Activities

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Music and emotions

Subject area: Music, Listening and Composition

Lesson number: 1

Suitable age range: 7–11 years

Resources needed: A copy of ‘The Montagues and Capulets’ by Prokofiev or similar. Other possibilities could be ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ by Wagner or ‘A Night on Bare Mountain’ by Mussorsky. Tuned and untuned percussion instruments.

Expected timings: 1 hour

Expected outcomes of the activity: Pupils: a) listen to a piece of classical music carefully and identify the emotions that are created; b) use their imaginations to create a story that fits with the music; and c) extend their composition and practical playing skills.

Details of the activity:

Introduction (maximum 15 minutes): Ask the pupils whether the music that they listen to can make them feel any particular emotions. After a short class discussion, tell the class they will be listening to a piece of classical music and you would like them to think about how the music makes them feel. Ask all the children to close their eyes – play the music. In pairs, pupils should tell each other how the piece of music made them feel. Was there more than one emotion involved? How did the composer use soft and loud sounds to create this? Did speed make a difference?

Task 1: (15 minutes) Ask pupils to listen to the music one more time. This time they should think about a story that would fit the emotion of the music. This could include fights, dragons, car chases, etc. Play the music again and pupils should have their eyes closed and think about their story. Pupils can then share their stories with a partner.

Task 2: (20 minutes) Split the pupils into groups of three and ensure they have three different kinds of percussion instruments. Give each group one of four emotions, i.e. happy, sad, surprised, scared. Each group should keep their emotion secret. Each group should use their instruments to create their own composition that reflects the emotion they have been given. They should be reminded to use soft and loud sounds and different speeds to help them do this.

Plenary: (10 minutes) Each group should play their composition and other members of the class try to guess what emotion they are representing.