Creativity in Music

Music is, of course, a creative art form and a creative medium.  .....Not according to some units of work and lessons I've seen over the years.

Surely what we want to achieve through the teaching and appreciation of music is that children enjoy music and enjoy their opportunities for collaboration and creative expression.

Aspects of the music curriculum that we've developed at Robin Hood include:

Extensive use of Garageband software on Apple Mac computers.  Garageband uses pre-installed musical loops and music can be easily imported into the software.
With Garageband, pupils are instant musical successes.. without having to learn an instrument first.
Work we've been able to do with pupils includes:

• Putting musical scores to film and images (film that teachers have downloaded, or sequences of images that children have put together themselves on a particular theme);
• Creating their own telephone ringtones;
• Re-scoring popular TV commercials, eg: 'Cadbury's kids'.
  
• Creating 'soundscapes' from sounds that they have recorded from around the school, eg: during lessons, lunchtimes, conversations between friends, etc;
• Re-editing and remixing pop songs.

We've certainly found that work of this kind ignites an enthusiasm for and an interest in music for all pupils.

We've experimented with a STOMP unit of work in Year 3/4... using found materials to make the music and then form small groups, leading to a full class orchestra.  The beauty of this being.. anyone can do it.

We have developed a Music curriculum that requires an 'output' at the end of each unit, typically a performance piece... which might be at an Assembly or at some specific point in the school calendar.  The idea here is that we 'up the ante' in terms of pupils expectations of themselves as performers.  This is about their understanding that their contribution to the overall effort is an important one, that their role is a key one.