UK Year 8 National Curriculum - Music

The UK National Curriculum for Music aims to provide a comprehensive musical education, fostering a love of music and developing students' talents as musicians. It focuses on three core areas: performing, composing, and listening.

Performing

Students should build on prior knowledge and skills, developing vocal and/or instrumental fluency, accuracy, and expressiveness. They should perform confidently in solo and ensemble contexts. The Model Music Curriculum (MMC) suggests focusing on a sense of ensemble, technical competence, interpretation, and performing qualities when providing feedback. It also suggests example repertoire for ensemble playing, including:

• Red Baraat: Baraat to Nowhere
• Daft Punk: Get Lucky
• Rufus & Chaka Khan: Ain't Nobody

Singing is also a key component of performing. Students should sing regularly from an extended repertoire, developing a sense of ensemble and performance. They should be able to sing chordal harmony in two or three parts, transposing music as needed. Suggested repertoire includes:

• Trad. English: The Trees They Do Grow High
• Trad. Latvian: Oleleloila
• A Great Big World/Christina Aguilera: Say Something
• Kelly/Steinberg: True Colours
• Trad. Chad/Congo: Soualle
• Boberg: How Great Thou Art
• Aswad: Don't Turn Around

Composing

Students should develop their understanding of musical composition, including improvisation, extending and developing musical ideas, and drawing on a range of musical structures, styles, genres, and traditions. The MMC suggests three approaches to composition: 'Song' Writing, Programme Music, and Melody and Accompaniment. Students should also practice recalling melodic shapes, harmonic sequences, rhythmic patterns, and sections of their compositions to develop musical memory. Improvisation is encouraged, with students improvising new musical ideas over chord sequences or grooves within chosen keys, experimenting with sound and silence.

Listening

Students should develop their ability to listen with increasing discrimination and awareness, using this to inform their practice as musicians. They should develop a deeper understanding of the music they perform and listen to, as well as its history. The MMC encourages listening as both a technical exercise (identifying musical elements) and an opportunity to explore musical meaning and purpose. Suggested repertoire for listening includes:

• 1st movement from Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (Mozart)
• 4th Movement from Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven)
• Der Leiermann (Schubert)
• Ride of the Valkyries (Wagner)
• Music from The Italian Job (Quincy Jones)
• Theme from Emma (Rachel Portman)
• Stairway to Heaven (Led Zeppelin)
• Superstition (Stevie Wonder)
• Lost in Music (Sister Sledge)
• I Want to Break Free (Queen)
• Rag Desh (Various Artists)
• Sari Galin (from Endless Vision) (Ilgar Moradof)
• Fado (Amalia Rodrigues)

Staff Notation

The MMC emphasizes developing fluency in staff notation as a gateway to musical independence. In Year 8, students are expected to further develop their understanding of notation, including:

• Semibreves, minims, crotchets, quavers, semiquavers
• Dotted crotchets/quavers, dotted quavers/semiquavers
• Treble clef Middle C to F, Bass clef G to Middle C
• Time signatures 3/4 and 4/4
• Keys of C major/A minor and G major/E minor
• Crescendo and decrescendo, and one ledger line
• Staccato and legato, and time signature 6/8
• Slurs

This detailed curriculum aims to equip students with the necessary skills and knowledge to appreciate and participate in the world of music.