Year 3

Year 3 Music

Each Year 3 form has two lessons of music per week as a whole class.  In these lessons the boys experience music through:

Singing

Singing is the best way to internalise music, further securing children's sense of pitch, beat and rhythm.  Most class songs make use of counterpoint (singing two or more different melodies concurrently), with the aim that by Year 4 pupils are able to isolate harmonies.  Pupils are made aware of the importance of posture, breathing, phrasing and enunciation, so that by Year 6 they are singing with correct vocal production and well developed musicianship.

Singing Aims:

1. To build a confidents, relaxed, natural singing voice

2.  To develop a sensitive ear through varied aural training activities

3. To build the listening skills a discipline required for choral music

4. To develop musical memory

5. To accompany singing on tuned instruments

6.  To develop sight singing ability (within the major scale)

7.  To perform as often as possible as a choral group

Warm-ups: Tailored to each year level, warm-ups establish continuity and a calm, confident way to start each lesson. Warm ups target pupils' breathing, posture, enunciation, vowel production, resonance, pitch, range, contrapuntal singing and harmony.

Foundation concepts

Each half term pupils have exercises, songs and games that develop their internalisation of fundamental musical concepts.  The diatonic major scale is learned in the order so - doh, - mi - la - re - doh' - fa - ti and rhythmic acuity begins with differentiating minims, crotchets and quaver pairs.  Only one new pitch or rhythm concept is added per half term so that pupils develop a sound and solid grounding.

Composition

Composing gives students the opportunity to explore sound, express themselves and to develop their internal musicianship.  Composition is closely guided so that pupils always feel that they have created quality pieces, rather than arbitrary sound.  Year 3s begin by producing musical effects to narrated stories, moving to 8-bar improvisations on tuned percussion instru pentatonic scales.

Listening topics

In each year level pupils spend a half-term period immersed in a pieces of music or musical genre to which they can respond with the knowledge a skills they have acquired thus far.  Pupils will gain an understanding of compositional processes and social/historical context, and from there develop similar compositions of their own.  In Year 3 pupils also learn to identify the instruments of the orchestra.