Concepts

 

Key musical concepts include High / Low, Fast / Slow and Loud / Quiet.

 

These fundamental concepts in music are worked on in most musical activities whether they are being directly targeted or not. Whenever you introduce the children to a number of different pieces of music, they are experiencing the contrast of fast and slow, loud and quiet and high and low. 

 

Some deaf children may find these concepts more difficult to understand. They may need to be explicitly taught the vocabulary that matches the concept and might need more time to practice and embed these concepts. In general, the more you label and model these concepts when they are experiencing the music, the better. 

 

There are some activities that you can do to help directly target one of the concepts - 

Slow and Fast / Loud and quiet.

 

​

Choices in the song 

 

When the children have learnt a song and feel confident singing / playing / moving to the song, you can give them a turn to choose out of 4 visuals. Loud / quiet / slow / fast. 

 

There are lots of songs which explicitly use the concept words, e.g. ‘we can play them slowly’, but this can be used with any song. 

The children that are not sure of the concepts will practice and be lead by the teacher and other children.

 

It is important to be aware that loud and quiet sounds may be more difficult for some children to perceive and produce. It is also worth noting that some children may be sensitive to loud sounds, or even find them painful, so it is very important to be responsive to this.

 

Experience has shown that before introducing the ‘loud’ section, that we need to be kind to our friends and make sure it’s not ‘too’ loud. If singing, attention may need to be drawn to the difference between shouting and singing.

 

 

 

Descriptions and Videos of the activities

(Click through to learn more about each activity)