Music 

Music News

We're Back!

We've had a great return to class in the Music Department at Brookside. New restrictions have seen us need to avoid whole class singing activities, but with hand sanitising coming in and out of class, and regular sanitisation of instruments, we've been able to get students back with instruments in hand making music. 

Year 3's have had the opportunity to return to developing the aural and coordinative skills necessary to play melodies bass lines, and combine notes to create harmony, as they continue to deepen their understanding of the musical elements. 

Year 4's have similarly been working collaboratively learning themes from films, in preparation for some composing work they'll do later in the term, making music to suit a character they develop. While doing so, they will explore how music affects mood, and can help deepen our understanding of an image event, or story, and what devices a composer may use to achieve certain outcomes, such as major or minor harmony, descending or ascending pitch, fast, slow or moderate tempos, timbral choices, and manipulation of dynamics. 

Year 5's have returned to learning songs on their preferred instrument, learning an number of songs from Australian artists, considering what makes a song "Australian" or otherwise as they revisit skills learned in Term 1, such as the chords of the Key of C and commonly used chords outside of this key, chord inversions, and drum patterns based on quaver subdivisions. 

Y6's are similarly involved in learning new repertoire, though their simultaneous focus is on theoretical analysis of music, as they revisit the concept of key and "chord families". 

Y7's have entered the music classrooms for the first time in 2020, and have commenced studying different styles of World Music.  Already we've had students composing music in a traditional Chinese style to accompany images drawn from traditional Chinese visual art, and collaborate in playing Afro-Beat grooves together. Whilst strikingly different in effect, and with a number of differences, both these styles utilise the pentatonic scale, and scale that give is the basic framework for a number of other scales, such as the major, natural minor, and blues scales. 

With so much variety in activities and learning foci, the one thing that has been consistent across the years is the high levels of enthusiasm, engagement, and the excellent approach to learning exhibited by our students. We're incredibly happy to be back in the classroom with our students, and feel that our students are happy to be back too. A huge thanks goes out to all parents and carers for the support provided to students during what ended up being a long period of remote learning. Here's hoping we finish the year at school, and can soon get back to a place where we can invite our community into the school to share in the music making experience of our students. 

Mr Apted & Mr Ebert