Purpose: This fully-resourced unit from Musical Contexts, presented in a newly revised 'easier to navigate' format, draws upon the inspiration of Fire and Fireworks to open up opportunities for the creating, composing, improvising, and performing music as a response to some of the aspects of Fire, as an Element, and Fireworks on Bonfire Night. The unit explores the musical concepts of: Ascending and Descending Melodies/Pitch, Glissando and Graphic Scores. The unit begins with pupil’s listening to a piece of Fireworks-inspired music: Fireworks by Stravinsky, before they learn a rhythmic Bonfire Night chant from single line rhythm notation (Remember, Remember, the Fifth of November) and create their own pentatonic melodies to the rhythm of this chant. Pupils move on to create a ‘Bonfire Sound Sequence’, describing the different stages of Fire through sound: smoke, smoulder, hiss, sparks, flames and analyse how Benjamin Britten describes Fire through music and sound in a piece of ballet music: Fire from The Prince of the Pagodas. Pupils then travel back in time to the Baroque period and explore the challenges faced by Handel when creating a piece of music for a Royal Fireworks display in the 1700’s and perform the bass line pattern to a Minuet from Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks. Next, pupils explore how the characteristics of different types of Fireworks can be described using sounds and create a “Fireworks Sound Sequence”, structuring and sequencing their sound sequences by following a graphic score. There are two songs included in the unit: “Fireworks” and “Bonfire Night” which both feature ascending and descending melodies and glissando in the accompaniment. The unit ends with a class ‘Bonfire Night Fireworks Display’ where pupils review their learning from the unit and bring their work together, following a performance plan, before listening to another piece of Fireworks-inspired music: Feux d’artifice by Debussy.
 
Outcome: Pupils will understand, describe and use melodies which go up in pitch – ascending and which go down in pitch – descending. Pupils will demonstrate the musical device of the glissando, both ascending and descending and musical instruments which are (and are not) capable of performing this. Pupils will follow a graphic score, develop their understanding of Baroque music and revise Dynamics and Texture.
 
Key Words, Theory and Musical Knowledge 
Melody: Ascending and Descending, Glissando, Graphic Score
 
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.