
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“Stand By Me” - Ben
E. King - Lead Sheet Melody Line/Vocals/Lyrics/Chords, Bass Line,
Strings Chords, Percussion etc. for pupils to create their own popular song
arrangement. |
“Castle on the Hill”
- Ed Sheeran - Lead Sheet Lyrics, Chord Patterns (Ukulele, Guitar and
Keyboard Chord Diagrams), Bass Line Riffs & Melody Lines with chords and
with and without note names for pupils to create their own popular song
arrangement. |
“Love is All Around”
- Wet Wet Wet - Lead Sheet Lead Sheets featuring lyrics and song melody,
melody line, guitar chords, keyboard or tuned percussion two-note chords and
bass line, B flat and E flat melody parts for transposing instruments with a
Full Score for pupils to create their own popular song arrangement. |
“I’ll Be There for
You” (Theme from ‘Friends’) - The Rembrandts - Lead Sheet Lead Sheets featuring lyrics and song melody,
melody line, chords and bass line, B flat and E flat melody parts for
transposing instruments with a Full Score for pupils to create their own
popular song arrangement. |
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“Any Dream Will Do”
from ‘Joseph’ - Lead Sheet Lead Sheets featuring lyrics and melody line,
chords, keyboard or tuned percussion two-note chords and bass line, B flat
and E flat melody parts for transposing instruments with a Full Score for
pupils to create their own popular song arrangement. |
“Memory” from ‘Cats’
- Lead Sheet Lead Sheets featuring lyrics and melody line,
chords, keyboard or tuned percussion two-note chords and bass line, B flat
and E flat melody parts for transposing instruments with a Full Score for
pupils to create their own popular song arrangement. |
“Greased Lightning”
from ‘Grease’ - Lead Sheet Lead Sheets featuring Song Sheet and Lyrics,
Melody Line with Note Names and Guitar Chords, B flat and E flat melody parts
for transposing instruments with a Full Score for pupils to create their own
popular song arrangement. |
“Summer Nights” from
‘Grease’ - Lead Sheet Lead Sheets featuring Song Sheet with selected
2-part Song Melody, Lyrics, 2-Part Melody Line with Note Names, Bass Line, B
flat melody part for transposing instruments with a Full Score for pupils to
create their own popular song arrangement.
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Key Words,
Concepts and Musical Knowledge |
Popular Song Structure: Introduction (intro),
Verse(s), Strophic, Link, Pre-Chorus, Chorus, Bridge/Middle 8, Coda (outro);
Lyrics, Hook, Riff, Melody, Counter-Melody, Texture, Chords, Accompaniment,
Bass Line, Lead Sheet, Arrangement, Cover Version, Melodic Motion: Conjunct,
Disjunct, Range; Instruments, Timbres and Sonorities in Songs. |
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Music Theory |
Conjunct and Disjunct Melodic Motion in Songs |
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Links to GCSE
Music |
Popular Music Vocal Music Conventions of Pop |
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Ed Sheeran - “Shape
of You” Songsheet/Leadsheet Contains Lyrics, Easy Bass Line, Bass Line,
Chords, Easy Riff, Harder Riff, Guitar Chords and Melody Line Parts for
classroom ensemble performing. |
George Ezra -
“Shotgun” Songsheet/Leadsheet Contains Lyrics, Chords, Guitar Chords and Two
Riffs from “Shotgun” for classroom ensemble performing. |
Analysing the Form
and Structure of “Shape of You” and “Shotgun” Lyrics for structural analysis of both case
study songs with answers. |
Analysing the
Melodies of “Shape of You” and “Shotgun” Melody lines/Riffs of both case study songs
for “Step and Leap” analysis. |
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Exploring your own
Favourite Song Pupils explore and analyse two contrasting
songs by the same artist or group in terms of the Elements of Music and the
popular song elements explored in this unit: Structure, Lyrics, Riffs and
Instruments. Also includes a “Full Marks” and “Low Marks”
example response with teacher’s comments.
Can be done without using ICT. |
A word search covering key words and terms
from the unit. Can be done without using ICT. |
Staged composition task for pupils to create a
punk band and write a set of lyrics to a punk song on subject matter of their
choice. Requires ICT for research. |
Another word search covering key words and
terms from the unit. Can be done without using ICT. |
Pop Groups and Artists from 1960 Word Search Another larger word search of notable pop
groups and performers from 1960 onwards.
Can be done without using ICT. |
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Useful worksheet for introducing the Drum Kit
and the names of the various parts. |
Listening to Riffs
in Popular Songs |
Card sort to rank features of what makes this
a good song and performing the melody and riff to “Praise You” |
Performing Two
famous Riffs from Popular Songs Arrangements of the riffs from “Bittersweet
Symphony” - The Verve and “Glory Box” - Portishead |
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Listening to
“Wannabe” - The Spice Girls |
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Listening to
“Wayfaring Stranger” - Eva Cassidy |
Listening to “Give
Me One Reason” - Tracy Chapman |
Listening to
Arrangements of “Stand by Me” Also includes an evaluation sheet for “Stand
by Me” arrangements. |
Listening activities based on 3 different
Heavy Metal/Rock Songs
Audio 9 - “The Rain Song” - Led Zeppelin & “Paranoid” - Black
Sabbath |
Learning about
Popular Songs in the 1960’s Presentation with embedded audio examples of
Motown, Soul, Rock and Rhythm and Blues as examples of Popular Songs from the
1960’s |
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Listening for Riffs
in Rap and R’n’B Songs |
Listening to “Jump”
- Kriss Kross |
Listening to
Arrangements of “I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You”
Audio 14 - Three Arrangements of “I Can’t Help Falling in Love with
You” |
Listening to
Arrangements of “Killing me Softly” |
Listening to two
different Arrangements of “Comfortably Numb” |
Arrangement Concept Map covering Personal, Physical,
Technology and Musical Resources for consideration when creating a Musical
Arrangement. |
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Exploring Song
Structure Presentation Introduces pupils to key elements of song
structure through increasingly complex analysis and listening tasks including
analysis of ‘Scarborough Fair’, ‘Fast Car’ and ‘Stand by Me’. Contains all embedded media files. |
Exploring Song
Structure Worksheet Contains the song lyrics to all songs explored
within the Song Structure Presentation as ‘plan text’ for pupils to analyse
and format. |