This section answers:
1What is music?
2How is it organised?
3What should I listen for?
4How do instruments, notation, rhythm, melody, harmony, and style fit together?
Notebook pages
11.1 What is music?
21.2 Sound: pitch, volume, tone, texture
31.3 Instruments and families
41.4 Melody
51.5 Rhythm
61.6 Harmony
71.7 Form
81.8 Style and genre
91.9 Performance
101.10 Listening notes
Use DK Music for
| Topic |
What to extract |
| Instrument families |
Strings, woodwinds, brass, percussion, keyboards, voice |
| Music periods |
Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, 20th century, contemporary |
| Key composers/artists |
Names, dates, major works |
| Genres |
Classical, jazz, blues, rock, folk, electronic, world traditions |
| Listening vocabulary |
texture, timbre, melody, harmony, rhythm, form |
| Big ideas |
how music changed across cultures and history |
Listening prompts
1What instruments do I hear?
2Is the music mostly melody, rhythm, harmony, or texture?
3Is it simple or dense?
4Is it predictable or surprising?
5Does it repeat?
6Does it build?
7What emotion or image does it create?
8What makes this style different from another style?