Curriculum Allocation

Music is taught for one 100-minute lesson per fortnight.

Curriculum Period 1: “Crossing Continents, Through Time: How Music Develops"

Curriculum content

Students learn how music travels and evolves across time and region. Students learn to perform and compose in related styles (Ghanaian kpanlogo, Brazilian samba and American blues improvisation). Students will make musical, historical and cultural links between these styles and will learn to appraise and compare how the use of musical elements develop across these styles. Students will then use their new musical skills and understanding to structure and perform a semi-improvised blues piece at the keyboard. Students will also use their vocal skills to sing African choral and multi-part a capella blues songs.

Students will then learn about the development of European/Western Art Music ("classical" music) from the Baroque Era through to the Twentieth Century. Students will perform and compose a Baroque Era canon, a Classical Era fanfare, and a piece of programme music from the Romantic Era Students will learn about the musical characteristics and wider historical/cultural context of the works through listening and analysis tasks, developing their instrumental (keyboard) and vocal skills further while exploring and appraising repertoire from 1600 to 1900.

Assessment

Curriculum Period 2: "Musical Layers"

Curriculum content: 

Students will develop their performing skills, singing in unison and in multiple parts and performing polyphonic works while exploring and appraising repertoire from the twentieth century, including an orchestral excerpt by Leonard Bernstein. They will compose and perform using graphic scores and experimental vocal techniques in the style of the twentieth century experimental musician Cathy Berberian.  Using the Ben E. King song "Stand by Me" as a study piece, students will learn to perform and arrange the different musical layers which make up this pop song. Students will develop their ensemble, instrumental, listening and vocal skills by learning to play and layer up idiomatic pop song parts. Students will then build on their understanding of pop music from Year 7 to compose chord progressions, bass lines and vocal melodies to "layer up" their own composition in an idiomatic pop music structure.

Assessment

Students' practical work will be assessed at a weighting of 60% of their overall grade (30% performing, 30% composing) . They will sit a 20-minute listening and appraising assessment, in which they will apply their theoretical understanding of the musical characteristics of Western Art Music from different eras to unfamiliar music. 

Curriculum Period 3: "Composing using Music Technology"

Curriculum content

Students will use their understanding of musical layers from Curriculum Periods 1 and 2 to compose music using GarageBand software on their iPads. Students will create their own drum machine loops, chord progressions and riffs, and will develop a facility for using music technology to put together these musical layers in an electronic composition.

Subject advice and guidance

If you need any further guidance then please contact Mrs Reardon-Davies, the Director of Teaching and Learning for Music, via email:

a.reardon-davies@endon.shaw-education.org.uk