Myths about teaching can hold you back
- Year 9
Recreating Old Town Road by ear
I can work out a simple melodic line and bass line by ear.
Copyrighted materials: to view and download resources from this lesson, you’ll need to be in the UK and
- Year 9
Recreating Old Town Road by ear
I can work out a simple melodic line and bass line by ear.
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
- Learning music by ear is an important musical skill that can be developed through practice.
- Working out rhythm and pitch separately helps to simplify the process.
- We can describe melody using the words ascending, descending, conjunct and disjunct.
- We can then use this process, we can work out hooks, harmony lines and other musical ideas.
Keywords
Hook - a short, memorable musical idea that recurs in a pop song; it is designed to ‘catch’ the ear of the listener
Bass line - a low-pitched part that supports the harmony and melody
Timbre - the distinctive sound of an instrument or voice
Common misconception
Only highly skilled and naturally gifted musicians can work out music by ear.
Anyone can work out music by ear. It just takes practice and is made easier through use of effective strategies, including working out rhythm and pitch separately, and identifying individual pitches through trial and error.
To help you plan your year 9 music lesson on: Recreating Old Town Road by ear, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...
To help you plan your year 9 music lesson on: Recreating Old Town Road by ear, 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 3 music lessons from the Working out pop hooks and riffs by ear unit, dive into the full secondary music curriculum, or learn more about lesson planning.
Equipment
DAW, MIDI keybaards
Licence
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