This fully-resourced unit from Musical Contexts, presented in a newly revised 'easier to navigate' format, draws upon the inspiration of Fire and Fireworks to open up opportunities for the creating, composing, improvising, and performing music as a response to some of the aspects of Fire, as an Element, and Fireworks on Bonfire Night. The unit explores the musical concepts of: Ascending and Descending Melodies/Pitch, Glissando and Graphic Scores.
 
The unit begins with pupil’s listening to a piece of Fireworks-inspired music: Fireworks by Stravinsky, before they learn a rhythmic Bonfire Night chant from single line rhythm notation (Remember, Remember, the Fifth of November) and create their own pentatonic melodies to the rhythm of this chant.
 
Pupils move on to create a 'Bonfire Sound Sequence', describing the different stages of Fire through sound: smoke, smoulder, hiss, sparks, flames and analyse how Benjamin Britten describes Fire through music and sound in a piece of ballet music: Fire from The Prince of the Pagodas.
 
Pupils then travel back in time to the Baroque period and explore the challenges faced by Handel when creating a piece of music for a Royal Fireworks display in the 1700’s and perform the bass line pattern to a Minuet from Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks.
 
Next, pupils explore how the characteristics of different types of Fireworks can be described using sounds and create a “Fireworks Sound Sequence”, structuring and sequencing their sound sequences by following a graphic score.  There are two songs included in the unit: “Fireworks” and “Bonfire Night” which both feature ascending and descending melodies and glissando in the accompaniment. 
 
The unit ends with a class ‘Bonfire Night Fireworks Display’ where pupils review their learning from the unit and bring their work together, following a performance plan, before listening to another piece of Fireworks-inspired music: Feux d’artifice by Debussy.
 
Fireworks comes as a fully-resourced 6-lesson package ideal for specialist and non-specialist music teachers. Detailed Lesson Plans feature the Lesson Question and Core Content structured into Intro Quiz/DOITNOW, Lesson Content Activities: Skills, Knowledge and Understanding (with Resources referenced for each task, discussion notes and answers to all activities) and multiple choice Exit Quizzes, each supported by a Lesson Presentation containing slide notes and embedded media files (also available separately as MP3 and WAV formats).
 
Each lesson is accompanied by a Worksheet and a unit Knowledge Organiser consolidates key musical knowledge, theory and concepts. A selection of Cover and Homework Activities provides unit-themed work for planned or emergency music cover.
 
Fireworks is available to download upon purchase as a ZIP file where all printables are available as both customisable and editable Word files (.docx) and PDFs (.pdf).