Music in Year Two
Lesson: Music
This term in Music we have been looking at the very basics of how to hold our beaters and play our percussion instruments correctly. On assessment, the children's ability to play make various simple rhythms was brilliant, but I did fear for the skins of our little drums! We have been practicing holding our beaters like Harry Potter and learning to play at different volumes (dynamics) whilst keeping our posture the same. This is no mean feat as previously the children thought playing loud meant thrashing their drums! Thankfully they are now more restrained!
We have also been focussing on playing in time as a unit and following a simple score (series of notes totally five bars of four beats). We first played these in a pattern of very quiet, gradually getting louder (crescendoing), loud, gradually getting quieter (diminuendoing) and quiet. Having mastered this, we moved onto mixing these up and playing our new score. Our next step is for the children to work in small groups and create their own little piece of music focussing on those five bars of music.
As a starter to our music lessons, we always listen to a different piece of music from around the world, time or genre. We always discuss the instruments played, how this music might differ from the songs which the children listen to on the radio, and how they might be similar to pieces I have played them before. So far we have listened to:
- Star Wars by John Williams as played the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
- Immigrant Song by Led Zeppelin (as featured on Shrek)
- The 2016 CeeBeebies Prom
- Hello Dolly by Louis Armstrong
- Musst Musst, a piece of qawalli music by the internationally renowned Pakistani singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
