Primary Music Magazine Issue 4.2 Summer 2020

Brought to you by Music Education Solutions

Issue 4.2: Summer 2020

INSIDE THIS ISSUE: Home Learning: Advice & Resources Music across the UK: Country-led approaches Common Music Challenges: How to overcome them Start them Young: Orchestras & under-5s

Model: Natasha Holland Photographer: Joanna Holland

ADVENTURES IN HOME LEARNING

Like a large proportion of the rest of the world, Dr Liz Stafford has been attempting to run a home school whilst still working full time. Here she shares her experience of teaching music to 9 year-old Isla.

Perhaps naively, in the first week of homeschool when I constructed my timetable, I decided that I didn’t need to put music on it, because my daughter plays two instruments and could just practice those. Silly, silly, me! The drumkit is gathering a thick layer of dust, and I think the tenor horn may actually be growing mould?!

When we returned after Easter I was determined that we would do some music. After all, it is literally my job! I decided that since I had the luxury of organising our own timetable, I would do one lesson a day, using what would ordinarily be a half term unit for weekly delivery. At this point the cherry trees around and about our area were all in bloom, so I selected a unit called Hanami (which is the practice of looking at cherry blossoms) which I originally wrote for Kapow Primary We began by going outside to look at a blossom tree. We discussed what we could see, hear, feel, and smell, and made a list of describing words to capture this. We took each of our describing words and spoke them onomatopoeically, exploring vocal timbre. The following day, we explored my instrument collection and matched instrumental sounds to some of our describing words, again exploring timbre but this time with instruments.

The next lesson involved using our descriptive words to create a Haiku, which we would set to music in the final lesson. We cheated and wrote two haiku verses to give us a longer piece of music!

On the penultimate day we made a melody for our haiku. Originally I had intended to do this on a glockenspiel, but my daughter asked if we could use the piano instead. I was amazed at how quickly she was able to create and memorise a tune on the piano despite never having any experience on this instrument! We wrote the tune down using letter notation (she does read music, but given that she was working on an unfamiliar instrument we simplified the notation aspect).

On our final lesson, we rehearsed singing and playing our haiku melody, adding some of the atmospheric sounds that we had created in lesson 2. I was interested that my daughter wanted to play the ‘proper’ instrument rather than all the classroom percussion which I thought she would be drawn to. It just goes to show that music can be a serious business!

You can watch the video of our final Blossom Haiuku performance here.

The success of this project encouraged me to try something a bit more complex for our next week of lessons. Again adapting materials that I originally wrote for Kapow Primary, we tackled the concept of motifs. This topic is linked to the Romans which had been one of Isla’s themes earlier in the year, so it was a good chance to revise that learning and then introduce something new.

This topic involves listening to and understanding the concept of a motif, followed by writing one’s own using coloured mosaic ‘tiles’ to indicate rhythm and melody. The extension activity is then to translate this into staff notation. As a music reader already, I was tempted to go straight to the extension, but that would have missed out the fun (and tenuous!) Romanthemed part. I was fascinated to see Isla working with an unfamiliar form of notation, and the lightbulb moment when she realised how it could relate to staff notation. For her it was the other way round than for most children, in that she was using her knowledge of staff notation to understand graphic notation! It just goes to show that sometimes we may underestimate our learners!

The next part of the topic involved exploring the ways that motifs can be altered, for example through rhythmic changes and transposition. We quickly discovered that our motif wasn’t great for playing backwards because it came out exactly the same! We transposed our motif into different keys and noted how some notes had to change to preserve the motif correctly—using the black keys on the piano as a visual aid.

Finally we created a composition based on the original motif and one variation, to which I added a (very basic and hammy!) accompaniment, which you can watch here.

Eagle-eyed readers may notice a theme developing with our music lessons!

Isla became fascinated with the piano, so much so that we have now moved on to piano lessons, using Thompson’s Easiest Piano Course—an oldy but a goody! As an educator, and a parent, I have been fascinated by her perseverance with this instrument compared to the Tenor Horn, which she has been learning for several years.

With the Tenor Horn, as soon as a note comes out wrong, or she doesn’t understand something, she is in floods of tears. With the piano, she just sits quietly, works out what went wrong, and then starts again. I wonder if it is a motivational issue in that she wants to play piano, but the tenor horn was given to her as the only instrument option at school? But then when I consider the drums, which she’s been learning for a year, she is super excited about lessons, but completely refuses to practise at home whatsoever! It’s certainly a conundrum I’ll be contemplating for a while!

Unfortunately for me, the piano lessons are going a little too well, and she keeps asking if she can ‘quit brass’ when she gets back to school…. Another problem to ponder during lockdown……!

Dr Elizabeth Stafford is Editor of Primary Music Magazine, Director of Music Education Solutions, and Senior Lecturer at Leeds College of Music. @DrLizStafford

PRIMARY MUSIC CREATIVELY CONQUERING THE CHALLENGES

Kathryn Hindmarch With nearly twenty years of teaching experience behind me delivering classroom music lessons to 7-11 year olds, I’m certainly no stranger to the problems that often accompany primary school music-making.

From deciding what to teach, coping with aging and limited instruments to working out exactly how to make often complex concepts accessible to pupils with limited prior experience, I think I’ve just about dealt with it all. I genuinely enjoy a challenge and the more creative and memorable the solution the better. With a philosophy of ‘music for all’ and a belief that lessons should always be engaging, 100% participatory and fun, I’ve put together a summary of some of the best strategies I’ve used for conquering the challenges of primary music.

Kathryn Hindmarch is a classroom music and piano teacher at Portway Junior School, a large three-form entry school near Derby. In 2019 she was invited to speak at the BBC at the launch of their ‘Trailblazers’ set of BBC Ten Pieces, and she believes strongly in the importance of ensuring that primary music has a strong representation in every curriculum.

Challenge 1: Broken Instruments With funds often so stretched, my best solution here is to either bid for money, raise it through selling concert/raffle tickets or become really good friends with the PTFA! My other strategy is to actually involve pupils in making new instruments themselves, ideally linking them to the themes and topics they’re learning about. We’ve made our own guiros (recycled milkshake bottles), sistrums (wire and metal washers – great for those ancient music links), simple shakers (metal money boxes/plastic eggs/ plastic shot glasses taped together) and castanets (folded cardboard pieces with buttons/bottle tops attached). On a considerably larger scale we’ve also made Taiko drums (recycled car tyres and packing tape) and an enormous instrument rig (a metal clothes rail with an assortment of broken but still usable instrument parts suspended from it).

Challenge 2: Noise There’s no denying that thirty pairs of claves or even fifteen shared glockenspiels can, played simultaneously, make a headache-inducing sound. On the other hand, class sets of plastic pegs, wooden dominoes and even metal parts from hardware shops can be played in a manner similar to claves and the volume is so much more bearable, especially for pupils with auditory sensory needs. After a successful funding bid for thirty headphones and plenty of splitters, our mini keyboards and iPads can now be shared in pairs which has also made a huge difference to classroom sound levels as well as rates of pupil progress and achievement.

My other tactic is to take the music-making outside as much as possible, especially in the summer months. On the tarmac outside our music classroom I like to organise pupils into small groups on mats made from carpet off-cuts (alongside making friends with the PTFA I’d suggest building a good rapport with your local carpet shop – we’ve now got eight excellent recycled music mats!).

Challenge 3: Musical Terminology I’ve frequently found that the Interrelated Dimensions of Music (or IRDs as I like to call them for short) can be a source of confusion and mistaken identity for pupils. Whenever we can I encourage pupils to actually act them out while they listen to the music. With their help I’ve devised simple actions for each IRD to help make them more memorable and to facilitate ‘stickier’ learning. Examples include moving hands and bodies to show the pitch changes, wiggling lots of fingers or just one or two for texture changes and using fast or slow arm or whole body movements to illustrate the tempo.

We’ve had fun playing musical charades to help reinforce the names and meanings of the IRDs and I’ve also created an IRD board game (great for those last days of term when a small amount of educational game playing is allowed) and IRD active listening sheets which we use while watching short films which have great soundtracks such as ‘The Snowman’.

Challenge 4: Notation By the time pupils are ready to move to Key Stage 3 it’s fair to say that we’ve done a considerable amount of understanding and using formal notation.

Just as pupils’ literacy and numeracy skills need developing and nurturing over many years, I believe that reading music deserves the same staged learning process. Until pupils’ basic understanding of pitch, duration and basic concepts such as ‘is the note in a space or does it have a line through its middle’ are firmly understood, I think any expectation of being able to read successfully from notation is more than likely going to fail.

In our music books the staves are quite small and after a fairly unsuccessful lesson with Year 5 I remember reflecting on exactly why things hadn’t gone as well as I’d hoped.

I realised that giving pupils access to much larger staves and having moveable note heads would really help, so after saving a number of metal library shelves from the school skip and creating magnets of various shapes and sizes (circles for note heads, rectangles for bar lines, smaller circles to create dotted notes), I now encourage pupils to learn in a much more physical and kinaesthetic way.

Risk-free mistakes can now be made without the fear of having been written in books and formal notation has become a much more fun and accessible learning process.

Challenge 5: Cross-curricular themes I’m a strong supporter of cross-curricular learning as I’ve seen first-hand the incredible gains that can be achieved through helping pupils recognise how aspects of their learning interconnect. As long as the development of their musical skills and knowledge is put at the heart of any cross-curricular planning, then I believe that pupils can really benefit from this approach.

Stand-out learning examples from recent months include pupils creating fishing dances inspired by the Japanese folksong ‘Soran Bushi’ and group compositions inspired by the shape of the Andes and the sounds made by South American instruments. Alongside the clear geographical links, musically pupils were developing their understanding of graphic scores, timbre, structure and metre, along with improving their keyboard skills and their ability to lead and perform within ensembles.

Throughout my teaching career I can honestly say that I have never yet taught a pupil who hasn’t shown active enjoyment of their musical learning. With the benefits of a well-planned and delivered music education being widely acknowledged, I think it’s a real privilege to be able to witness first-hand their enjoyment and pride at making music together and being able to express themselves creatively. I would encourage all teachers to have the confidence to take risks and to try something new, to capitalise on those cross-curricular links with other subjects and enjoy revealing to pupils the incredible richness of our world’s musical heritage.

Sponsored Content

Percussion Book, Workshops & CPD from Beat Goes On

Put young people’s voices first Principles for Composing in Music Education

For all enquiries please email info@beatgoeson.co.uk

Beat Goes On director Ollie Tunmer has written an exciting new tutorial entitled ‘Body Beats - an easy and fun guide to the art of Body Percussion’.

The beautifully presented book, which is published by Hal Leonard, includes rhythm grids and video demonstrations of a wide selection of ideas that Ollie has developed over 20 years of workshops delivery.

Beat Goes On also now offer a range of online and ‘in-person’ workshops and CPD sessions to support schools during this challenging time. Topics include 

rhythm-based warm ups



Afro-Brazilian grooves



development of composition and performance skills inspired by STOMP



ideas based on 'BBC Ten Pieces’



Body Percussion with Literacy, based on their work with Pie Corbett of Talk4Writing

Music across the UK

In the first of a series of articles, we explore the different approaches taken by each country of the UK to the music curriculum

Scotland Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) aims to provide a broad general education by placing learners at the heart of their education. CfE is designed to provide children with opportunities to develop the knowledge, skills and attributes they need to adapt, think critically and flourish in today’s world. The curriculum is guided by four fundamental capacities – successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens, and effective contributors – and organised into eight curriculum areas, with Expressive Arts being one.

Within CfE, the greatest benefit and challenge of teaching music is the same – flexibility and freedom. As a teacher, you have complete control over what you teach, how you teach it, and when you teach it. This results in teachers feeling either great enthusiasm or great concern. There are five levels to the curriculum, with recommended Experiences and Outcomes, and Benchmarks for each level, with pupils moving between levels when deemed appropriate by their teacher. Again, the fluidity and flexibility of this process leaves teachers feeling either great enthusiasm or great concern. So, how can teachers best approach music to help ensure they provide their pupils with a broad general education that prepares them for life in the 21st Century?

For me, the answer is in a way that best serves you as a teacher, and the pupils you have in your care. With flexibility and freedom comes great opportunity for meeting the needs of your pupils. For example, at 2nd Level, which is recommended for pupils between Primary 5 and 7, one of the Experiences and Outcomes is – I can sing and play music from a range of styles and cultures, showing skill and using performance directions, and/ or musical notation. As you can see, this provides great flexibility and freedom. There is great flexibility to engage pupils in a blend of repertoire that includes music that you value, and music they value. These choices can also be linked to the other curriculum areas, or not, depending on the needs of your pupils.

Another example is – Inspired by a range of stimuli, and working on my own and/or with others, I can express and communicate my ideas, thoughts and feelings through musical activities. Again, this allows the teacher to place the pupils at the heart of their musical learning. Pupils can bring their own ideas, thoughts, and feelings to the creative process, which the teacher can help to facilitate in a way that best serves their pupils.

These two Experiences and Outcomes alone are clear examples of how the flexibility and freedom inherent in CfE could be overwhelming for many teachers – what to do, where to start, how to progress, what and how to assess? While there are clear answers to all of these questions, there is not enough time in one article to unpack them all!

If you would like to know more about implementing the Scottish Curriculum for Excellence, Music Education Solutions will be running a series of webinars later this term. Please join our mailing list to be notified of dates and times!

Vaughan Fleischfresser is Music Education Solutions’ Curriculum Consultant for Scotland. He teaches at the Edinburgh Academy Junior School, having previously been the Teaching Fellow in Music Education at Edinburgh University. @VFleischfresser

Wales In January of this year, the new Curriculum for Wales was released, in advance of schools having to adopt it by 2022. This innovative new curriculum is built holistically around the ‘purposes’ of education, blurring the boundaries between individual subjects, and acknowledging that knowledge and skills bridge the gaps between individual subjects. The focus is very much on developing pupils as learners and citizens, and much less about stuffing them with knowledge!

This new curriculum is an extremely exciting development for many reasons. I particularly like the fact that music is grouped into ‘Expressive Arts’ and that teachers have the option to teach these subjects independently or interdependently. The possibilities for delivering music, dance and drama through ‘performing arts’ style projects are obvious. On a smaller scale there is scope for non-verbal response to music through movement and drama, allowing pupils to develop the expressive capabilities of their bodies, and supporting them to articulate concepts which they may not be able or willing to verbalise.

I also love the fact that the curriculum specifically articulates that both breadth and depth of study should be achieved. This, I think, will be a godsend to music as it will help schools move away from a focus on variety of experience to a focus on breadth of learning. Schools will have the freedom to make meaningful connections between different styles and genres studied, in order to provide both breadth and depth.

Each discipline within the expressive arts has its own set of subject-specific considerations. For music these are: •

pitch, melody, dynamics, texture, tempo, timbre, rhythm, metre, form and structure, tonality, musical devices (e.g. repetition, ostinato, sequence), harmony, intonation

•

binary, ternary, rondo, round, minuet and trio, strophic, theme and variation, through-composed, sonata

•

performing (including vocal, instrumental, technology e.g. DJ-ing), improvising and composing (including vocal, instrumental, acoustic, electric and digital, editing/production), listening (including analysing, evaluating, and appreciating a range of musical forms and styles across genres and periods of time) Curriculum for Wales (2020)

As someone who currently teaches in England the first thing to say is HURRAH for the use of ‘rhythm’ rather than ‘duration’ in this terminology! How nice to have vocabulary that is actually ‘a thing’ in music!

Also the addition of ‘form’ as well as ‘structure’ is really important, as these are in fact different concepts; my English colleagues all have different opinions as to whether structure is a stand-in for ‘form’ (like ‘duration’ is for rhythm) or whether it means something else.

To further elucidate the curriculum, it is great to see some actual examples given of musical forms that might be studied, rather than just leaving it up to the teachers to work out what on earth that might entail, as the English curriculum does! I also love the fact that pitch, melody, harmony and intonation are all included in the list. Again in England at primary level we just have ‘pitch’ in our list of ‘inter-related dimensions of music’ which rather encourages a cursory ‘high and low’ discussion and then no further

exploration! The inclusion of intonation in particular excites me as it makes a link between theoretical concepts and practical skill – showing why pitch is important.

I think it’s great to see technology woven in to the performing and improvising/composing strands. The English primary music curriculum mentions technology in the opening statement, but then it never appears again so it is completely unclear how to integrate the use of appropriate technologies into lessons! This also unwittingly encourages the ‘classicalisation’ of music education, so the fact that this new Welsh curriculum specifically highlights skills like DJ-ing is a really positive step towards the decolonisation of music in schools.

Perhaps one of my favourite parts of this curriculum is the focus on ‘analysing, evaluating, and appreciating a range of musical forms and styles across genres and periods of time.’ Not for Wales the directive to study ‘the history of music’ (which doesn’t exist in a singular form) and the shadowy ghosts of ‘the great composers’ (which we all suspect were shoehorned in by a certain former Education Minister!) Instead there is a musical approach to the study of how forms and styles have developed and changed as a result of different influences over time. What amazing freedom – to be able to pick a form or a style and make meaningful musical connections across centuries and continents! Such a long way away from creating a timeline of composers’ birth and death dates, and colouring in a picture of Beethoven’s head!

I think I might move to Wales!

Dr Liz Stafford is Editor of Primary Music Magazine, Director of Music Education Solutions, and Senior Lecturer at Leeds College of Music. @DrLizStafford

ÂŁ45 per person Limited places available

Dive Deeper into Music Half-day course for primary music subject leaders on curriculum design, delivery & assessment, and the new Ofsted Framework.

NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE!!!

Or book for our London date on 19th October 2020

For more information and booking visit: https://musiceducationsolutions.co.uk/products-page-3/courses-available/music-deep-dive/

Carnatic-Bollywood Progression Project Funding The Bollywood Brass Band has been awarded a project grant from Arts Council England National Lottery Funding which will enable them to develop the work of the Bollywood Brass Academy.

The ‘Carnatic-Bollywood Progression Project’ will extend BBB’s collaboration with Carnatic violinist and educator Jyotsna Srikanth and will see the band working in partnership with music education hubs to support instrumental progression and continuation.

The Progression Project will run until summer 2021 and includes supporting the foundation of new secondary school fusion ensembles in Gravesham, Kent, a large scale composition/ performance project with Years 5/6 in Ladywood, Birmingham and workshops and performances with WCET children and teachers in nine schools from hubs across West & South Yorkshire.

Newly created resources will provide fun WCET repertoire with backing tracks, and music for intermediate ensembles and will be available as free downloads on the BBA website, adding to the Academy’s existing arrangements and backing tracks.

Projects in each region will culminate in a high-profile public performance with the young people playing alongside BBB and Jyotsna Srikanth, flagging up hub progression routes and giving young musicians the chance to play with professional musicians.

To find out more about this exciting project, visit: www.bollywoodbrassacademy.co.uk

Start them young Introducing the under-fives to orchestral music Sarah McWatt, Director, NYMAZ

Age may just be a number but at youth music charity NYMAZ we believe in sparking a love of music from a very young age. This year we started exploring new ways of engaging early years children with orchestral music.

Babies and classical music isn’t new - remember the baby Mozart craze? – but our partnership with Orchestras Live has centred on a live performance programme aimed at the under-fives.

So far, we’ve introduced young audiences to professional ensembles, including the Hallé and Sinfonia Viva, ‘face-to-face’ and also live-streamed a performance with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (OAE). This is just the beginning – we’re building an ongoing programme, including more live-streams that can be accessed by all.

As a founding member of the Alliance for a Musically Inclusive England, we’re committed to ensuring children of all ages have equal access to music opportunities, regardless of their age or geography. Our early years work is long established, providing weekly sessions (currently online!) to in-need communities in North Yorkshire, as well as CPD for artists and teachers.

Like us, Orchestras Live is focused on bringing musical activity to under-served areas, particularly rural and coastal spots. They have been producing orchestral work around England for 50 years and in 2003 they began captivating young children with the award-winning Lullaby touring model. Together, we’re connecting with orchestras and creating a performance programme aimed at both regional and nationwide audiences.

The rationale for starting so young is explained by Becky West, Regional Producer North, Orchestras Live, “ It’s all about that positive first experience. Starting when children are very young helps underpin a positive attitude towards the music throughout their lives. It can also reach a new audience of parents and grandparents who may not have experienced live orchestral music.”

These sentiments are echoed by Steve Pickett, Education Director, the Hallé, “These are the formative years and it’s so important for any child to start their musical journey. We never water down the music we play to this age group and in our experience the children respond incredibly well. Also, by involving the parents we feel we have a chance for children to get a head start on this journey.”

For Peter Helps, Chief Executive, Sinfonia Viva engaging the ‘family group’ is vital:

“Our aim is for creating and making music to become embedded in everyday life and considered as a way of helping the personal, social and educational development of young people. We often give out books, CDs, music download codes and so on, to provide new activities for everyone to do at home or in the car.”

Youth Music is very supportive of engaging the early years and has been funding NYMAZ activity since the charity was founded. Their grants officer, Louise Henry, says. “Early Years has long been a strategic focus for Youth Music. We believe every child should have access to music making from as early as possible, not only to aid cognitive development, but personal and social, too. For many families, music provides an opportunity to better connect with their child.”

The orchestras all use a variety of techniques to engage the under-fives.

Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment offers OAE TOTS concerts which include a hello song, a story or theme with a link song that is repeated at intervals in the show, a piece of baroque or classical repertoire, the opportunity for everyone to join in with actions and singing popular nursery rhymes and a goodbye song. And let’s not forget singing, as Cherry Forbes, Education Director, details, “ We do a lot of our work through singing. For example, we create songs that use well-known tunes and then write new words to describe our instruments, such as, a double bass has long strings and it plays low.”

Meanwhile, Orchestras Live has often used mostly existing orchestral repertoire within a theatrical narrative and interactive format to make events participatory, varied and fun for audiences. They have included one or more charismatic presenters, including a Deaf and Disabled music leader.

New approaches are emerging though, as Stuart Bruce, Senior Creative Producer, describes, “Recently we have moved towards more player-led immersive styles, still incorporating elements of classical and contemporary repertoire but in a more fluid way where the audience has a greater role to play in shaping the performance. We’re currently working on a non-verbal immersive music experience for families.”

Sinfonia Viva programmes a series of shorter pieces, interspersed with movement activity to hold the attention of its young audience. They’re also keen to introduce the instruments and players, as Matthew Lax, Concert Manager, explains, “With a usual minimum twelve to fourteen players, we are able to field ‘one of each’ which allows everyone to see each instrument, hear what it sounds like and meet a musician. We also play musical games,

let children have a go on the instrument and try conducting.”

In the Hallé’s early years workshops and performances the children are given percussion instruments and taught a song, and often a simple dance routine too, so there’s multiple ways to get involved. They are soon to launch two new topical programmes focused on conservation and saving the planet, developed in partnership with Chester Zoo and the award-winning children’s writer, Tony Mitton.

Similarly, Sinfonia Viva enjoys placing music in a wider context - using it, for example, as a way of engaging with environmental issues or simple STEAM activities.

Live-streaming is another technique for engaging early years. We streamed our first live music concert for this audience in January in partnership with Orchestras Live. An audience of 4,400 children and families tuned in to the OAE TOTS performance of The Apple Tree, indicating a strong appetite for this type of content and auguring well for the future. Lockdown has also introduced more people to the concept of live music online.

Becky West, Orchestras Live, believes that live-streaming is a real opportunity for orchestras to develop new early years content and reach a much wider audience: “ It removes the barriers to accessing live performances presented by geography and costs. It also enables the under -fives to engage and respond to high-quality musical experiences in a familiar environment in their own way.

“A live-streamed experience is by its nature different to a live performance, but it has the potential to touch more children and even inspire settings to make music a regular part of their programmes.”

Along with our partners, we’ve learnt lots about how to make more music happen for children at Early Years Foundation Stage, here are a few pointers:

If you would like to enjoy live performances in your setting: •

Find out what’s on offer in your area – your local Music Education Hub can help you contact orchestras, music ensembles and instrumental tutors who can perform, hold workshops etc. Hubs can also signpost educational resources and possibly access to instruments.

•

Create a comfortable environment – bright cushions, beanbags and tactile materials make a cosy space. It’s important that children know they can wiggle around, move, sing and show their appreciation – it’s not about sitting quietly!

•

Don’t underestimate the children – they will usually be happily engaged for 45-minutes with an orchestral performance which is designed for their age group and has a good variety of activities, from doing and listening to singing.

•

Make it part of something bigger – think about how the performance element can be part of a larger classroom-based activity, rather than just a stand-alone event.

•

Emphasise the joy – children and their families can have so much fun and learn a lot through music.

If you are running your own music activities: •

Make music part of your daily routine – enjoy music together every day by introducing sounds to your setting, both familiar tunes and new music.

•

Create interactive & participatory activities - you can include singing, classroom percussion, body percussion and movement.

Children love exploring sounds using physical instruments – why not make some shakers?

•

Structure your session carefully– when do you want the music to invigorate and excite? When do you want it to soothe and settle?

•

Extend the theme – use toys and other props as part of the activity and think about how music can form part of every project you do.

For future live broadcasts, see www.connectresound.live and follow us on Twitter @NYMAZmusic

Supporting home learning in music The Normans Musical Instruments & Music Education Solutions Musical Learning Starter Pack

As you will know if you read the first article in this magazine, even I as a primary music specialist have initially struggled with home school music lessons! This got me to thinking—how would ‘non-musical’ parents help their children learn music at home?

There’s not just the question of knowledge and skill, but also equipment.

Even if online learning is an option, for primary aged children they still need to develop their physical instrumental playing in order to meet the requirements of the National Curriculum.

Then, I had a brainwave! What if we at Music Education Solutions could combine our expertise in curriculum design, with some quality instrumental resources from Normans Musical Instruments? Fortunately the lovely people at Normans thought this was a genius idea too, and so the Musical Learning Starter Pack was born!

The pack includes 9 high-quality percussion instruments suitable for use from early years to KS2. Alongside these we have created activity packs based around the interrelated dimensions of music from the National Curriculum.

By Dr Elizabeth Stafford Director, Music Education Solutions Each set of progressive activities takes the child from understanding the dimension, through applying it to their playing, and finally using this knowledge creatively in composition. In order to make these activities as easy to understand as possible, I roped in my daughter Isla to help me create video demonstrations to accompany each activity—which was a really fun lockdown mother-daughter project!

These packs are already on sale from the Normans Musical Instruments website, and we’re looking forward to seeing how they are received by parents and children alike!

Online Courses from Just ÂŁ10 for a limited period only!

Click here to find out more!

Primary Music Magazine is brought to you by Music Education Solutions

Grove House Coombswood Court Steel Park Road Halesowen Phone:07570455887 Email: liz@musiceducationsolutions.co.uk

As well as publishing Primary Music Magazine, we also offer training and development opportunities for teachers worldwide, either live or online. Visit our website to find out more about the courses and qualifications that we offer, and how we can support your school to become even better at delivering music education!

Never miss an issue!

Join our mailing list here and follow us on Twitter here We are always interested in hearing from teachers who have stories and ideas to share.

If you would like to write for our next issue please get in touch via the link above!

Our next issue 5.0 is out in October 2020 — see you then!