9 Music

9 Music

This is a creative course that begins to equip students with the knowledge and skills to express themselves across the three main strands of music: performance, composition and listening/appraisal.  Students will also grow their musical literacy and their musicality, in addition to having opportunities to develop interpersonal skills and creativity through the following topic areas:

• Musicals. Students look at a number of ‘set works’ (The Phantom of the Opera, West Side Story, The Lion King) and examples from across the genre. There will be opportunities to perform songs from musicals, to compose musical-style-songs, and to study the key features of the genre.
• Ukulele performance. Students will have an introduction to ukulele performance, learning about features of instruments, and performance of familiar tunes and chords. The standard of performance is diverse, from beginners to people already confident in the ukulele.
• 12-Bar Blues. Students will recognise how the Blues evolved due to the slave trade through Spirituals and Work Songs, into the Blues, and beyond to more modern styles of pop music. Performance on ukeleles and keyboards (for beginners and experienced) is a significant part of this topic area.
• Theory. Students will begin to develop and/or consolidate their understanding of music theory, terminology. This is to establish musical literacy so students get the most out of the performance and composition opportunities that are on offer. Beginners in note-reading and aural skills are welcome to join the Y9 Music programme.

Whilst not compulsory, students in Year 9 Music would benefit from participating in a school extra-curricular music group and/or learning an instrument (including voice) in an itinerant lesson.