New
New
Lesson 5 of 6
  • Year 5

Notating a minimalist piece

I can structure and notate a minimalist composition considering the most effective way to do this.

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

Copyrights help
Lesson 5 of 6
New
New
  • Year 5

Notating a minimalist piece

I can structure and notate a minimalist composition considering the most effective way to do this.

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

Copyrights help

These resources will be removed by end of Summer Term 2025.

Switch to our new teaching resources now - designed by teachers and leading subject experts, and tested in classrooms.

These resources were created for remote use during the pandemic and are not designed for classroom teaching.

Lesson details

Key learning points

  1. We can experiment with structure, tempo and dynamics to create an effective minimalist composition.
  2. Notation helps us to share music and remember it for another day.
  3. Minimalist music can be notated in a variety of ways for effective decoding.
  4. Possible notation examples include stave notation, rhythm grids, graphic scores or written instructions.

Keywords

  • Structure - the way the music is organised

  • Dynamics - how loud or quiet the music is

  • Tempo - the speed of the music - how fast or slow the music is played

  • Notation - a way of visually representing and recording music

  • Score - the written form of a composition showing the notation and instructions for instruments or voices

Common misconception

All music is notated using stave notation.

Music should be notated in the most effective way for it to be decoded. This is often stave notation, but can be any way of sharing the musical intention successfully, for example rhythm grids or graphic scores.


To help you plan your year 5 music lesson on: Notating a minimalist piece, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...

Avoid referring to Western stave notation as ‘normal notation’ - it is one form of notation that is essentially a graph.
Teacher tip

Equipment

Percussion instruments needed as per each ensemble's composition. Pitched percussion to include C, D, E, F, G.

Licence

This content is © Oak National Academy Limited (2025), licensed on Open Government Licence version 3.0 except where otherwise stated. See Oak's terms & conditions (Collection 2).

Sign in to continue

Our content remains 100% free, but to access certain copyrighted materials, you'll need to sign in. This ensures we’re both staying within the rules.

P.S. Signing in also gives you more ways to make the most of Oak like unit downloads!

An illustration of a hijabi teacher writing on a whiteboard