Teaching Materials

Lo-fi hip-hop

This resource attempts to describe a favourite unit of mine: lo-fi hip-hop. We’ll look at the essentials of the subgenre, the potential for musical learning, and a suggested approach to delivering a...

Teaching Materials

Edexcel AoS1: wider listening, part 2

In the first part of this two-part resource (Music Teacher, August 2023) we began to look at the first two of the four pieces of music suggested by Edexcel for wider listening as part of its GCSE Area...

Teaching Materials

WJEC AoS E: Brahms Symphony No. 1, fourth movement

The final movement of Brahms’s First Symphony is a 16-minute epic, befitting of a Symphony that took more than 20 years to write. It is chock-full of the kind of structural detail that shows Brahms’s...

Teaching Materials

Communication in musical performance

Communication is a much-cited criterion for formal assessment and informal judgments of performers and performances. All examination boards have clear criteria to work from, and communication forms...

Teaching Materials

Classroom and youth band improvisation

I love to improvise. It’s the most inventive, liberating and empowering form of musical self-expression I’ve ever experienced.

Teaching Materials

Edexcel AoS1: wider listening, part 1

Each of Pearson Edexcel’s four areas of study (AoS) for its GCSE Appraising component contains two set works, but the exam paper for this component also requires students to have listened to a wider...

Teaching Materials

Self-employment part 2: pay

In the first resource of this three-part series on self-employment (Music Teacher, July 2023), I gave an overview of the main issues we need to consider when running a business as a self-employed...

Teaching Materials

OCR AoS1 Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 4: wider listening

The first movement of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 is the prescribed work in OCR’s Area of Study 1 (Instrumental Music of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven) for 2024 (and covered in its own Music...

Teaching Materials

Composing activities at KS3

It’s crucial for any non-experienced composer to understand specific steps to navigate their way to a finished composition.

Teaching Materials

Sound recording: pre-production

In the first of this three-part resource on recording music in schools, we looked at options for setting up a studio (Music Teacher, April 2023). In this second resource, we’ll move on to the...

Teaching Materials

Self-employment part 1: rights and responsibilities

Being self-employed gives you the freedom to dictate how you work, when you work and where you work. (Well, that’s at least in theory – if you’re working for a school, they may well treat you as a de...

Teaching Materials

Preparing students for playing in ensembles

I’m certain that every person reading this article can list the benefits of playing in an ensemble. We all want our students to thrive, and I’m sure that many of us have got a kick out of hearing them...

Teaching Materials