Tag: real-world
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A Real-World Solution To Create Impact In Music Progression
This is specifically written for school leaders, for heads of music and for the parents of my GCSE music students. We’ll shortly be going into Year 9 mocks. Historically in a 3-year KS4, it has always felt too early to be awarding an attainment grade as the GCSE Music qualification requires much applied development of…
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Harmony & Control: Real-world curriculum design to inspire confidence and ambition in music
This term’s lessons for GCSE year 9 music are all about Harmony & Control. Control, though not an element of music, is one of the fundamental skills or levels of skill there is. Without it, the outcome is uncontrolled, messy or unintentional chaos. If we don’t model ‘control in music’, we should not be surprised…
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Inventiveness & Creativity
Having launched the new iPad Music competition last Sunday, I’ve spent the week discussing the concepts of inventiveness and creativity with my students. I chose these two words as they explain a meaning of “exceptionally creative”, which is given in the top-band on the mark scheme for AQA GCSE Music Composition. A student who is…
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Harmony – The Hot Chocolate for Your Marshmallows
Following on from ‘Detox Melody’, the natural next move was to ‘Detox Harmony’. Harmony is the most complex musical element for our students to understand. Mostly problems occur when they don’t consider the impact of an additional part, which naturally they don’t. When beginning to compose, they layer sounds or melodies together and are transfixed…
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A Practical Model to Grow Confidence in Music for Young People Aged 11-16
Over the last 8 years in my current school, I’ve been continually looking for ways to improve the experience of my music students. Every one of them is unique, no matter ability, demographic or experience of life. A one-size-fits-all model would have failed within minutes so I’ve developed a flexible, customisable model for every individual…
Music Teacher Solutions 