The Yr1/P course starts with children exploring numbers, rhythm and movement in a fun song using Action icons- (Clap, Stomp. Jump and Woo). A pre-composed version introduces the format, before children compose their own versions, producing a great performance piece combining music and dance.
Then children explore a new icon set, using 5 percussion sounds- Shake, Tap, Ting, Scrape and Boom, played on a wider range of instruments: What are the instruments made of? (metal/wood), What are their names?, How do you hold and play them?
Children learn to control improvised performances by pointing at symbols, before composing using icons and the AB grid. The Shape Tap Ting Scrape Boom Song produces a great vocal and instrumental performance piece, with improvisation sections for ‘jamming’.
Then children explore the concepts Loud/Soft, High/Low (pitch), and Fast/Slow.
Throughout the ABC programme, concepts are introduced by discussion and learning how the concept words are spelled. Then children learn to discriminate the concepts in a Tell-the-difference game, before exploring how to perform the concepts (eg loud and soft sounds) on body, voice, and instruments. They then explore the use of the concepts creatively through conducted improvisation activities and composition.
For example, a child cues performance by walking on symbols on the floor, with other children performing loud or soft percussion sounds with each footstep as part of a fun story about a monster. Children explore loud and soft in percussion compositions.
The Explore Materials strand in Yr1/P2 is about wood, which can be linked to science and environmental studies. Children explore making different loud and soft sounds with wooden objects, naming and describing the sounds and learning to conduct them, write a score for them, and use them with a beautiful song to create a performance piece about a woodsman.
Children learn to tell the difference between high and low pitched sounds in a series of fun activities which develop increasingly fine pitch perception- starting with low/high, low/middle/high, and then introducing the first 5 steps of a musical scale- using a mouse character climbing a staricase. A fun song about Buzzing Bees allows children to explore composing and performing pitch contours, by drawing pathways between flowers drawn on the board, and following the path with their voice using a buzzing sound, creating a lovely performance piece.
Children explore Fast and Slow- with a movement game where they move like machines at different speeds. They co-ordinate actions and sounds with beats and bars played at different speeds.
Children learn to hold and play chime bars and tuned percussion, playing a clear sound with a bounce of the beater, before exploring composition and performance in innovative formats, using animal symbols to compose a beautiful piece of harmonic music perfomed at different speeds on tuned percussion.
The Yr1/P2 program progresses in small steps, but maintains throughout a focus on individual children making decisions, and other children listening to, understanding and acting on those decisions- whether using visual cues and symbols, or spoken or musical language.
This social process underpins the creative classroom, and is used to explore the creative use of simple musical fundamentals. Children become experienced in building simple but meaningful musical structures at a level right for them- using notation and sounds that are comfortable for them.
