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Lesson 1 of 6
  • Year 3

Identifying different layers of accompaniment within a piece of music

I can identify different layers of sound under songs and in music.

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Lesson 1 of 6
New
New
  • Year 3

Identifying different layers of accompaniment within a piece of music

I can identify different layers of sound under songs and in music.

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

Copyrights help

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Lesson details

Key learning points

  1. Instruments can be identified by their timbre.
  2. The more instruments or layers of sound we add, the thicker the texture becomes.
  3. We can add ostinatos and drones to songs to thicken the texture.
  4. Feeling the steady pulse helps us to play and sing in time.

Keywords

  • Texture - the combination of different layers of sounds

  • Pulse - the regular steady heartbeat of the music

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

  • Ostinato - a repeating musical pattern that can be rhythmic or melodic

Common misconception

We won't be able to hear what instruments are playing when they're playing at the same time.

We can identify the instruments playing by their unique timbre and tune our ears to recognise each sound.


To help you plan your year 3 music lesson on: Identifying different layers of accompaniment within a piece of music, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...

Spending time checking that pupils are feeling the pulse in both the warm up and the listening activity will support their ensemble playing and singing later in the lesson.
Teacher tip

Equipment

Instruments suitable for playing the drone such as glockenspiels, chime bars, xylophones. Claves/egg shakers for playing rhythmic ostinati.

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).

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