Music for Teachers

Don’t forget to recommend the very useful BBC bitesize revision guide to your GCSE music students.

Topics include:
Classical Orchestral Music
Contemporary Music
Musical Appreciation
Musical Elements
Baroque
Classical
Romantic /19th Century
20th Century
Blues & Jazz Pop Music 1960 - Present Stage & Screen
Analysing music Evaluating music
Music evolution
Music in context
Devices
Instrumentation
Melody & Harmony
Notation
Rhythm
Metre
Texture
Music for Dance
World Music
Exam Topics:
16th - 18th C - Dance
16th - 18th C - Waltzes & Polkas
20th - 21st C - Disco & Club Dance
Afro - Caribbean Music
British Folk Music
India - Classical to Banghra
Latin American Music
Exam technique

It is well worth spending some time here.

The site can be accessed via this link

Curently a group of Shropshire schools are working with STOMP, the music theatre company on a creative project which will see its first performance later this month. The aim is to encourage pupils and students to develop their own physical performances using layering of sound patterns but also adding a visual element. The is part of an opportunity afforded by the Creative Partnership scheme offered by the Arts Council.

Details of the performing and research aspects of the work will be posted later but for now why not take a look at the Creative Partnerships website and the two Stomp sites, Stomp and Stomp on line?

I am currently working my way through two new softwares which after a brief exploration look as if they might be very useful.

The new ‘Groovy Music’ from Sibelius is designed for 5-11 year olds and involves a section which allows for creative work using simple to understand tools and sets of pre-recorded samples. Teachers who have seen it so far have been impressed by its simple layout and non-frightening visuals.  Further information can be found on the Sibelius site via this link

The second new Sibelius product, aimed at the 8-16 range, which is worth investigation is ‘O-generator’ - i think this has huge potential especially for those students who might be less likely to get excitied about conventional notations.  This software allows a piece of compositon to be built up ‘bar by bar’ using an easily understood ‘circle of sounds’ -  take a look by using this link
O-generator has vocal instructions running through the software.

It is worth keeping up to date with the currciulum on line website - currently there is a video of a secondary class working ona ‘Theme and Variations’ unit of work using the software Sibelius.  Six hyperlinks allow you to hear the teacher talking about aspects of the task, whilst also allowing you to see and hear the work of the students.  The link can be found at music case study

A useful series of vocal arrangements which acknowledges the difficulties of Tenor and Bass sections in schools and small community choirs has been produced and is being further developed by Faber Music. I have used a number of these sets from the series called ‘Choral Basics’ with a small community choir and they are varied and work very well since they are in three parts, Soprano, Alto and Men. They are worth trying out. There is variety already amongst the set and I expect that the sets of songs available will develop further over time.
See the Faber website

I’d like to recommend a very good series of publications which focus on personalised learning.

They are to be found on the ncsl website
This series contains some interesting research work and all are very readable.

For example, ‘ …and the pupil said’ is by Hazel Pulley, Headteacher and Linda Jagger, Deputy Headteacher, Caldecote Community Primary School, Leicester City. Here are a couple of quotes:

“Maybe we need to talk to pupils more. What do pupils really think we are saying to them?”

“We need to encourage the children to take more … responsibility for their own learning.”

The need for us to work on helping pupils and students to be aware of their own learning and the way that they think and learn is also the main focus of the Leading in Learning national initiative and well worth investigating.

Welcome to a new Blog for discussion on music in education - ‘Music for Teachers’