Year 7 - Music
Characteristics of folk songs
Folk songs from around the world
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This pupil-friendly study guide includes a unit summary, clear notes, common mistakes, and quick questions with answers.
Unit Summary
This unit explores folk music from around the world, with detailed looks at sea shanties and Russian folk dance. Pupils are exposed to a diverse array of folk music, exploring characteristics that are typical of folk traditions, composing simple melodies, singing and performing using keyboards.
Lesson Summary
You will learn to explain some key characteristics of folk music and can perform a simple pentatonic folk melody.
Key Notes
- Folk music encompasses many traditions from around the world that have been passed through generations orally.
- They are varied, but have some common characteristics.
- These include repetition of musical ideas and the use of simple, conjunct melodies with a small range.
- Many are based on the pentatonic scale, which includes five notes.
- Xtoles is an ancient Maya song that is thought to have been sung by warriors.
Vocabulary To Learn
- folk music: the traditional music of a culture that is passed down through generations
- pentatonic scale: a common scale in folk music, consisting of five different notes
- conjunct: when there are small changes in pitch between one note and the next (moving by 'step')
- phrase: a short section of a melody, normally lasting 1, 2 or 4 bars
Common Mistakes To Avoid
- Folk music all sounds the same.
3 Quick Questions (With Answers)
1. Explain the lesson in two key points.
Folk music encompasses many traditions from around the world that have been passed through generations orally. They are varied, but have some common characteristics.
2. What does this key word mean in this lesson? 'folk music'
the traditional music of a culture that is passed down through generations.
3. Correct this common mistake.
Mistake: Folk music all sounds the same. Correction: Many folk traditions have shared characteristics, primarily because of the way that the music was passed between generations, but folk music is incredibly diverse, and covers lots of different types of music from different cultures and times.
More Lessons In This Unit
Browse all guides in the Year 7 Music guide library.