Music is a discourse as old as language itself – as long as we have been speaking we have been making music. The music department at St. Ivo prides itself on being incredibly well resourced and on putting practical music-making at the heart of everything it does. Through Key Stage 3 students have the opportunity to learn about many different styles of music through live music-making, whether it be on our keyboards, samba kit, Javanese Gamelan, African djembe drums, classroom percussion, or by using their voices – the most natural instrument of all! They learn the art of song writing in year 8 and are taught how to create and use different chords in order to be able to play their favourite songs in year 9. They discover how different rhythms fit together to form the amazing sounds of Brazilian Samba or African drumming, and they constantly develop their own musicianship through creating and composing expressive music all of their own. Out of lessons the department runs a hugely varied range of extra-curricular clubs for those who already play an instrument (wind band, folk group, string group, brass ensemble, recorder group swing band) and those that don’t (Samba Band, Steel Pans, Choir, Barbershop, Vocalise, Guitar and Ukulele group). Students can study music at GCSE without having to be able to read music or to play a certain instrument to a certain level as long as they have a passion for the subject itself, and A level music is offered by the department with a healthy take-up each year.
Javanese Gamelan: we are incredibly lucky to have a Javanese Gamelan (orchestra of Indonesian percussion instruments) on loan, and year 7 students learn to play various pieces as well as how the pieces are traditionally constructed in order to aid their own Gamelan compositions. Students also study the context of the music within the Indonesian culture and produce a written project explaining to an imaginary year 6 pupil what Gamelan is all about.
Tail through time: This project takes year 7 through the history of music from the Mediaeval era until the 20th Century. Students learn how music has changed by learning and performing several different versions of the popular nursery rhyme ‘3 Blind Mice’ on the keyboards: each version is in the style of a different period of musical history that they study.
Jazz and Improvisation: Through whole class practical work students learn a jazz chorus and look at how it is constructed. They will also do lots of audiovisual work to be able to recognise the sights and sounds of jazz music, and every student will have a go at doing an improvised (made up on the spot) jazz solo, having learnt some good techniques to help them! In group work students will compose their own jazz choruses then create a piece which includes this, improvised solos and a group accompanist playing chords.
Programme Music: This project is all about expression through music – year 7 learns how Programme Music composers created music to represent very specific people, places or stories. In groups students then compose their own piece of Programme Music to represent a certain animal, performing it at the end of the project to the class, who can then guess which animal it was meant to be.
Samba: Using the traditional rhythms and instruments of Brazil, students are taken on a (very loud!) drumming journey into the world of the Rio Carnival and samba music. As a class students will become a samba band, learning traditional pieces and how the music is constructed and organised (ear plugs provided!). In groups, students compose their own samba pieces including an intro, a ‘main groove’ section, and at least one rhythmic samba break.
Film Music: This project helps students develop their expressive compositional skills from year 7 Programme Music, looking at how film composer evoke different moods through music and how they compose ‘themes’ for individual characters within films. The group work portion of the project asks students to compose film music underneath a short scene from one of the Harry Potter films (using a wide variety of instruments), focusing on creating the right mood to begin with then having identifiable and appropriate ‘theme tunes’ for the various characters. Lots of audiovisual work helps to solidify knowledge in this project.
Song writing: After developing singing confidence as a whole class, students work in pairs on keyboards to write their own songs. They will have learnt about different song structures and done some listening work on various song styles (classical and popular) to help them with this composition. They also have to decide on a chord sequence to accompany their songs, learn to play the chords on the keyboards, and work on creating a suitable accompaniment style on the keyboard for their choice of song lyrics. Performances can be done to the class or in a more private setting depending on the confidence level of each pair.
12 bar blues: Here, we learn about the characteristics of Blues Music as well as concentrating on the long and difficult history of how the slave trade fed into the creation of Blues in America. In practical work students learn a Blues melody, the Blues scale, study riffs and develop improvisation skills from year 7’s Jazz project. They also use keyboards to learn how the 12 bar blues chord structure works, and play it along with a walking bass line underneath either in pairs or individually, 2 hands together. A citizenship project shows them what life would have been like as an African slave and why Blues songs were originally composed, and each student completes a written project on life as a slave.
African Drumming: This project allows students to develop their rhythmic skills from year 8 samba by learning complex African drumming pieces including introductions, unison patterns, polyrhythms and some tricky timings. Djembe technique is taught, audiovisual work gives them real insight into what this all looks and sounds like in Africa itself, and later in the project group composition work asks them to create their own African drumming pieces of real quality.
Pop Song: Popular song is the style of music most listened to by our students, and in this topic we try to help them understand how these songs are put together to end up with the confidence that each one of them could play and sing their favourite song if they just have the lyrics and chord names! Major and minor chords are taught along with more keyboard technique, developing from years 7 and 8, to allow students to find a pop song in pairs and learn to play the chords along with singing the song. Performances can be done to the class or in a more private setting depending on the confidence level of each pair.
GCSE preparation project: Split into two distinct halves, this project allows students to get a glimpse of what GCSE music is like and how accessible it feels. One half of the project focuses on the study of a particular piece of famous music by composing a piece in groups in the same style, answering listening questions on it and studying the score. The other half of the project is a ‘free’ composition, allowing all year 9s to compose a piece in any style and as small a group as they like (some students choose to do this completely individually). This gives them the confidence that if they were to opt for GCSE music where composition is one of the elements, they would be able to cope!
20th-Century Music: Four genres of 20th-Century music are looked at here: Serialism, Minimalism, Avant Garde (experimental) music and Electronic music. Through a wide range of practical activities, students learn about the different ways in which 20th-century thinking influenced the arts, and even question what it is that makes music music!
Edexcel GCSE Music - further details here
Edexcel A Level Music - further details here
GCSE example 1 | GCSE example 2 | AS Level example 1 | AS Level example 2 | A2 Level