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Year 6 - Music

Articulation and vocal quality when singing

Singing for performance: conveying emotion and character through performance

Unit Summary

In this unit, pupils develop their vocal technique and perform songs with a harmony line. They learn to rehearse songs to a performance standard and evaluate their singing, ensuring that they are able to convey the style of each song through an accurate, confident and responsive performance.

Lesson Summary

You will learn to adjust your articulation and vocal quality to convey the emotion and purpose of a song.

Key Notes

  • We can explore characters by thinking which body part they lead from when they move.
  • We can use different singing techniques to change the vocal timbre to suit a different character.
  • Changing the articulation, for example, from legato to staccato, can change the mood and atmosphere of the music.
  • Adding body percussion can add another level of characterisation and can be performed 'in character' too.

Vocabulary To Learn

  • staccato: performing in a short and detached way
  • forte: a dynamic instruction asking us to play or sing loudly
  • articulation: how individual notes or groups of notes should be played or sung
  • diction: how clearly and precisely words are spoken or sung
  • vocal timbre: a description of the tone, sound or singing quality of our voice

Common Mistakes To Avoid

  • Singing in opera is just like our everyday singing.

3 Quick Questions (With Answers)

1. Explain the lesson in two key points.

We can explore characters by thinking which body part they lead from when they move. We can use different singing techniques to change the vocal timbre to suit a different character.

2. What does this key word mean in this lesson? 'staccato'

performing in a short and detached way.

3. Correct this common mistake.

Mistake: Singing in opera is just like our everyday singing. Correction: Singing in opera is all about telling a story. We can adapt the quality of our voice by using a different vocal timbre, using diction in a more percussive way or by singing with different articulation to bring our character to life.

More Lessons In This Unit

Browse all guides in the Year 6 Music guide library.