UNIT 1
BUILDING MUSIC VOCABULARY ______________________________________________________________________________________________

LESSON ONE: Notation

Teachers'guide

In this Unit you are going to learn a basic musical notation in English. Note that you already know some of the concepts so it should be revision for you.

Activity 1 Teachers'guide

Listen to some definitions, write down all the words you can hear and then try to rebuild the sentence in order to get the concept. Compare with your partner.

Staff

When we talk about the staff in music, we are referring to the five lines where musicians write music.
What is its name in your own language? _________________

Activity 2

Draw a Staff inside the box below

Clef

In the beginning of every Staff there is a sign that gives the notes their names. There are different Clefs depending on the height of the music. We usually use the Treble Clef

Activity 3

Write the treble Clef on this Staff

Notes

In the United Kingdom and other countries, pitches are named after the first seven letters of the alphabet: A, B, C, D….

 

 

                               C       D         E          F         G         A         B         C

The first C note is named: Middle C

Activity 4

In groups of two, help your partner to learn the notes names. Use this pattern:

e.g. What note do you find on the second space? The "A" note What note do you have in the top line? The "F" note What is the name of the note that lies on the first line? The "E" note What is the note on the space above G? The note on the space above G is "A" What is the note on the line below A? The note on the line below A is "G" What is 7 above G? What is 3 above E? What is 4 below D? What is 2 below F

Activity 5

This is one of the most popular Scottish tune: "Scotland the Brave". Write down the letter name of the pitches in the fragment below

 

SCOTLAND THE BRAVE

Activity 6

For each of the four staves below, you will hear four notes with the first note always being middle C. Listen to carefully and write in the other three notes. Don't forget to draw the treble clef.

 

Measures

Bar lines are the vertical lines that divide the staff into measures. Many people like to say bars instead of measures, though.

Bar Line    Measure

Then, how many bars are there in the staff above?_______________
And how many bar lines?______________

Double bar

You know that when a piece of music is finished we draw a double bar at the end of the staff as the example below:

But, do you remember what you have to add to the previous image to make the piece of music comes back at the very beginning? Tick the right answer

‚ The word: Repeat
‚ A dot in the second space and another one in the third space
‚ The treble clef

Activity 7 Teachers'guide

You are going to listen to these dances and songs below. Say whether they have been correctly played or not according to the repeat signs and why.

Loch Lomond Rockin' the baby Mairi's wedding

Use this pattern to answer:

Activity 8

In this activity you will have to guess the musical concept that one of the classmates will describe. You can't give an answer until the person who is describing has done at least three sentences. The person who gets right the answer will be the next player.

Activity 9 Teachers'guide

Now write down all new words you have learnt. Classify them into music words and non music words.

 

UNITS