Music For Learning: Unit 1 Year 6

Overview

In Year 6 Unit 1, Music at the Movies, students develop an understanding of the elements of music through listening, exploring, responding, composing and performing activities. They focus on the ways music is used in films to evoke meaning, creative ways to make and perform Foley sounds and to sing and notate in the minor pentatonic tonality using known rhythms. Students explore a variety of repertoire to build their skills in music literacy and aural perception, while learning to express their own voice and ideas in performing and evaluation of music they make and music by other composers.

This unit aligns to the Australian Curriculum Version 9:

• AC9AMU6E01 – Explore the ways that the elements of music are combined in music across cultures, times, places and/or other contexts.
• AC9AMU6E02 – Explore ways First Nations Australians use music to continue and revitalise culture.
• AC9AMU6D01 – Develop listening/aural skills and skills for manipulating elements of music to achieve expressive effects when composing, singing and playing instruments.
• AC9AMU6C01 – Manipulate elements of music and use compositional devices to communicate ideas, perspectives and/or meaning when composing and practising music for performance, and notate, document and/or record the music they compose.
• AC9AMU6P01 – Perform music in a range of forms they have learnt and/or composed in informal and/or formal settings.

Learning objectives

• Revise the meaning of the music elements.
• Understand how music supports character, action, atmosphere, time and or place, and emotions in film.
• Explore Foley sounds and create sound effects to fit action in a storyboard.
• Distinguish between a step and a skip in a minor pentatonic scale.
• Apply knowledge of tonality, rhythm, dynamics and pitch to compose a leitmotif.
• Demonstrate an understanding of timbre and how it can help tell a story.
• Learn Italian terms for common dynamic markings.

Teaching resources

• 18 PowerPoint lessons
• Teaching Guides
• Student Workbook
• Assessment Task Sheet

Assessment

A single assessment occurs in Week 8 and consists of student presentation of their Foley sound storyboard and leitmotif composition.