Characterful singing
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Lesson details
Learning outcome
I can analyse the intention and meaning in a song and sing with a sense of character.
Key learning points
- By breaking a song’s structure into sections, we can better understand its story and decide how to stage each part.
- We can follow the rise and fall of pitch by reading a musical score.
- Using gestures can help us to sing legato.
- How we move and how we sing can combine for effective storytelling.
- We can reflect on our performance to assess how clearly we've conveyed a story.
Keywords
Score - the written form of a composition showing the notation and instructions for instruments or voices
Legato - performing in a smooth way
Sequence - a melodic phrase which is repeated at a higher or lower pitch
Structure - the way the music is organised
Staging (verb) - making decisions about creating a performance of our version of a story
Common misconception
Once on stage, it is common to focus more on the singing and drop some of the physicality.
We can avoid this by melding the two. How we move and how we sing can be described in similar ways. For example, legato, or smooth singing, may happen whilst we are moving in a smooth manner.
Teacher tip
Allowing time for pupils to reflect on and evaluate their performance at this stage is valuable as it will help them to improve their staging and characterisation. Filming the performance in this lesson is helpful to support this process.
Licence
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