Music Free Stuff

With the release last week of the official Diamond Jubilee song ‘Sing’ by Gary Barlow and Andrew Lloyd Webber, now is the ideal time to introduce your students to the tradition of commissioning music to commemorate special events.

To help your students understand the relationship between music and celebration, we’ve created a free ‘Celebration and Commemoration’ PowerPoint.

Use this PowerPoint with your students to:

• introduce them to music composed for special events;
• brainstorm other compositions created to mark special events;
• conduct research into the musical events scheduled for the Diamond Jubilee.

Click the button below to download the resources.

Featuring an entire unit on ‘Music for Special Events’, as well as ‘Music and the Media’, Boardworks KS3+KS4 Music resources provide extensive coverage of the role of music in public life. To find out more order our Summer 2012 sample disc!

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Below is an archive of our most popular free Music resources. To download this content all you need to do is click on the links below and you will be prompted to register some additional details with us.

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OnBoard is our new email service that we’ve launched to provide great free stuff for your teaching all in one place, saving you hours of time.

Our first new free resources are some lesson ideas exploring the relationship between music and mathematics.

In this cross-curricular piece, listening and appraisal activities invite students to compare and contrast two pieces of music which use the same melodic material, whilst mathematical sequences are used to structure composition activities.

Download the lesson ideas, click the button below.

With exams looming, did you know that Boardworks KS4 Music features three revision presentations covering the core skills of composing, performing, and listening and appraising? To find out more, order your free sample disc today.

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Music teacher Lynne Dearlove shares her lesson ideas for using Wii Music and other games resources in the classroom

Given the social trend in collaborative gaming, we know how students enjoy interacting; this should also tell us a lot about how students want to learn. This can be applied in the music classroom, using games such as Nintendo’s Wii Music, which runs on the Nintendo Wii console. This software contains lessons, jam sessions and games. It offers the opportunity to experiment with over 60 different virtual instruments, jamming or improvising as part of an ensemble. The potential of games such as Wii Music to reinforce musical learning in social contexts is linked with an interactive approach to music, which addresses fundamental musical, social and communication skills. In addition to this, students learn through both audio playback and visual feedback. This provides a useful tool for peer and self-assessment. 

Wii Music works well in our SEN setting, where a limited number of students read music, and classes are small. If you do not have access to software such as Wii Music, the concepts used in each activity can still be successfully applied in the classroom using a number of alternative activities. There is also a large amount of free software that can be used to enhance music teaching in the classroom.
 

Boardworks KS3+KS4 Music resources are editable, allowing you to enhance the presentations with your own ideas and resources, and tailoring the resources to fit your students’ individual needs. To find out more, order your free sample disc today.

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February 23rd marks what would have been the 327th birthday of the composer George Frideric Handel.

To mark this occasion, we’ve produced a free presentation which features a fact file focusing on Handel’s life and work. Treat your students to some interesting facts about this famous composer and spark their interest in the Baroque period.

With this presentation your class can:

• Learn about Handel secretly practising the clavichord in his parent’s attic – they really wanted him to be a lawyer!
• Discover how this German composer wrote pieces that have since become an integral part of British culture, such as the Messiah and Water Music.
• Discuss the typical features of the Baroque period.
• Listen to the textures and instruments used in a Handel sonata.

To download the free resources, click the button below.

The audio clip of Handel’s ‘Sonata in F major’ featured in these free resources is just one of hundreds of audio clips found throughout Boardworks KS3+KS4 Music. Fully integrated into the relevant PowerPoint presentation, these ready-made clips save valuable preparation time, allowing you to spend less time trawling through YouTube and more time teaching! To find out more about Boardworks Music resources, order your free sample disc today.

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The Oscar nominations have been announced, and the media is buzzing with predictions for the Best Film, Actor and Actress awards.

However, one category that is often overlooked is the award for Best Original Score. But imagine Psycho without Bernard Herrmann’s terrifying score, or Chariots of Fire without Vangelis’ stirring and iconic theme.

To help your students understand the importance of music in setting a scene, we’ve taken an animation on dramatic openings from Boardworks KS3 Music and put it up on our blog page for you try.

Using Rimsky-Korsakov’s arrangement of Mussorgsky’s ‘Night on Bald Mountain’, this animation is an entertaining introduction to music’s role in the creation of a particular atmosphere, and can be used as a prompt for your students to think about their emotional response to music.

Having trouble viewing this activity? Go to http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/ to download the latest version of Flash player, and reopen this page.

Boardworks KS3 Music has an entire unit devoted to the topic of ‘Song’. This unit is just one of many that combines musical theory, practical activities and contextual information to give your students a thorough knowledge of different musical areas. To find out more about the other units in KS3 Music, order your free sample disc today!