Listening and Responding
Identifies moods and contrasts from a text as a source of motivation for composing a soundscape (PK, DI, UC)

The teacher expressively reads a poem to the students. They respond to her questions drawing out their interpretations of the poem. They identify and discuss two contrasting moods – sad and happy – and their related key words. In groups they use the ideas and feelings of the sad and happy moods to develop an original soundscape that interprets the poem.

Creating
Experiments with, shares, and shapes original musical ideas to create a short soundscape that reflects the source of motivation (PK, DI, UC)

Students share ideas about sound production and how they might achieve the contrasting mood effects in their music with the resources at hand. They initiate, develop, modify, and make choices as individuals and as a group. Each member is actively involved and each group has ownership of the soundscape ideas.

Analysing and Appreciating
Identifies the musical characteristics of, and reflects on, the group composition (CI, UC)

One group shares their composition with the teacher, who asks them to explain the sounds they are making, why they have chosen them, and what effect they might have in relation to the two moods (happy and sad).

They show their ability to use music vocabulary to describe the sounds and musical ideas they have developed collaboratively. Each student talks about their own musical idea and demonstrates it on their instrument. The ideas show careful thought and selection of musical ideas to reflect the poem. For example, the girl playing the glockenspiel uses the low notes in the sad mood episode.

The students talk about using slow repeating ideas such as an ostinato. The teacher asks, "What sounds did you use to show it was sad?" The students talk about their own instrument and how they will play it to create the desired effect. One girl says, "a rain sound" as she pats her knees softly in a regular rhythm. She describes it as body percussion in response to the teacher's leading question about the type of instrument she is playing.

Another girl refers to her steady beat, ostinato, on her triangle, while a boy describes how he changes the sound of his cowbell by stopping it on his knee in order to deaden the sound, as if it is a person huffing or grumbling. The boy on the guitar demonstrates how he plays an E minor chord. He explains, he does a "down strum slowly" to make the sad effect.

Playing; Reading and Recording
Represents and interprets sounds through an original graphic score, and plays the soundscape (DI, CI)

Each group has created a score to represent the musical ideas in their soundscape. The featured group reads and plays their soundscape showing all the parts together in performance. They have rehearsed sufficiently to perform by memory, and show excellent aural and performance skills by listening closely and responding to each other as they play. They also use eye contact and have a strong sense of ensemble. They are unified in their task and perform with attention to musical detail.

The two moods of sad and happy are well reflected in the two episodes, which they separate with a voice narrating an introduction. All the musical elements show the change in mood – the slow beat patterns are replaced by faster rhythms, and melodic ideas raise in pitch creating greater excitement. The texture thickens as instruments combine. The boy on the cowbell conducts the group to a dramatic unified conclusion, making for a satisfying and complete work.

Analysing and Appreciating
Identifies, and reflects on, the musical characteristics of original soundscapes (PK, CI)

The class have watched and commented on each performance and this video clip shows the feedback to the featured group. Students in the audience share their ideas about what they noticed in the soundscape. A boy notes the change in tone colour by the varied use of the cowbell. A girl says she heard "an ostinato on the glockenspiel" and, through teacher development of this, adds that the bells imitate this pattern. Another girl identifies "the sound of a fire engine" on the recorder. The teacher focuses the student on the effect of this technique of trilling, by asking whether it is used as a happy or sad effect. The student says "happy". Different sound production techniques of the guitar are described and a student comments on the good strong unison ending.

Reading and Recording; Analysing and Appreciating
Represents and interprets sounds through detailed graphic and conventional notations, and shares these with the class (CI)

The group hold up their graphic score of the soundscape they have just played. They explain it to the class, as a summative assessment exercise. In order to do this they need to fully understand the elements of music, and the contrasts they have created. Through the creative process of making and representing music they have produced a coherent composition in both the performance and in the representation of original ideas.

A student explains how the graphics represent the "layers of sound" (textures), "a repeated pattern ... ostinato", and she points out the dynamics: f for loud and p for soft. She tells the class that the colours represent each different instrument (tone colour) and that this makes it easier to read.

The score shows the difference between low and high sounds, and the duration of sounds (long and short) through symbols. The completed graphic score is advanced work and the students have excelled in this task, demonstrating detailed knowledge and understanding of their composition and its representation.