Secondary Music at Home 22

Enjoy these structured musical activities that we have prepared especially for you to continue your learning at home.

• Jump to your stage of learning:
  Years 7-9 | Years 10-11 | Years 12-13
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  If you're accessing this page from a school network, find out more here.

Years 7-9:
1. Chair Drumming

Now you can all be drummers thanks to our friends at Musical Futures with this lively performance activity.

What to do

• Follow the link | Head over to the Musical Futures website with the button link below and watch the introductory video.
• What you'll need for this | You'll need a chair, or something similar to hit – make sure you ask for permission first! 

• Next level | Once you are confident with the basics try out the Dance Monkey track following the slow version first or you can go straight to the full speed version if you are up for a challenge 

Years 7-9:
2. Take That – Makaton Style #1

What’s not to like about a bit of Take That... especially with such an upbeat song about friendship and looking after each other. This performance uses Makaton signs – a great way of getting to know and understand the lyrics of a song.

Helen will teach you how to sign the whole song over two issues.

What to do

• Watch and follow along | Follow Helen as she teaches you the signs for the verse. Make sure you rewind if you need to and give them another go before moving on.
• I need to slow down!? | Feel free to stop and rewind to repeat a section you need more practice on. The video starts and normal tempo then slows down to learn, but you if you want to slow it down yourself too, you can do this by clicking the gear icon and altering the playback speed.

Keep learning

Continue your musical learning with us with more Music at Home, or find out how you could start learning to play a musical instrument.

Years 10-13:
Writing music to a brief

Do you ever get stuck when you have been asked to compose/arrange music? Most of your courses will have some form of assignment or assessment brief that you have to work to and you may feel that this limits your ideas.

What to do

• Watch | Watch this video from Ear Opener for a seven-part plan of how to make a brief work for you. It is packed with great ideas and is worth sticking with right through to the end.
• Jot down some notes | It may help to have a piece of paper to hand to make some notes.
• Find out more | You can read more about this video, and see each chapter individually on the Ear Opener website.