Myths about teaching can hold you back
- Year 6
Learning a musical theme
I can learn a melodic theme, using notation to support me.
Copyrighted materials: to view and download resources from this lesson, you’ll need to be in the UK and
- Year 6
Learning a musical theme
I can learn a melodic theme, using notation to support me.
Copyrighted materials: to view and download resources from this lesson, you’ll need to be in the UK and
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Lesson details
Key learning points
- You can usually recognise aspects of the original theme when you listen to a variation.
- When composing variations, composers might change the rhythm, the melody or the tonality of the theme.
- A glockenspiel is played with mallets and the best sound is achieved when striking the centre of the bar.
- We can play a theme accurately using pitch and rhythm notation.
Keywords
Theme - a short, recognisable melody that is the main musical idea for a composition
Variation - when a musical theme is repeated with changes
Glockenspiel - a tuned percussion instrument with metal bars. Glocken is a German word that means bells and spiel means to play
Mallet - the musical name for the beaters with which you play the glockenspiel
Common misconception
Theme and variation structure only applies to orchestral music.
A musical structure can apply to any style of music.
To help you plan your year 6 music lesson on: Learning a musical theme, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...
To help you plan your year 6 music lesson on: Learning a musical theme, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs.
The starter quiz will activate and check your pupils' prior knowledge, with versions available both with and without answers in PDF format.
We use learning cycles to break down learning into key concepts or ideas linked to the learning outcome. Each learning cycle features explanations with checks for understanding and practice tasks with feedback. All of this is found in our slide decks, ready for you to download and edit. The practice tasks are also available as printable worksheets and some lessons have additional materials with extra material you might need for teaching the lesson.
The assessment exit quiz will test your pupils' understanding of the key learning points.
Our video is a tool for planning, showing how other teachers might teach the lesson, offering helpful tips, modelled explanations and inspiration for your own delivery in the classroom.
Explore more key stage 2 music lessons from the Compose and Create: creating melodic variations based on a theme unit, dive into the full primary music curriculum, or learn more about lesson planning.
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