What is it?

The “Composing” collection has activities and lesson plans for pupils’ musical composition. It also features graphic scoring and stave notation lessons.

How to use it

TESiboard resources include an activity for early years and key stage 1 (P1-3) that asks pupils to explore patterns and beats and create a sequence of animal sounds to make a tune, and one for key stage 1 children who can experiment with different instrument sounds to create a two-part tune. Blagmusic has uploaded a simple virtual keyboard that can be used to explain chord theory, or just to perform, while resources from NGfLCymru include an activity where pupils choose instruments to represent different movements for a dragon, before ordering them into a sequence, and a series of flash animations to take them through counting beats and clapping beats to the introduction of musical notation.

BenSandbrook has uploaded the online composing tool SoundJunction, alongside videos of instruments from around the world and recordings of around 300 pieces. BrummieResearcher has contributed an introduction to ostinati, or repeated motifs, which asks pupils to compose a six-layer piece using the names of characters from Harry Potter books, and an activity where children read about Ronnie the raindrop and compose music to go with his life story.

Pupils work in pairs to invent their own sweet and compose a piece of music that describes its manufacture in an activity uploaded by marlin, inspired by Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. A series of notebook files uploaded by taw274 asks pupils to analyse musical elements of The Planets Suite and compose their own versions.

Where to find it

www.tes.co.ukcomposing.