Music Rotation 1

Theme: World Music

Students will learn about African music and how it has spread to help influence and create musical styles throughout the world. Students will learn about polyrhythm, syncopation, improvisation and repetition. They will learn about the Djembe drum playing techniques and perform in whole class and small group ensembles. They will then look at Africa’s influence on Samba and students will learn about Samba Batucada and then perform rhythms and melodies. 

World music is an English phrase for styles of music that are from non-western countries. Learning about World Music can inform students music and musical interests, as well as provide insight into different cultures, communication patterns, rhythms, instruments, sounds, and ways of making music. The students will be assessed at the end of the topic with a listening test to ascertain their understanding of the key concepts and theory learnt throughout the topic. The practical assessment is a group performance of the popular song ‘Wimoweh’ with vocal melody, chord accompaniment and percussion parts. 

Music Rotation 2

Theme: Jazz and Blues

Leading on from African music, we look at how Blues emerged because of slavery and the mass migration of Africans to the Americas. Students learn how to play the twelve-bar blues and a walking bass pattern. They can also challenge themselves by learning the blues scale and trying to improvise.  Eventually, students will learn about AAB lyric structure and create their own blues lyrics. Students will also learn how blues has led to modern popular music styles. 

Blues and Jazz is studied as part of the ‘Music for Ensemble’ topic at GCSE and this topic prepares students well for this. The blues has become the basis for nearly every form of American popular music over the past 100 years so is a very important and relevant topic to study. The students will be assessed at the end of the topic with a listening test to ascertain their understanding of the key concepts and theory learnt throughout the topic. The practical assessment is a blues performance of the chords, bass and lyrics with an optional improvisation. They can sing it or play it on the keyboard and will be assessed on accuracy, fluency and expression.