Approaches to contemporary composition
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Why this why now
Pupils develop their understanding of musical starting points in composing, learning about what might stimulate musical ideas in contemporary music and how unity and variety can be found with more abstract musical ideas. They learn about the use of the voice, and SATB vocal lines and develop harmonic understanding of dissonance and consonance and the tone row as a musical starting point. They extend their understanding of how sampling can be used musically.
Prior knowledge requirements
- Pupils understand a range of compositional starting points - ostinato, melody, bass line, chord sequence
- Pupils have experience improvising in fixed and short structures
- Pupils understand melodic phrase structure
- Pupils understand major and minor scales
- Pupils understand how to find the notes in the treble clef stave
Threads
Why this why now
Pupils develop their understanding of musical starting points in composing, learning about what might stimulate musical ideas in contemporary music and how unity and variety can be found with more abstract musical ideas. They learn about the use of the voice, and SATB vocal lines and develop harmonic understanding of dissonance and consonance and the tone row as a musical starting point. They extend their understanding of how sampling can be used musically.
Prior knowledge requirements
- Pupils understand a range of compositional starting points - ostinato, melody, bass line, chord sequence
- Pupils have experience improvising in fixed and short structures
- Pupils understand melodic phrase structure
- Pupils understand major and minor scales
- Pupils understand how to find the notes in the treble clef stave
Approaches to contemporary composition
In this unit pupils are introduced to contemporary compositional approaches and techniques. They learn about a range of current contemporary music and the differences in approach of how this is structured and put together from earlier classical style music and current popular music.
6 lessons in unit
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