2022-24 Year 6 Blog

 Year 6  today  have been learning about musical notes and the beats attached to them. They then looked closely at a small section of Stravinsky’s melody. We clapped out the rhythm (several times - due to some random beats!) and then had a try at playing this section on the xylophones. 

 Year 6 have begun their unit of work for this half term based on the BBC Ten Pieces (music for schools). They will focus the next few weeks on the composer Ivan Stravinsky (1889-1971) and his piece of music The Firebird (finale) which was written in 1911 as a ballet. We listened to the music, heard the story of the ballet and watched an animation of a similar story with the music.  As a side to this, we started the lesson watching the performance of Lucy from the TV program The Piano. Lucy is severely autistic and blind, but her performance was rather incredible! The children were in awe of her playing and in awe of how she learns - making them realise that if there is anything they really want to achieve there is always a way - it may take longer and the journey may look very different to others, but they can still get there if they want to! Just a little bit of inspiration to get them through! 

 This half term, Year 6 will be looking at how music is used in films. There hook for this is Wallace & Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death. To inspire them we were able to watch the short film during their lesson. From this, over the next few weeks, they will look at a couple of specific scenes and learn the vocabulary used such as hit/sync, mickey-mousing and underscore. They will then begin to work in small groups to compose and create their own soundscape for a section of the movie.  They are all very excited!   

 As Year 6 didn’t have their usual swimming lesson this week, we were able to have a music lesson! We took the opportunity to discuss their upcoming Carols by Candlelight service in December, so we listened to and sang a range of songs and carols then the children decided on which ones they would like for the service. We even managed a list of names for readers too.  A fun session with some great choices - the service will be held on December 14th (details will follow in due course).