Study Guides

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 identify the musical choices a composer has made and control your singing voice to convey the intended mood.

Key Notes

• Composers carefully use dynamics, texture, and articulation to create the mood and feeling of a piece of music.
• Quiet, legato playing and singing can give music a sense of peace and calm.
• We can control our breathing so that we have enough air for singing long sustained lines of a song.
• We can look at the melodic shape and the phrasing of written music to help us to sing a legato melody.

Vocabulary To Learn

• dynamics: how loud or quiet the music is
• legato: performing in a smooth way
• melodic shape: the up and down movement of pitches in music
• articulation: how individual notes or groups of notes should be played or sung

Common Mistakes To Avoid

• If we don't read music fluently, there's no point in looking at the written music of a song. We should just use the lyrics.

3 Quick Questions (With Answers)

More Lessons In This Unit

• Articulation and vocal quality when singing Study Guide
• Balancing harmony lines in songs Study Guide
• Characterful singing Study Guide
• Effective rehearsal for a singing performance Study Guide
• Reflecting on a successful performance Study Guide