The Arts at Hackham East Primary School

Term 4 Arts

The end of Term 3 saw the students at Hackham East Primary School exploring different ways to interpret ideas, and convey meaning through different activities within the Performance Arts. Students took to this Arts area with enthusiasm and challenged themselves with the opportunity to improvise, rehearse and perform (both individually and collaboratively) to and with their classroom peers. Students achieved this through Drama activities focused on movement, verbal and non-verbal communication, as well as participating in Theatre Sports, Dramatic Action games and creating and acting within their own scripted performances.

This Term the focus for students has been Music, exploring different elements such as rhythm, dynamics and pitch through singing, playing instruments and developing their own musical compositions.

Students within Castle have spent the last few weeks focusing on key skills and ideas to further build their understanding of the Elements of Music. Specifically, we have been focusing on the importance of beat and rhythm through listening and responding to a variety of different percussive songs. Through this, students have been able to develop their listening skills and focus on the various sounds, ideas and progressions within Music. We have also been using a range of different instruments to create a variety of different sounds to improvise tempo and pitch (speed, loud and soft noises), to influence and convey meaning, feelings or ideas. Collaboration has been an important part of this discovery and experimentation within Music, as students have been working together to practice and play their instruments as an ensemble, across a repertoire of songs and chants. By following their peers and matching one another’s rhythm, students have successfully been able to build aural recognitions skills to perform and communicate ideas though musical performance.

Stillwell and Holly students have been further building on their prior knowledge and understanding by looking deeper into the Elements of Music to develop confidence in experimenting, composing and performing their own Musical themes and ideas.

We began the Term by looking at different musical notation and patterns, enhancing our understanding of Musical terminology and learning that by using a combination of notes and rests set to a particular speed, we can easily create our own personalised rhythm patterns. This was initially experimented with individually, as well as collaboratively, using a range of different percussion instruments. Initially focusing on percussive sounds, students were then challenged with the task to create their own drum beat, layering different rhythms together in order to compose the backbone for their own unique song. Once students had noted down their ideas, they were then able to use the iPad application ‘GarageBand’ to input their ideas, using preset sounds and drum software to digitally play and record their song rhythms and build their own drum kit sound. Students then took this aspect further, by using the program to edit, manipulate and refine their recordings in innovative ways to create unexpected sounds and textures. From here, students were given the opportunity to add additional instruments (such as guitar, bass, strings and guitar) to further build their song and the ideas they wished to communicate through their own composition.

Many students who learn and play Music outside of school hours also requested to bring in their own instruments to practice and play the rhythms that they had created, or use their instrument to edit and refine the patterns that they had noted down. This resulted in a range of unique musical ideas and creative experimentation from all students.

I am looking forward to seeing how all students enhance their understanding and further develop their skills within the area of Music.

Stephen Di Girolamo, The Arts Teacher