MUSIC

Term 3 was meant to be a term of whole class collaborative music making at Brookside College, but unfortunately, the Delta variant had other ideas, and we once again had to move our teaching and learning online. With that said, we've been working had to create lessons that are fun, challenging, and allow students to explore and develop their music making skills and musical awareness. 

In Year 3, students have been focusing on melody, and composing their own short songs that feature melody using various websites and resources including Google’s Chrome Music Labs Songmaker and Shared Piano. Students have developed their understanding of how to understand where steps and skips occur in melodies, and then using this knowledge to create short, singable melodies that use steps and skips. The engagement from the Grade 3 cohort in Music has been strong during this remote learning period, and they are all developing into wonderful little musicians!

In Year 4, students have been focusing on understanding how to read and write using music notation. This new learning has extended students' understanding of how to read rhythm while simultaneously learning that pitch is represented vertically, while rhythm is represented horizontally in the symbol system of western music notation. They have been engaging in Musical Spelling Bees where they have been decoding words that are spelled using the musical alphabet, as well as figuring out notes used in mystery melodies and attempting to play the melodies using online keyboards and guessing what song the melodies are from. The Grade 4 cohort is strong musically and have shown incredible resilience in their music education during this remote learning period.

In Year 5, students have been focusing on melody and rhythm, and the use of "ostinato", which is a rhythm or melody that repeats over and over; for example, most songs feature drums that play an ostinato for most of the time! Students have explored these musical elements both by using their voices and their bodies as percussion instruments, and by creating projects using some of Chrome Music Labs games, including "Songmaker". Songmaker teaches skills that apply to most professional level music production software, but in a much more accessible format. We've had some great work from students, showing the breadth of musical interests of the cohort. 

In Year 6, students have focused on electronic music styles and techniques, having tried our DJ skills using YouDj, Sampling via SampleStitch, drum machines using DrumBit, and Looping using Superlooper. They were also able to contribute to an RUOK? Day video that was featured in the Festival of Healthy Living's live stream on the day, as well as in our own RUOK? Day celebrations. 

Our Year 7's have spent Term 3 learning how to make music in BandLab, an online Digital Audio Workstation. Despite being free to use, BandLab is quite a powerful music production tool, and students have explored using loops, drum machines, and controlling software instruments using midi data, as well as editing, arranging and processing these elements. They've recreated projects based on popular songs (Don't Start Now, Bad Guy and Blinding Lights) and, using the skills developed, created their own projects allowing them to explore and express their own musical aesthetics. 

We will look to share as much of the great work done by students with the wider school community when we have the chance. Till then, why not ask the students in your life what they've experienced in Music this term?