Year 2 - Music
Call and response singing in songs of the sea
Singing together: how singing helps us work together
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This pupil-friendly study guide includes a unit summary, clear notes, common mistakes, and quick questions with answers.
Unit Summary
In this unit, pupils explore how songs are used for work, productivity, and collaboration. It focuses on working songs at sea. Pupils learn that call and response is a structure found in many sea-working songs and that a strong sense of pulse is essential for completing tasks together.
Lesson Summary
You will learn to sing your part in a call and response song and know that this structure is used in sea shanties and other songs of the sea.
Key Notes
- It is important to warm up before every music lesson to make sure that our minds, bodies and voices are ready.
- Many sea shanties have a call and response structure that features a call and then a response sung in unison.
- Working songs of the sea are sung on different types of boats.
- An echo song is a special type of call and response song where the call and the response are exactly the same.
Vocabulary To Learn
- sea shanty: a traditional folk song sung by sailors to help them work together in time
- call and response: a question and answer musical structure
- structure: the way music is organised
- echo: an exact copy of a musical phrase
Common Mistakes To Avoid
- Sea shanties were only sung on-board ships.
3 Quick Questions (With Answers)
1. Explain the lesson in two key points.
It is important to warm up before every music lesson to make sure that our minds, bodies and voices are ready. Many sea shanties have a call and response structure that features a call and then a response sung in unison.
2. What does this key word mean in this lesson? 'sea shanty'
a traditional folk song sung by sailors to help them work together in time.
3. Correct this common mistake.
Mistake: Sea shanties were only sung on-board ships. Correction: This unit features working songs of the sea that were sung on different types of boats, not just ships. For example, Tongo is a canoe song. It was sung to keep fisherfolk in time as they rowed in their canoes along rivers.
More Lessons In This Unit
Browse all guides in the Year 2 Music guide library.