- Year 11
- Edexcel
Describing unfamiliar music
I can use my knowledge of all musical elements to write a detailed description of a piece of music.
Copyrighted materials: to view and download resources from this lesson, you’ll need to be in the UK and
- Year 11
- Edexcel
Describing unfamiliar music
I can use my knowledge of all musical elements to write a detailed description of a piece of music.
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
- The musical elements are a useful starting point for a description of unfamiliar music.
- An effective description should encompass multiple different musical elements and should describe each in a concise way.
- We can use the table method to help us structure our thoughts and arrange them into an effective paragraph.
- We can also analyse the musical effect of those elements in the table.
- Describing the effect of each feature gives a more thorough description of a piece of music.
Keywords
Musical element - the building blocks of music, which include rhythm, melody, harmony, structure and others
Musical effect - the impact that a certain musical idea or device has, for example this could be creating a certain mood or feeling
Common misconception
The main thing I need to remember for long-form answers is the elements acronym (e.g. MAD T SHIRTT).
These acronyms do help us to remember what the elements are, but it is much more important in these longer descriptions to ensure answers are clearly structured, thorough and concise, and that correct technical vocabulary is used for each element.
To help you plan your year 11 music lesson on: Describing unfamiliar music, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...
To help you plan your year 11 music lesson on: Describing unfamiliar music, 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 4 music lessons from the Listening: long-form writing unit, dive into the full secondary music curriculum, or learn more about lesson planning.
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