Playing Instruments at Wheatley

Learning to play instruments is an important part of music making and learning. Our voices are our first instruments and singing is an important part of our music education. In our singing we think about high and low and in music lessons we use Sol-fa to help us think about pitch.

In Early years we use percussion instruments for accompanying our singing, learning the control of our instruments, how to know when to play and when to stop.

In Keystage one we use percussion instruments, both tuned and untuned to make music and compose. We start to use the formal notation for rhythm and follow rhythms using crotchets, minims, quavers and semibreves. We also explore non standard notation, such as using pictures and lego blocks to notate our music making. 

In Year 3/4 we develop our understanding of pitch by using ocarinas learning to read simple pitch patterns on the stave. In year 5 we learn Ukulele's, learning to read TAB and play chords and in year 6 we learn guitars continuing to read TAB and formal notation to play tunes and chords.

Peripatetic teachers come into our school to teach piano, guitar, recorder, cello, clarinet and saxophone which children can sign up to learn 1:1 in addition to their class music lessons.