Purpose: This unit draws upon the Ancient Civilization of The Greeks, using Greek gods and goddesses, Greek plates, vases, patterns and decorations and Greek myths to open opportunities for the creating, composing, improvising, and performing of pupil’s own music as a response to some of the issues raised and sources examined. The unit explores two key musical concepts/elements: Rhythm: Triple Time and Melody: Pentatonic Scale. The unit begins with an exploration into triple time: inspired by the three prongs on Poseidon’s trident. Pupils use the repeating sequence of the border pattern from a Greek plate to perform, compose and structure rhythms and pentatonic melodies in triple metre. Pupils then move on to explore the leitmotif, used to represent a certain character. Pupils explore the Greek myth of “Perseus and Medusa”. Firstly, pupils hold a class competition to create a leitmotif for the hero, Perseus, using the Pentatonic Scale and Triple Time. Next, they create leitmotifs for other characters within the myth and sound effects for different situations, while the “winning Perseus leitmotif” group adapt their leitmotif to respond to the different situations the hero finds himself in. This culminates in a class ensemble which could be used as an “end of year” performance – a narrated tale with leitmotifs and sound effects being performed at the appropriate points. The unit ends with pupils exploring “Greek inspired” music from a range of different times and places and a “Greek Gods Rap”.
 
Outcome: Pupils use triple time when clapping, singing, performing and creating rhythms in simple triple metre in a variety of contexts. Pupils know and perform with the Pentatonic Scale, using this to create and perform melodies in triple time from a graphic score. Pupils understand how a leitmotif is used, adapting and refining it in different situations, as part of a class performance and link how ancient Greece has inspired composers and musicians from different times and places.
 
Key Words, Theory and Musical Knowledge 
Graphic Score (Repeating patterns/borders on Greek plates) Rhythm: Triple Time/Metre Pentatonic Scale Leitmotif (A frequently recurring short musical idea, which is associated with a character, place, object, or situation, development of a leitmotif according to mood or situation of subsequence appearances)
 
This fully-resourced KS2 Primary unit comes complete with 6 fully-resourced lesson plans, each containing a Lesson Plan, Worksheet and PowerPoint Presentation with all embedded audio files (also available separately as MP3 and WAV files).  Also included is a unit Knowledge Organisers.