Year 6 - Music
Balancing harmony lines in songs
Singing for performance: conveying emotion and character through performance
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Study Guides
This pupil-friendly study guide includes a unit summary, clear notes, common mistakes, and quick questions with answers.
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 hold a harmony part in a song, controlling your voice to create a balance between both independent sung lines.
Key Notes
- We can read music notation by following the melodic shape of the melody.
- When two or more harmony parts have distinct melodies that move at different times, this creates a polyphonic texture.
- Listening carefully to the other part when singing in harmony helps us to balance our parts together.
- We can apply the character building blocks to help us to stage a scene.
Vocabulary To Learn
- harmony: the combination of two or more notes played or sung together, creating a pleasing sound
- sequence: a melodic phrase which is repeated at a higher or lower pitch
- polyphonic texture: each layer of harmony has a distinct melody that moves at different times
- staging (verb): making decisions about creating a performance of our version of a story
Common Mistakes To Avoid
- When singing harmony parts, we should sing loudly to block out the other parts so that we can sing our own part correctly.
3 Quick Questions (With Answers)
1. Explain the lesson in two key points.
We can read music notation by following the melodic shape of the melody. When two or more harmony parts have distinct melodies that move at different times, this creates a polyphonic texture.
2. What does this key word mean in this lesson? 'harmony'
the combination of two or more notes played or sung together, creating a pleasing sound.
3. Correct this common mistake.
Mistake: When singing harmony parts, we should sing loudly to block out the other parts so that we can sing our own part correctly. Correction: When singing together, it's important to listen to the other parts so that we hear how they fit together. We need to balance the sound, so that the audience can hear both parts clearly.
More Lessons In This Unit
Browse all guides in the Year 6 Music guide library.