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Lesson 1 of 6
  • Year 2

Describing the timbre of instruments

I can describe the timbre of instruments and understand that an instrument’s materials affect its timbre.

Copyrighted materials: to view and download resources from this lesson, you’ll need to be in the UK and

Lesson 1 of 6
New
New
  • Year 2

Describing the timbre of instruments

I can describe the timbre of instruments and understand that an instrument’s materials affect its timbre.

Copyrighted materials: to view and download resources from this lesson, you’ll need to be in the UK and

Lesson details

Key learning points

  1. We warm up before playing so that we can focus our mind and bodies and be ready to play.
  2. Composers can choose instruments because their timbre helps to tell a story or to represent something, like an animal.
  3. An instrument’s materials affect the unique sounds it makes.
  4. We can listen to instruments and identify them by their timbre.
  5. Timbre is the unique tone an instrument can make.

Keywords

  • Warm up - a sequence of exercises used to prepare the mind and body for playing instruments

  • Composer - a person who creates music

  • Timbre - a description of the sound or tone of an instrument

  • Material - what an object is made from

  • Percussion - an instrument played by striking, scraping or shaking

Common misconception

Timbre alone creates a musical story.

All the musical elements need to work together to create a musical story. A glockenspiel can be many things depending on how it is played - not just a polar bear.


To help you plan your year 2 music lesson on: Describing the timbre of instruments, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...

Picture book stories, fact books and video footage about these four animals will help to bring this unit to life and provide pupils with a scaffold on which to hang their future composition ideas.
Teacher tip

Equipment

A variety of classroom percussion with boxes and labels to sort these. A box with a lid that can fit multiple instruments inside.

Licence

This content is © Oak National Academy Limited (2026), licensed on Open Government Licence version 3.0 except where otherwise stated. See Oak's terms & conditions (Collection 2).

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