Listening and Responding
Recognises loud/ soft, high/ low, fast/ slow, long/ short (PK, UC)

Students are absorbed with listening to the music they have been sharing ideas about – "In the Hall of the Mountain King" by Edvard Grieg. They spontaneously respond to the music by patting their knees to the underlying pulse or beat. As the music increases in tempo, and gets louder, the students respond in the same way. Their beat gets faster and their movements get bigger in their enjoyment of this changing and exciting music.

Listening and Responding
Recognises loud/ soft, high/ low, fast/ slow, long/ short and explores the changes of these elements of music, through movement (PK, DI)

The students assume the character of trolls based on their interpretation of the story associated with the music, and begin as "awakening" trolls. As the music increases in tempo and dynamics, the students respond in their own ways by uncurling, growing, moving their bodies with the beat, and finally dancing wildly. They maintain the beat and clearly show understanding of changes in the elements of music. They use their imagination to respond to these changes.

Listening and Responding
Recognises loud/ soft, high/ low, fast/ slow, long/ short and explores changes in three rhythmic patterns from the source music (PK, CI)

The teacher plays the beat softly on the drum while chanting the words "Mountain King". She has introduced one of the rhythmic patterns from the source music, "In the Hall of the Mountain King", and used words to help paint the picture of the musical story.

She models the change in dynamics from soft to loud and the students show they understand by joining in and playing along as directed. They increase their dynamics as they chant and play the beat on their knees. This stops them from speeding up as they get excited, and serves to teach the concepts of tempo and dynamics separately.

The teacher then switches the task of performing the rhythmic chant and pattern from loud to soft. Again, the beat is kept steady. The students confidently imitate and play the changes in dynamics.

Next the teacher introduces changes in tempo. A student tells the class that she heard the music get faster when they listened and danced, and so they experiment with chanting "Bad Trolls" (a beat-based pattern from the source music), changing its tempo.

The teacher directs and the students imitate, playing and chanting the beat from slow to fast. Notice how they also increase the dynamics as they speed up. The teacher instructs the students to start "slow and soft" and then to get "fast and loud". The students respond appropriately and show they understand the concepts of dynamics and tempo. They can also do this while playing and chanting rhythmic patterns adapted from the source music for this new context.

Listening and Responding – Playing
Imitates rhythmic patterns, and identifies and explores instrument tone colours (PK, CI)

The class is seated in a circle with a few basic percussion instruments placed in the centre. The teacher selects a student to close his eyes while she chooses an instrument to perform one of the learned rhythmic patterns. The student is then encouraged to copy her, finding the right instrument and repeating the short pattern exactly.

Another student copies the teacher in this game of identifying instruments. She chooses the triangle and attempts to play the correct rhythm. The instrument sounds different from when the teacher played it. She notices immediately and tries to work out why, and how to change the sound so that it matches by ringing properly. She discovers the string attached to the triangle. Other students help her by suggesting she hold the string and hit the instrument as it dangles from it. In her excitement the student misses the final note in the rhythmic pattern, because she is proudly scanning her peers and teacher for approval. The pattern is however essentially correct and she is clearly pleased to have solved the problem.

Playing
Imitates rhythmic patterns and plays in time to the beat, demonstrating an awareness of instrumental techniques (PK, CI)

The teacher lets each student in turn play a pattern of their choice on their own instrument. As they play, she supports them in adjusting their technique to improve the sound and develop appropriate ways to play each instrument.

This clip shows students performing a pattern. As an aural activity, the class tries to guess which pattern it is – "Mountain King", "Bad Trolls", or "Chasing Running". The teacher encourages them to repeat the pattern performed by the individual student, and they chant the words together to reinforce the learning.

Playing
Imitates rhythmic patterns, and plays independently within the classroom orchestra ensemble (CI, UC)

The students perform an advanced task where they have selected one of the three learned rhythmic patterns to play in their own classroom orchestra. They show that they are able to play one of the rhythmic patterns on their instrument while keeping the beat steady and in time with others. They repeat the rhythm over and over as an ostinato (a repeated accompaniment pattern).

This video clip identifies three students clearly playing independent parts. They are chanting the words to help them keep playing their part accurately and in time with others. Sustaining this activity takes enormous concentration and skill and gives them the experience of playing in a real orchestra. They are applying knowledge and skills beyond level 1 in this complex learning activity.